How do you feel about your feelings?…
Are they troublesome, a nuisance in the way of achieving your ultimate goals?
Or are they the colour and flavour of life? A kind of playful dance?
Are your feelings the compass that you follow through life?
Or can they be misleading?
Or, are they just emotions that come and go?
… Or, are they a bit of all of those at different times?
When reflecting on the role of emotions in my life, I’d argue that a great deal of what it means to be alive is exactly the ongoing process of interpreting and acting on one’s emotions. We have all been inducted into this process since birth.
In its simplest form it goes something like this: An emotion arises; it feels really strong. It captivates our attention. It seems to fill consciousness. Some emotions are expansive, others contractive. Some pleasant, some unpleasant. By their very nature, emotions are both powerful, motivating forces, but also, quite often, inarticulate. Strong but mute.
And then we invariably visit the question: What is this powerful energy arising in consciousness? What does this mean? How do I make sense of this feeling? And what should I do about it?
Often, when it’s an expansive, “positive emotion”, the mind tries to tell a story about how we can feel more of this in the future. When it’s a contractive, “negative” emotion, the mind wonders how we can make it go away and not feel it again. Thus, for some of us at least, as we grow older, we tend to become more interested in interpreting our emotions with greater and greater insight, seeing as they are such powerful, driving forces in our lives.
The Schools of Emotional Thought
On that front, after great interest in this topic for several years, I’d like to posit that there are 9 distinct “schools of thought” floating around in our intellectual ecosystem when it comes to interpreting our emotions:
Each of these schools of thought is an entire ecosystem or framework of ways of thinking about emotions. Entire books have been written that fit within one or more schools, and (fascinatingly) they often don’t intersect as much as you might think. Depending on where you go and who you talk with, people seem to see the world more or less in terms of certain schools, while sometimes being unaware of the others. This article summarises them all, highlighting them in a way that you may not find in many places! (Certainly, I couldn’t find it anywhere else, but I’d love to hear from you if you could).
If you want the ultra-short version, skip to the summary at the end. In any case this article is a very high level summary of itself and could probably be the basis of a book on the subject. Now, to the details:
1. The Impulsive Response
What it is: This is where we all start as children. Emotions arise with such energy and force that there’s little room for interpretation or management. We simply and straightforwardly act on the emotion that arises on its own terms. It “takes control” of us. Much of this reactivity is subconscious or reflexive. Fight-or-flight. We run or hide. We scream. We cry. We laugh. Whatever it is, it is cleanly and straightforwardly executed with little ambivalence or room for other forces to intervene. The Impulsive Response is less a “framework” than a lack thereof. Acting impulsively is the definition of not “thinking” about one’s emotions before acting.
Examples:
- You’re in school and get angry with someone, you punch them in the face.
- You’re hungry, you eat.
- You get scared walking outside at night and run away
Where it’s useful: This response is absolutely necessary in various situations, especially dangerous or extreme ones. Are some hooligans running towards your car? Do you need to defend yourself?
What happens in its extremes: Unfortunately in its extremes this response becomes very unhelpful, and amounts to acting on and privileging impulse. In much of our adult lives such one-dimensional, impulsive reactions aren’t constructive, and we need to move on to other, more mature, balanced and sophisticated responses, which leads us to #2 and onwards.
2. The Mindful Perspective
What it is: The mindful perspective invites us to observe that emotions are mere energy arising in consciousness. Sit back and observe, feel the energy and flavour of the emotion as it arises. Note how it arises, changes and passes away. Attend to it closely prior to intentional judgement or interpretation. Notice the strength of the impulse. Observe how afterwards thoughts and stories arise to make sense of it, including resisting or affirming it, or how it takes control.
Example: You experience a panic attack, instead of resisting or interpreting the feelings of anxiety, you bore into them with your raw attention and accept them, noting how they change and subside all on their own. You attend to the raw feelings of anxiety, instead of thinking about what they mean.
Where it’s useful: The mindful perspective of emotions is particularly useful to help foster a kind of “inner spaciousness” that then forms the foundation for more constructive responses than the impulsive response. It’s a useful skill to return to often throughout one’s life.
