In This Chapter
^ Identifying healthy and unhealthy negative emotions
Understanding the thinking, behaving, and attention components of emotions ^ Defining the emotional problems you want to solve
Rhis chapter aims to introduce you to some of the key differences between the unhealthy negative emotions you may experience and their healthy counterparts. The information we offer also helps you to discover ways to identify whether you’re experiencing a healthy or an unhealthy emotional response.
You may be wondering why we’re focusing on Negative Emotions in this chapter and neglecting positive feelings such as happiness. You may be asking: ‘What Is It with these two? They’re so bleak!’ The reason for dealing with the negative is that few people pitch up for therapy because they’re having problems with positive emotions. Not a lot of people come to us looking for a way to overcome their relentless feelings of contentment. The emotions that give people trouble typically include guilt, anger, depression, and shame.
Although feeling bad when bad things happen is natural, you don’t need to make things worse for yourself by giving yourself unhealthy negative emotions. Healthy negative emotions are generally less profoundly uncomfortable and less problematic than their unhealthy counterparts. For example, feeling intensely Sad (a healthy negative emotion) is less uncomfortable than feeling intensely Depressed (an unhealthy emotion). Likewise, feeling intense sadness can prompt you to do things to improve your situation, but depression’s more likely to lead to your inaction and resignation.
Fortunately, you can Think What to Feel, To a greater or lesser extent, which can reduce your emotional discomfort. By choosing to think in healthy and helpful ways, you’re more likely to experience healthy emotions.
Naming \lour Feelings
If someone asks you how you feel, you may have difficulty describing exactly which emotion you’re feeling. You may not be sure what name to give to your internal experience, or perhaps you’re feeling more than one emotion at the same time.
Don’t get caught up on words! When you start to make a distinction between healthy and unhealthy feelings, what you call them isn’t terribly important. The main point is to be able to analyse your thoughts and behaviours, and to take notice of where your attention is focused (CBT refers to this as Attention focus). These three areas are ultimately your most reliable guides as to which type of emotion you’re experiencing.
For the sake of clarity, therapists can often encourage people to use different words for unhealthy and healthy alternatives to common feelings. For example, you could use the word ‘anger’ to describe an unhealthy emotion and ‘annoyance’ to describe the healthy counterpart.
Some people find it simpler to choose a descriptive word for their emotion and to add the term ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’ to that word. Whatever way you prefer to describe your emotions is okay – the important bit’s understanding the category each emotion falls into. Different people have different ways of describing things. Think about how you’d describe an oil painting compared with the way a friend or art critic may talk about it. Similarly, people describe emotional states in diverse ways. You, a friend, and a psychotherapist (someone highly skilled in discussing emotions) may all use very different words to describe the same type of feeling.
If you’re not used to talking about the way you feel, you may have a hard time finding the words to reflect your feelings.
The following is a reference list of common human emotions and their synonyms, which you can use to increase your vocabulary of Emotive (relating to emotions) terminology. This list is not broken down into healthy and unhealthy emotions.
Angry: Aggressive, annoyed, bad-tempered, complaining, confounded, cross, displeased, enraged, fractious, fuming, furious, hostile, ill-tempered, incensed, irritated, livid, miffed, peevish, prickly, resentful, testy, touchy, truculent.
Anxious: Agitated, apprehensive, bothered, concerned, edgy, fearful, fretful, frightened, jumpy, nervous, nervy, panicky, restless, tense, troubled, uneasy, vexed, worried.
Ashamed: Belittled, debased, defamed, degraded, discredited, disgraced, dishonoured, humiliated, mortified, scorned, smeared, sullied, tarnished, undignified, vilified.
Disappointed: Crestfallen, deflated, dejected, discouraged, disenchanted, disheartened, disillusioned, dismayed, gutted, let down, thwarted.
Embarrassed: Awkward, diminished, discomfited, humiliated, ill at ease, insecure, self-conscious, small, timid, uncomfortable, unconfident, unsure of oneself.
Envious: Green with envy, malevolent, malicious, Schadenfreude, sour, spiteful.
