Emotional Logic by Griffiths Trevor; Langsford Marian;

Author:Griffiths, Trevor; Langsford, Marian;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hammersmith Books Limited
Published: 2021-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Trevor reflects on what happened here

This story isn’t about depression, even though some people in it wondered if that was what was going on for Roger. It is about how emotional information about values can enter planning when change is affecting everyone involved in a situation at the same time. In that sense, it might be about preventing depression or any other stress-related illness but it’s also about keeping people from going off sick, which disrupts work practice for those who have to stay on and cope.

It is worth reminding ourselves about the tipping point at which depressive feelings might escalate into a developing illness. This is relevant to how Emotional Logic works in partnership with the Staceygram to improve workplace adaptability and humanity. Roger’s Loss Reaction Worksheet tick pattern (Figure 8.1) showed features of emotional turmoil that could have turned into clinical depression. A Guilt-Depression whirlpool could generate low self-regard and ruminating on problems or failures. Shock-Guilt could add shame and doubting his ability to do anything differently. Shock-Depression could produce fatigue and disengagement from life. But it didn’t shape up that way.

Marian didn’t spend time talking about the risk of depression, even though she could see the potential for it. She avoided the trap that psychology-based mental health promotion falls into, namely teaching people the early signs of a diagnosable illness, in the hope that early intervention might help. With Emotional Logic, spending that same amount of time learning the useful adjustment purposes of loss emotions could prevent that drift from even starting, and would equip people to handle future stresses more constructively.

So, giving Roger an Emotional Logic information sheet to handle while Marian talked him through it kept the learning about emotions in a kinaesthetic, visual, auditory… and relational mode. That matches the innate nature of emotional information about values all the way. The same information is also provided on the backs of the cards, the Turning Points diagram, and the Summary Sheet as text in text boxes, to address people’s different learning styles (see the Appendix).

The breakthrough for Roger came when Marian set the whole adjustment process in its wider context of his relevant ongoing relationships at work. Emotional reactions are mostly the evidence of tensions that arise in relationships. We all have different patchworks of relationships, such as with the households we live in, local family and extended family, community and sports clubs, and so on. It is in the dynamics of those whole patches of relationships that personal values shape life. One mis-spoken word can affect many people at the same time, all in different ways, but likewise, one asserted personal value spoken compassionately can enrich the lives of many others.

Ralph Stacey’s matrix, the Staceygram as we call it (Figure 8.2), draws attention to two clearly identifiable features of active relationships that can be talked about reasonably, even while they are actively generating emotions. The potential power of the Staceygram lies in getting as many people as possible in a changing environment to understand why emotions expressed during times of change are not part of the problem.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.