What happens in its extremes: While the mindful perspective is about being willing to feel emotions more completely, without resistance and accepting them, (a very useful skill), it does actually have a subtle extreme. For instance, if an emotion is arising that genuinely represents a certain unfulfilled need (example: hunger), then merely sitting down, meditating, and “feeling the hunger” indefinitely will eventually amount to continuously resisting the impulse towards eating and starving oneself. However, on those occasions the mindful perspective might invite you to become aware of why another part of you is feeling such a need to “be so mindful”, and notice the resistance. Ultimately the mindful perspective is about creating a platform of inner spaciousness that then leads on to other things as part of living an embodied life.
3. The Validation (or “Affirming”) Perspective
What it is: This perspective, well-illustrated in the book and movement Nonviolent Communication (Marshall Rosenberg) and many other attachment-based theories, invites us to consider that emotions very often reflect genuine physiological and/or psychological needs, and that when those needs are met we experience ‘positive’ emotions, and when they go unmet we experience ‘negative’ emotions. Another way to frame this is what we commonly call “validating emotions”. “Emotions are the compass by which we lead our lives”.
Example: Someone is feeling lonely within their marriage, instead of saying to them “but you have someone with you every night”, you might consider that the relationship has a shortage of emotional intimacy that is resulting in the feeling of loneliness. The unmet need is a need for emotional intimacy, and the signal of that is the feeling of loneliness. “I’m feeling sad and in need of connection”. This represents a genuine psychological need, that if it continues to go unfulfilled, might well get worse until it becomes impossible to ignore.
Where it’s useful: This is an extremely useful paradigm with which to interpret emotions and, in my view lies as the heart of a psychologically healthy and “securely attached” life. After all, what is the ultimate purpose of emotions? Is it not to provide feedback from our bodies and minds about what’s needed, what’s going well and what’s not? This viewpoint has many implications: how do you treat depression?- perhaps by becoming aware of the needs that are not being met and leading to the feeling of depression? etc. etc. In my mind the benefits of this framing of emotions are self-evident, and if we aren’t able to adopt it as a general rule (for example by being chronically dismissive towards our emotions) then we (sadly) may well someday find ourselves in the grip of mental illness as our brains urgently make a bid for mental health.
What happens in its extremes: Given how useful this view of emotions is, it’s difficult to imagine it having negative extremes. But I think there are two possible negative extremes:
- To over-indulge, overstate or over-interpret our emotions, or otherwise overreact to them. I’m feeling intellectually bored, but do I now need to start another university degree in order to alleviate the boredom, or will starting to read a new book do? I’m feeling frustrated, but it’s a 6/10 frustration not a 10/10 frustration. One can overshoot or exaggerate when using the validation perspective which can lead to other negative outcomes.
- This perspective needs counterbalancing with other perspectives (below) as not all emotions arising in the present necessarily reflect present-oriented realities or needs (E.G transference).
4. The Sceptical Perspective
What it is: The sceptical perspective invites us to observe the ultimate results of acting on our emotions in the various ways that we have, especially if it felt good and right at the time. Sugar tastes good, but when we eat too much we gain weight. Success and achievement feel good and right, but are often bought at the expense of mental or physical health. It felt right to punch that kid in the face, but then we got suspended at school. Sex feels great, but taking care of young children is very challenging. Emotional scepticism invites us to recognise that decisions based on emotions can often be short-sighted or siloed and need the balancing perspective of both other emotions, our intellect and memories of prior experiences.
Example: You have a big fight with your spouse and really want a divorce. A sceptical perspective invites you to slow down and challenge the impulse towards ending it all right now.
Where it’s useful: Scepticism is useful to avoid the negative consequences of acting on emotions when it’s not wise to do so. In the best cases we can altogether avoid negative consequences, and in more benign cases we can just avoid wasting our time. It’s a helpful counter-balancing force to be applied into the mix.