Guilty: Answerable, at fault, blameworthy, condemned, culpable, deplorable, indefensible, inexcusable, in the wrong, liable, reprehensible, unforgivable, unpardonable.
Hurt: Aggrieved, broken-hearted, cut to the quick, cut up, damaged, devastated, gutted, hard done by, harmed, horrified, injured, marred, offended, pained, wounded.
Jealous: Bitter and twisted, distrustful, doubtful, green-eyed, sceptical, suspicious, wary.
LOVE: (we threw this one in just to lighten the mood) admiring, adoring, affectionate, besotted, blissful, crazed, devoted, enamoured, esteemed, fond, head over heels, infatuated, keen, loved-up, love-struck, mad about, on cloud nine, smitten, struck by cupid’s arrow, worshipping.
Sad: Bereft, blue, depressed, distraught, distressed, down, downcast, downhearted, grief-stricken, heartsick, inconsolable, melancholic, mournful, shattered, sorrowful, tearful.
Thinking What to Feet
One benefit of understanding the difference between healthy and unhealthy emotions is that you give yourself a better chance to check out what you’re thinking. If you recognise that you’re experiencing an unhealthy emotion, you’re then in a position to challenge any faulty thinking that may be leading to your unhealthy emotional response. Disputing and correcting thinking errors can help you to experience a healthy, negative emotion instead of an unhealthy feeling (see Chapter 2 for more on thinking errors and how to correct them).
A common axiom is ‘I think therefore I am’; a CBT version is ‘I think; therefore I feel.’
Feelings aren’t as one-dimensional as they may seem. How you feel is more than just the emotion itself, because feelings don’t just come out of thin air – they have a context. When you begin to make a distinction between your healthy and unhealthy emotions, look at the Interaction Between your thinking, your actions, your attention focus, your memory, your themes or triggers, and the way you feel. Take a look at Table 6.1 in the section that covers comparing healthy and unhealthy emotions further on in this chapter, which gives a clear breakdown of the characteristics of healthy and unhealthy emotions.
Understanding the Anatomy of Emotions
Figure 6-1 shows the complex processes involved in human emotion. Whenever you feel a certain emotion, a whole system is activated. This system includes the thoughts and images that enter your mind, the memories you access, the aspects of yourself or the surrounding world that you focus on, the bodily and mental sensations you experience, physical changes such as appetite, your behaviour, and the things you Feel like Doing.
As the diagram shows, these different dimensions interact in complex ways. For example, training your attention on possible threats is likely to increase the chance of anxious thoughts popping into your mind, and vice versa. Not sleeping well may increase the chances of you being inactive; continued inactivity can further disrupt your usual sleeping pattern. The advantage of understanding this system of emotion as presented in Figure 6.-1, is that it gives you plenty of opportunity to make changes. Changing even one aspect of the system can make changing other parts easier.
An example of change is becoming more active if you’ve been inactive, which may alleviate your feelings of depression and make it easier for you to challenge your depressive, pessimistic thinking. Being prescribed antidepressant medication, which works by effecting brain chemistry, can take the edge off your depression. Use of antidepressants can make it easier for you to train your attention Away From your negative thoughts and uncomfortable symptoms and Towards Possible solutions to some of your practical problems. (See Chapter 10 for more about overcoming depression.)


Comparing Healthy and Unhealthy Emotions
Deciphering between healthy and unhealthy versions of negative emotions can be challenging, especially when the process is new to you. Think of Table 6-1 as your emotional ready reckoner for the characteristics of both healthy and unhealthy emotions. Everything you may need to identify the emotion you’re experiencing is in this table. Plus, if you do identify that an emotion you’re experiencing is unhealthy, you can implement the thoughts, attention focuses, and behaviours of the healthy version to aid you in feeling better.
