Harnessing Hope: Master Depression and Take Control of Your Life by Jan Marsh M.A. (Hons) Dip.Clin.Psych

Author:Jan Marsh M.A. (Hons), Dip.Clin.Psych
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Exisle Publishing Pty Ltd
Published: 2016-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

Hearing Pain

Taste Pleasure

Sight Sense of balance (vestibular)

Smell Pressure

Heat Motion (kinesthetic)

Cool

These senses help you to find out what is going on in the world by feeding data into your nervous system.

Emotions, on the other hand, are what those feelings mean. They are short-lived and subjective, shaped by experiences and perceptions. There are several different theories about what the basic emotions are and where they are sited in the brain. A list would usually include: happiness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise and sadness.

There are myths about emotions, such as that it is childish to show how we feel, or that women are more emotional than men. Many people undervalue and seek to deny their emotions. In my work and in my life I have found that emotions provide valuable information and guidance. Some would say that emotion is the primary motivational system. Recent work by Paul Gilbert identifies three systems that underlie our feelings and actions. They are:

threat and self-protection,

incentive and resource-seeking,

soothing and contentment.

Each has a vital part to play in life, but if these three systems get out of balance or become patterned in certain ways, we can suffer. 3

Let’s look at them one at a time.

THREAT AND SELF-PROTECTION

This system, otherwise known as fight-or-flight, is one we have in common with most living beings. It creates feelings of anger or fear in order to protect us.

In the natural world it is vital to work out whether that rustle in the bushes means that you are about to find your own dinner or be someone else’s dinner, and to react quickly. It works on a ‘better safe than sorry’ theory, so the alarm is triggered almost instantly, creating a feeling of dread and a strong desire to escape or a rush of aggression to prepare to fight for survival.

Anger

When we get angry, the ‘fight’ part of the system is kicking in to deal with the threat by going on the offensive. The anger tells us when someone is invading our space or infringing our rights. It lets us know that something needs to be dealt with and it provides the energy and motivation to do the job. Anger often comes from disappointment due to the gap between what was expected and what actually happened.

Angry people pull themselves up to their full height and make big gestures to increase their size and look intimidating (think of an angry cat with its fur bristling right down to its tail). Going red in the face, glaring and using a loud tone of voice adds to the effect. If you are faced with an angry person you need to avoid matching anger with anger, which will escalate the conflict. It is better to speak softly, give the person plenty of space and, if possible, leave the situation, returning to talk about the matter when you are both calmer. When the brain is in fight-or-flight mode, it is much harder to think clearly, because emotional information from the limbic system dominates the more rational messages of the cortex.

If

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