What happens in its extremes: However, in the extremes emotional scepticism amounts to doubting that emotions have any use and can result in the repression of emotions and legitimate needs that they represent. Our culture is often highly sceptical of (certain) emotions and thus develops a repressive or avoidant relationship with (those) emotions- a great example is our cultural addiction to buoyancy and a dislike of all things “sadness” (as explored in the movie Inside Out 1).
Interesting afterthought: In a weird twist, emotional scepticism is still actually a specific flavour of emotional validation, that is to validate the emotion of doubt or scepticism felt towards other emotions. As Will Smith points out in his memoir, emotional scepticism is my “feelings about feelings”.
5. The Psychodynamic Perspective
What it is: The psychodynamic perspective invites us to consider how some subset of our emotions experienced in the present ultimately have more to do with the past than they do the present, and that a present event is merely a “trigger” that is bringing up unprocessed emotions, emotional reactions, or conditioned responses from the past. It is the essence of a trauma-informed, and trauma-sensitive approach. This approach also invites us to investigate our long childhoods (when our brain circuits first formed) to evaluate how key experiences and key relationships fundamentally shaped our emotional lives with lifelong consequences. It suggests, among many other things, that “that which we fear most has already happened to us”.
Example: Your father abandoned you when you were young, and this left a lifelong scar. Now when your husband goes on a business trip, you find yourself feeling extremely anxious and needing a great deal of reassurance. This is called transference, when something from the past is ‘transferred’ onto the present.
Where it’s useful: It’s useful when it’s true! And it might be true more often than many of us think or admit. A huge amount of how we react to things in the present has its roots in the past.
What happens in its extremes: In its extremes this approach attempts to explain all present emotional reactions as some kind of “unresolved trauma” and doesn’t understand that present circumstances can also contribute to various emotional reactions. A great example I once saw was a staff member in a psychedelic healthcare organisation expressing feelings of stress at high workloads and “toxic company culture”, and being told that they must have “unresolved trauma” leading them to feel negatively and should explore that in a psychedelic trip- no! Sometimes things are about the present, very likely they were just feeling stressed out due to unmet needs in the now. Not everything has to be about the past!
6. The ‘Beliefs’ and ‘Worldview’ Perspective
What it is: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) invites us to consider the influence of what and how we think (our ‘cognitions’, our views on things, our values, our worldview) on our emotional reactions to things. This focuses more on idea-based and belief-based conditioning of our emotional responses. This includes cultural views and values.
Example: You’re religious and you think it’s against God’s commandments to eat non-halal meat. You eat some, and feel guilty afterwards. This perspective invites you to consider how the belief in God and God’s commandments have conditioned your emotional reactions to this situation.
Where it’s useful: There are all kinds of values, views and beliefs that we bring or have inherited into our lives that affect our emotional reality. Challenging and unpicking these is extremely useful to liberate us and people in our culture and society from unnecessary suffering and difficulty. Examples abound: Is a divorce a worthy cause of shame? Is being a street-sweeper a ‘failure’? Is infidelity a catastrophe? Is disliking your family a universally unacceptable thing?
On the other hand, we or others around us might benefit from some emotional reactivity where it’s heretofore been absent. Is some guilt at spanking your children perhaps appropriate and useful? Is some melancholy when thinking about all the animals who’ve died for their meat to be on your plate perhaps fitting and appropriate?
What happens in its extremes: Like all of the above perspectives this approach has its limitations. As we see with the above examples (Psychodynamic, Validation) emotions arising in the present might also represent legitimate needs in the present or unprocessed experiences in the past, which may have little to do with our views on politics or our cultural values. In its extremes this perspective breaks down because not all emotions can be explained by mere reference to what we think or believe intellectually or culturally.
7. The Biological Perspective
What it is: This perspective invites us to consider the role biology plays in our emotional experience. This often relates to times we feel tired, exhausted, have low blood sugar, haven’t exercised or slept well, or other biological needs haven’t been fulfilled. It also invites us to better understand the role of various hormones and neurotransmitters in our emotions and moods (cortisol, adrenaline, testosterone, serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, etc.) Friedrich Nietzsche alluded to this perspective well when he said “When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”
Example:
- You think you’ve come to a whole new perspective on your career, and how it’s no longer for you, but you might just be going through a period of intense stress and exhaustion at work at the moment and the tiredness is colouring your judgements of your career as a whole.