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Table 6-1
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Healthy and Unhealthy Emotions
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Emotion
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Theme
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Thoughts
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Attention Focus
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Behaviour/Action Tendencies
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Anxiety (unhealthy)
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Threat or danger
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Has rigid or extreme attitudes
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Monitors threat or danger excessively
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Withdraws physically and mentally from threats
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Overestimates degree of threat
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Uses superstitious behaviour to ward off threat
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Underestimates ability to cope with threat
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Numbs anxiety with drugs or alcohol
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Increases threat-related thoughts
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Seeks reassurance
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Concern (healthy)
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Threat or danger
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Has flexible and preferential attitudes
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Doesn’t see threat where no threat exists
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Faces up to threat
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Views threat realistically
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Deals with threat constructively
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Realistically assesses ability to cope with threat
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Doesn’t seek unneeded reassurance
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Doesn’t increase threat-related thoughts
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Depression (unhealthy)
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Loss or failure
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Has rigid and extreme attitudes
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Dwells on past loss/failure
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Withdraws from others
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Sees only negative aspects of loss/failure
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Ruminates on unsolvable problems
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Neglects self and living environment
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Feels helpless
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Focuses on personal flaws and failings
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Attempts to end feelings of depression in self-destructive ways
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Thinks future is bleak and hopeless
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Focuses on negative world events
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Emotion
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Theme
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Thoughts
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Attention Focus
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Behaviour/Action Tendencies
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Sadness (healthy)
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Loss or failure
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Has flexible and preferential attitudes
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Doesn’t dwell on past loss/failure
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Talks to significant others about feelings about loss/failure
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Sees both negative and positive aspects of loss/failure
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Focuses on problems that one can change
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Continues to care for self and living environment
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Is able to help self
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Focuses on personal strengths and skills
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Avoids self-destructive behaviours
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Is able to think about future with hope
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Balances focus between positive and negative world events
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Anger (unhealthy)
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Personal rule is broken or self-esteem is threatened
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Has rigid and extreme attitudes
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Looks for evidence of malicious intent in other person
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Seeks revenge
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Assumes other person acted deliberately
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Looks for evidence of offensive behaviour being repeated by other people
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Attacks other person physically or verbally
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En
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Thinks of self as right and other person as wrong
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Takes anger out on innocent person, animal, or object
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Lhapte
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Cannot see other person’s point of view
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Withdraws aggressively/sulks
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R6: Ex
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Recruits allies against other person
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O
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Annoyance (healthy)
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Personal rule broken or self-esteem is threatened
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Has flexible and preferential attitudes
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Looks for evidence that other person may not have malicious intent
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Doesn’t seek revenge Ca
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(continued)
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3
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Table 6-1 (continued)
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Emotion
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Theme
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Thoughts
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Attention Focus
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Behaviour/Action Tendencies
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Annoyance (healthy)
(continued)
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Considers other person may not have acted deliberately
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Doesn’t see further offence where it may not exist
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Asserts self without physical/verbal violence
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Considers that both self and other person may be right to some degree
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Doesn’ttake out feelings on innocent parties
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Is able to see other person’s point of view
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Remains in situation, striving for resolution (doesn’t sulk)
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Requests other person to change their offensive behaviour
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Shame (unhealthy)
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Shameful personal information has been publicly revealed by self or others
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Overestimates shameful-ness of information revealed
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Sees disapproval from others where it doesn’t exist
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Hides from others to avoid disapproval
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Overestimates degree of disapproval from others
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May attack others who have shamed self, in attempt to save face
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Overestimates how long disapproval will last
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May try to repair self-esteem in self-destructive ways
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Ignores attempts from social group to return to normal
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Regret (healthy)
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Shameful personal information has been publicly revealed by self or others
