Although we live in a complex world filled with uncertainty, especially at times like this, there are things you can do, starting today, to take control of your life. Uncontrollable Uncertainty Coping with personal difficulties, uncertainty over the economy, employment, finances, relationships, and of course, your physical and mental healthContinue Reading
How many people are able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and carry on with their lives after experiencing the death of a family member, rejection by someone special, a job loss, an unloved childhood, or a traumatic event? Picking oneself up doesn’t mean the emotions are healed though.Continue Reading
There are ten basic emotions: Joy, Excitement, Surprise, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, Contempt, Shame and Guilt. In describing emotions, psychologists classify emotions as variations on the dimensions – pleasant (or positive) versus unpleasant (or negative) and low versus high arousal (Russell et al, 1989). Arousal levels can range from elated enthusiuasmContinue Reading
Emotions are intense feelings such as love, hate, fear, happiness and so forth. Emotional disorders play a large part in psychotherapy and are seen more as symptoms of underlying problems. Our faces can reveal our inner emotional state but the emotions responsible for these involuntary expressions are more powerful thanContinue Reading
Nico Frijda’s book “The Laws of Emotion” (2006), explores the substance and rules of emotions. He sees them as laying at the crossroads of biological and cognitive processes. Some emotions, such as fear, are biologically innate, and these basic emotions are the ones we share with other animals. Others ariseContinue Reading
The emotions we experience are greatly influenced by how we think and feel about an event in the first place. Emotional Appraisal refers to evaluating the personal meaning of a situation. Is it good or bad? Threatening or supportive? Relevant or not? And so forth. As an example, if anotherContinue Reading
Getting in touch with your emotions is a giant step towards emotional healing. Very few people are ever taught about the nature of emotions. As a result we learn about them and how to manage them only through experience. Some people or things can upset or irritate us. You seeContinue Reading
Negative emotions are associated with actions that were probably needed, and a great help to our ancestors in saving their skins, escaping, attacking and keeping themselves alive. As important, useful and vital as these reactions may be, negative emotions tend to limit our focus of attention and ideas, and lessenContinue Reading
Alexithymia, from the Greek meaning “lacking,” is the term for an individual who lacks having or even identifying emotions. While Alexithymia is not a mental disorder it may be the result of masking or co-occurring with other underlying mental health conditions such as depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Continue Reading
If you want to feel positive and energetic, concentrate on your good qualities, your abilities, your strengths and your talents rather than your faults and failures. It is one thing to want to learn and improve but beating yourself up over your faults is negative and leads to depression. AndContinue Reading