- You haven’t eaten in a few hours and your blood sugar is low. Your entire assessment of the meaning and validity of life is impaired.
Where it’s useful: Feelings of exhaustion or fatigue can often distort, exaggerate, isolate, or modify our emotional responses to things, along with being a source of emotions themselves. Knowing this helps us make better decisions in those states. The subtle voice in your head that says “I’m just tired” may be a lot softer than the other voices, but might be much more correct in its assessment. Other biological explanations for moods may be highly useful and valid, for instance, there’s an entire field of people claiming “gut-brain” relationships that attempt to explain many of our emotional moods in light of the foods we eat or other aspects of our biology- surely, many of these are plausible.
What happens in its extremes: Taking the biological perspective idea too far means that we ignore legitimate insights that a more classical psychological approach can yield. For instance, the field of psychiatry tends to lean more towards biological explanations and biological underpinnings of emotional states of mind (or ‘moods’) and thus can, at times, ignore other explanations that are both more useful and powerful. Are you experiencing a ‘chemical imbalance’ that needs to be ‘corrected’ through antidepressants, or are you perhaps in need of a great deal of attuned, empathetic conversation about a relationship crisis that is presently unfolding? Are the microbes in your gut imbalanced, leading to depression, or is something else going on? As usual it’s important to explore multiple perspectives.
8. The Evolutionary Psychology Perspective
What it is: This interesting and fruitful perspective considers the role that evolution has had in shaping our emotional landscape broadly: our emotions, as we experience them, are also the product of millions of years of evolution which has selected for certain reactions to things. As Yuval Noah Harari points out “emotions are algorithms”- when a monkey is preparing to make a dash for a tree with bananas, but smells a lion nearby, their mind, exquisitely shaped by evolution, calculates their probability of success, and they either feels a surge of courage or fear, often depending on the variables at hand which are processed subconsciously.
Example: Homo Sapiens is a social species that relies on “being okay with the tribe” to survive. Hence we evolved a very powerful emotion called “Shame”. Shame is a life-or-death emotion. When you’re a part of a tribe in the natural world, fitting in is not optional. If everyone holds value X, but you don’t, shame tells you something is wrong with you if you don’t hold value X, and you need to change to survive. This is why shame is so powerful.
Where it’s useful: An evolutionary perspective on emotions helps us to depersonalising our emotional reality. A great deal of how you feel isn’t because something is wrong with you, but because you’re a Homo Sapiens and we tend to have certain kinds of reactions to things. Take for another example sexual desire. An interest in sex has obvious evolutionary roots, and any species that wasn’t interested in sex generally died out long ago. There’s no need to take it all so personally. Your body and mind has been pre-programmed to react to certain stimuli in certain ways.
What happens in its extremes: This perspective explains a whole lot, but as per the theme, certainly not everything. It needs to be balanced with all the others.
9. Finally: The Superstitious Perspective
What it is: This is when we attribute our emotions to some entity or being outside of our own mind. I call it “superstitious” because, as a sceptic, I have no good reason to believe any emotion truly originates outside of our minds.
Examples:
- Someone might attribute their anxiety or sadness to the presence of a ghost, spirit, or curse. This is common in cultures where belief in spirits is prevalent. For example, they might say, “I felt this way because there’s a negative energy or spirit in my house.”
- I grew up in a conservative religious household. We were taught that feelings of comfort, bliss, or peace originated in the presence of the “Holy Ghost” or “The Spirit” of God, whereas some uncomfortable feelings such as fear, doubt or “temptation” originated in Satan.
- Another example is when people link their emotions to planetary movements (Astrology). If they’re feeling irritable or restless, they might blame Mercury being in retrograde, rather than recognising personal or environmental stressors.