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Is compassionately self-accepting about information revealed
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Focuses on evidence Continues to participate in social that self is accepted by interaction social group despite information revealed
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Is realistic about degree of disapproval from others
Responds to attempts from social group to return to normal
Is realistic about how long disapproval will last
Hurt (unhealthy) Other person treats Has rigid and extreme
One badly (self is attitudes undeserving)
Looks for evidence of Stops communicating with other other person not caring person/sulks or being indifferent
Overestimates unfairness of other’s behaviour
Punishes other person through silence or criticism, without stating what one feels hurt about
Thinks other person doesn’t care
Thinks of self as alone and uncared for
Dwells on past hurts
Thinks other person must make first move towards resolution
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Disappointment (healthy) Other person treats Has flexible and
One badly (self is preferential attitudes undeserving)
Focuses on evidence Communicates with other person about that other person does feelings care and isn’t indifferent
Is realistic about degree of unfairness of other’s behaviour
Tries to influence other person to act in fairer manner
Thinks other person acted badly but doesn’t think that they don’t care
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Table 6-1 (continued)
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Emotion
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Theme
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Thoughts
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Attention Focus
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Behaviour/Action Tendencies
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Disappointment (healthy)
(continued)
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Doesn’t think of self as alone or uncaring
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Doesn’t dwell on past hurts
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Doesn’t wait for other person to make first move
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Jealousy (unhealthy)
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Threatto relationship with partner from another persor
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Has rigid and extreme attitudes
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Looks for sexual/ romantic connotations in partner’s conversations with others
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Seeks constant reassurance that partner is faithful and loving
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Overestimates threat to the relationship
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Creates visual images of partner being unfaithful
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Monitors and/or restricts partner’s movements and actions
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Thinks partner is always on verge of leaving for another
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Looks for evidence that Retaliates for partner’s imagined infidelity
Partner is having an
Affair
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Thinks partner will leave for another person who he has admitted to finding attractive
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Sets tests/traps for partner
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Sulks
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Concern for relationship (healthy)
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Threatto relationship with partner from another person
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Has flexible and preferential attitudes
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Doesn’t look for evidence that partner is having an affair
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Allows partner to express love without needing excessive reassurance
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Is realistic about degree of threatto relationship
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Doesn’t create images of partner being unfaithful
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Allows partner freedom without monitoring them
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Thinks partner finding Views partner’s Allows partner to express natural interest
Others attractive is normal conversation with other in opposite sex without imagining as normal infidelity
Envy (unhealthy) Another person Has rigid and extreme Focuses on how to get Criticises the person with desired
Possesses attitudes the desired possession possession
Something without regard for any
Desirable (self lacks consequences desired thing)
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Thinks about the desired possession in a negative way to try and reduce its desirability
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Focuses on how to deprive other person of the desired possession
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Criticises the desired possession
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Pretends to self that one is happy without desired possession even though this is untrue
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Attempts to steal/destroy the desired possession in order to deprive others
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Guilt (unhealthy)
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Broken moral code (by failing to do something or by committing a sin), hurting or offending significant other
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Has rigid and extreme attitudes
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Looks for evidence of others blaming one for the sin
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Desires to escape from guilt feelings in self-defeating ways
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Thinks one has definitely sinned
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Looks for evidence of punishment or retribution
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Begs for forgiveness
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Thinks that one deserves punishment
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Promises that a sin will never be committed again
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Table 6-1 (continued)
Emotion Theme Thoughts Attention Focus Behaviour/Action Tendencies
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Guilt (unhealthy)
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Ignores mitigating factors
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Punishes self either physically orthrough
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(continued)
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Deprivation
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Ignores other people’s
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Attempts to disclaim any legitimate
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Potential responsibility
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Responsibility for the wrongdoing as an
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For sin
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Attemptto alleviate feelings of guilt
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Remorse (healthy) Broken moral code Has flexible and Doesn’t look for Faces up to healthy pain that comes with
(by failing to do preferential attitudes evidence of others knowing that one has sinned something or by blaming oneself for
Committing a sin), the sin
Hurting or offending significant other
Considers actions in Doesn’t look for Asks for forgiveness
Context and with evidence of punishment
Understanding before or retribution
Making a judgement
About whether one
Has sinned
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Takes appropriate level
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Atones forthe sin bytaking a penalty
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Of responsibility forthe sin
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And/or make appropriate amends
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Considers mitigating
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Doesn’t have tendency to be defensive or
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Factors
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To make excuses forthe poor behaviour
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Doesn’t believe that
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Punishment is deserved
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And/or imminent
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Themes Refer to situational aspects linked to emotion. Themes are the same for both healthy and unhealthy negative emotions. For example, when you feel Guilty (an unhealthy negative emotion), the theme for that emotion is that you’ve ‘sinned’ by either Doing Or Failing to do Something. Another way of saying that you’re guilty is that you’ve transgressed or failed to live up to your moral code. Remorse, The healthy alternative to guilt, results from the same theme as guilt. However, your thoughts, behaviours, and focus of attention, are different when you are remorseful and when you are guilty.
Themes can be useful in helping you to put your finger on the nature of the emotion you’re experiencing. However, themes are not enough to help you decide whether your emotion is a healthy or unhealthy one. Consider the following situation:
Imagine that you have an elderly aunt who needs your help to continue living independently. You usually visit your aunt at the weekend and do jobs that she’s too frail to do for herself, like changing light bulbs and cleaning windows. Last weekend you went skiing with friends instead of checking in on your aunt. Your aunt got impatient waiting for the light bulb in her hallway to be changed and tried to do it herself. Unfortunately, your aunt fell off the chair she was standing on and broke her hip.
Thematically, This situation is one in which you broke or failed to fulfil a personal moral code, resulting in hurting or offending someone else.
If you feel guilty (an unhealthy negative emotion), you are very likely to experience the following:
Type of thinking: Your thinking becomes rigid and demand-based. You conclude that you’ve definitely done a bad thing (sinned). You assume more personal responsibility than may actually be legitimate, discounting or not considering mitigating factors. You may believe that some form of punishment is deserved and/or imminent.
Focus of attention: You look for more evidence that you’ve sinned, or you look for evidence that others hold you responsible for the sin.
Behaviour (action tendency): You may desire to escape from guilty feelings in self-defeating ways – for example, begging for forgiveness, promising that you’ll never commit a sin again, punishing yourself, physically or through deprivation, or by attempting to disclaim any legitimate responsibility for the wrongdoing.
By contrast, you can think about the situation differently and feel remorse (a healthy negative emotion). Although the same theme (a broken or failed moral code, causing hurt or offence to a significant other) still applies, you experience the following:
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Type of thinking: Your thinking is more flexible and preference-based. You look at actions in context and with understanding before making a judgement about whether you sinned. You consider mitigating factors of the situation and do not believe that punishment is deserved and/or imminent.
Focus of attention: You don’t look for further evidence that you sinned. Neither do you look for evidence that others hold you responsible for the sin.
Behaviour (action tendency): You face up to the healthy pain that comes with knowing that you’ve sinned. You may ask for, but not beg for, forgiveness. You understand the reasons for your wrongdoing and act on that understanding. You may atone for the sin by taking a penalty and/or making appropriate amends. You avoid defensiveness and excuse-making.
The theme involving both guilt and remorse is the same, but your thinking, action tendencies, and focus of attention are very different.
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Action tendency Refers to an urge to behave in a certain way that you may or may not actually act upon. Different emotions produce an urge within you to do certain things. In some cases, you may actually do or say something, and in others you may just be aware that you Want To do or say something. Maybe Wanting To run out of a room and hide when feeling ashamed, or feeling unhealthily angry and Wanting To punch someone’s lights out, without actually doing so.
Spot the difference in thinking
As the example in the preceding section illustrates unhealthy emotions can spring from rigid, Demand-based thinking. Thoughts or beliefs like ‘other people must behave respectfully towards me at all times’ and ‘I should always get what I want without hassle’ can lead to unhealthy anger when other people and the world don’t meet these demands.
Healthy emotions spring from flexible, Preference-based thinking. So, thoughts and beliefs like ‘I prefer others to treat me respectfully, but they’re not bound to do so’ and ‘I prefer to get what I want without hassle, but no reason exists that this should always be the case’ can lead to healthy annoyance when other people and the world don’t meet your preferences.
Rigid thinking is a reliable indicator that you’re having an unhealthy feeling. When you think rigidly, you’re more likely to underestimate your ability to cope with and overcome the negative event in question. The more adept you become at identifying your thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes as either rigid and demanding or flexible and preferential, the easier you can work out whether your feelings are healthy or unhealthy.