Where it’s useful: In my opinion the superstitious perspective isn’t useful in any circumstances. In fact quite the opposite. It is counterproductive to one’s emotional maturity to attribute the cause of emotions to something mysterious and supernatural outside of one’s own mind. This leads to a fragmented or disassociated mind where some emotions are “mine”, others “from good supernatural beings” and others “from bad supernatural beings”. It stunts the healthy growth journey towards the integration of one’s emotions, taking responsibility for one’s emotions, and integrating various parts of the self. What you call “God”, “Satan”, “Spirits” or “Planets” are all just different parts of the beautiful and vast you.
The Executive Summary
1. The Impulsive Response
In the beginning, we merely act out emotional impulses. This stays useful in extreme situations, but doesn’t scale well into the complexities of adult life.
2. The Mindful Perspective
Emotions are merely energy appearing in consciousness. Observe how they arise, change, and disappear entirely on their own. They don’t have to always have implications.
3. The Affirming/Validation Perspective
Emotions are signals that relate to our physical and psychological needs. Don’t dismiss them; take them seriously. Emotions are the compass that guide us through life.
4. The Sceptical Perspective
As a counterpoint to the affirming perspective, the sceptical perspective admits that emotions aren’t to be trusted on face value either, sometimes a particular feeling or pattern of emotional response really is unhelpful or maladaptive.
5. The Psychodynamic Perspective
Emotions can be, and very often are, highly conditioned by prior experiences, especially in childhood. What you’re feeling now might well relate to something that happened in the past, hence a “trigger”.
6. The Beliefs and Worldview Perspective
Emotions can be conditioned by our belief system, culture and worldview. Our reaction to things in the present relates to what we value, think and believe.
7. The Biological Perspective
Our biological state can modulate, distort, exaggerate or otherwise modify our emotional reactions.
8. The Evolutionary Psychology Perspective
A great deal of how we react to things has been conditioned by eons of evolution, don’t take it all too personally.
9. The Superstitious Perspective
The belief that some emotions originate in supernatural beings such as Gods, spirits, ghosts, planets, etc. I think this perspective is unhelpful and untrue.
Conclusion
As illustrated above, we have access to a vast array of frameworks with which to understand, interpret and ultimately act on our emotions. However, each framework comes with its own assets and liabilities, and they all have extreme variations which can then become detrimental. You may also notice a rough progression from #1, to #2, and onwards through to the more global perspective of #8, but ultimately they’re mostly still valid understandings to run in parallel with one another.
Like our own relationship to our emotions themselves, we benefit from a freely-flowing and freely-attaching relationship to these various understandings and frameworks: “the right tool for the right job”- Which perspective is most useful for you in this moment?
Hope this article has been helpful for you.
References for each perspective
1. The Impulsive Response
None referenced. But there’s definitely stuff in this area.
2. The Mindful Perspective
- Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
3. The Validation Perspective
- Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
- Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Attachment Theory
4. The Sceptical Perspective
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)
- The School of Life (Alain de Botton)
5. The Psychodynamic Perspective
- Freudian Psychoanalysis
- Attachment Theory
- The Body Keeps the Score (Bessel van der Kolk)
6. The Beliefs and Worldview Perspective
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Schema Therapy
- Narrative Therapy
7. The Biological Perspective
None referenced. But there’s definitely stuff in this area.
8. The Evolutionary Psychology Perspective
None referenced. But there’s definitely stuff in this area.
9. The Superstitious Perspective
Just go to your local wacky alternative bookstore.
—
Written by Shawn Powrie 22-12-2024
Note: A special thank you to multiple people who contributed their professional expertise to review this article, its concepts, and provide feedback and a sounding-board. This article was reviewed by Sallyann Richards (counsellor, MA, ACA-L3, 10+ years clinical experience in counselling), Dr Darrel Ray (organisational psychologist, founder of Recovering from Religion) and Ben Stiel (DPsych MPhil BSc (Hons) Dip Ed BA) all of whom are close friends and associates of mine. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversations and bouncing these ideas off you. Thanks for your contributions to both this article and my emotional and intellectual lives!