When you feel Guilty, You think in an unhealthy, rigid, demand-based manner and may say things like the following:
‘I absolutely shouldn’t have left my aunt alone.’
‘Leaving my aunt alone was a bad thing and means I’m a bad person.’
‘I can’t bear the pain of knowing that I’ve done this bad thing of leaving my aunt alone.’
You may then continue to think in the following guilt-enhancing ways:
You fail to acknowledge that your aunt ultimately chose to try to change the light bulb herself. You fail to acknowledge that other members of your family can also check in on your aunt.
You ignore the fact that you had no way of knowing that the light bulb needed changing, and that you had not foreseen your aunt taking such a risk.
You expect that your aunt will blame your entirely. You think about the punishment that you believe you deserve.
By contrast, if you feel Remorseful, You think in a healthy, flexible, preference-based manner and may say things such as:
‘I wish I hadn’t left my aunt alone, but regrettably I did.’
‘Leaving my aunt alone may mean that I’ve done a bad thing but not that I’m a bad person.’
‘I can bear the pain of knowing that I’ve done this bad thing of leaving my aunt alone.’
You can then continue to think in helpful ways:
You can acknowledge your part in the accident occurring, but you can also consider that other members of the family failed to check in on your aunt.
You can acknowledge that you didn’t foresee your aunt taking the risk of changing a light bulb. Nor did you know that the bulb would burn out.
You can expect that your aunt may be upset with you, but you believe that you don’t deserve a severe punishment.
Taking legitimate responsibility for what happens in a situation enables you to think about the event in a holistic way. You don’t need to prolong uncomfortable feelings of remorse beyond what is reasonable and appropriate to the situation. Your ability to solve problems isn’t impeded by feelings of guilt.
Spot the difference in behaving, and Ways you Want to behave
Another way of figuring out whether your emotion is in the healthy or unhealthy camp, is to have a look at your actual behaviour or the way in which you feel inclined to behave.
Healthy negative emotions are accompanied by largely constructive behaviours, whereas unhealthy feelings usually go hand-in-hand with self-defeating behaviours. Problem-solving is still possible when you’re healthily sad, annoyed, remorseful, or regretful, but you have much greater difficulty planning clear ways to surmount your problems when you’re unhealthily depressed, enraged, guilty, or ashamed.
For example, if you respond to your aunt’s falling over with Guilt-based action tendencies, You may do one or more of the following:
Go out and get quite drunk, trying to block out your guilty feelings.
Visit your aunt in hospital and plead for her forgiveness.
Promise that you’ll never again let down your aunt, or anyone else dear to you, for as long as you live.
Decide that you won’t go on any other trips while your aunt is alive.
The preceding behaviours are problematic because they’re extreme and unrealistic. These actions focus on self-punishment rather than look at the reality of the situation and how you can, in this example, best meet your aunt’s needs.
On the other hand, if you’re feeling healthy remorse your Action tendencies, You may include some of the following:
Endure the discomfort of knowing that your aunt has been hurt (rather than getting drunk to avoid it).
Visit your aunt in hospital regularly and apologise for having left her alone.
Understand that your aunt needs continuous support but that you have the right to go away with friends.
Plan to stay with your aunt for a week or so after she’s discharged from hospital.
Resolve to plan your trips away more carefully and to arrange for nursing staff to be with your aunt when you’re unavailable.
The preceding behaviours are geared towards making sure that your aunt doesn’t hurt herself again during your absence. By taking an appropriate amount of responsibility for the accident, you can still look for ways to provide comfort for your aunt rather than concentrate on punishing yourself.
Spot the difference in what you focus on
In addition to differences in types of thinking and behaving, you can distinguish healthy from unhealthy emotions by checking out the focus of your attention. If you’re having an unhealthy emotion, your mind is likely to focus on catastrophic possibilities in the future based on the primary event.
If you’re responding to the injured auntie situation from a place of Guilt, You may focus your attention on the following:
Blaming yourself for abandoning your aunt and for the accident happening.
Feeling the pain of your guilt whilst neglecting to consider potential solutions to the problem of your aunt needing continuous care.
Looking for evidence that your aunt blames you entirely for the accident.
Looking for blame from other people, such as hospital staff and family members.
You continue to give yourself an unduly rough ride, thereby prolonging your distressing, guilt feelings by focusing on the bleakest possible aspects of your aunt’s accident.
If you respond to the situation from a place of remorse, you are likely to focus your attention on the following:
Accepting that leaving your aunt alone may have been a bad decision but that you had no intention of putting her at risk.
Feeling the pain of remorse over the accident but also trying to find ways to improve the situation.
Not seeking out evidence of blame from your aunt.
Acknowledging evidence that hospital staff or family members do not blame you for the accident.
Thus, your attention focus when you respond from a place of remorse enables you to take some responsibility for your aunt’s broken hip, but you don’t dwell on the potential for blame and punishment.
Spatting Similarities in \lour Physical Sensations
Butterflies in your stomach, blood racing through your veins, light-headed-ness, sweaty palms, heart pounding. Sound familiar? We expect so. If someone described these physical symptoms to you, you may try to guess what emotion they were experiencing. However, it would be difficult to confidently determine the specific emotion, because these sensations can accompany several different positive and negative emotional states. For example, you may get butterflies in your stomach when you’re excited, angry, anxious, or in love, as illustrated in Figure 6-2.

The sensations that you feel in your body also tend to overlap in both healthy and unhealthy negative emotions. For example, you may get butterflies in your stomach when you’re unhealthily anxious And When you’re healthily concerned. Therefore, using your physical symptoms as a guide to judging the healthiness of your negative feelings isn’t very reliable.
The main way in which your physical responses are likely to vary between the healthy and unhealthy categories is in their intensity. You probably find that
Sensations are more intense, uncomfortable, and debilitating when you’re having unhealthy emotions, such as anxiety and anger. You may also notice that uncomfortable physical sensations last longer when you are experiencing unhealthy negative emotions.
Incidentally, we believe that if you’re experiencing butterflies, sweaty palms, racing blood, light-headedness, and a pounding heart all at once, then you really Are In love!
Identifying Feelings about Feelings
Getting two emotions for the price of one is not such a great deal when two unhealthy negatives emotions are on offer.
CBT professionals call feelings about feelings Meta-emotions. The prefix Meta Comes from Greek and means ‘beside’ or ‘after’.
Sometimes, you can give yourself a second helping of unhealthy emotion by holding rigid demands about which emotions you believe are acceptable for you to experience in the first place.
A common example of feelings about feelings is found in depression. Many people have guilty feelings about their depression. This guilt often comes from the demands people make of themselves, for example that they mustn’t let other people down or put undue strain on loved ones. Here are some typical guilt-producing thoughts that are common in depressed people:
‘I should be contributing more to the running of the home.’
‘I must be able to demonstrate love and care to my children.’
‘My partner and children are worried about me, and I’m making them suffer.’
‘I shouldn’t be neglecting my friends in this way.’
Recognising your meta-emotions is important, because meta-emotions can prevent you from dealing with your primary emotional problems. For example, you may be feeling guilty about having depression. If you can stop feeling guilty, you’ll almost certainly find that you can work on overcoming your depression more effectively.

If you find that the concept of feeling guilty about being depressed really does strikes a chord with you, go to Chapter 10, where we discuss it in more detail.

Handy emotional health checklist
The following is an abbreviated list of the ways that can help you to find out the nature of a feeling and give it a name. The list can also help you assess whether an emotion is of the healthy or unhealthy negative variety.
Have you identified a word to describe how you feel inside?
Can you identify the theme of your emotion?
How does your emotion lead you to behave? Are your actions or urges to act helpful or unhelpful?
Are you thinking in a flexible way, or are you thinking in a rigid and demanding way?
What are you paying attention to? Are you looking at the event from all angles?
Is another emotion getting in the way of you being able to identify your first emotion? For example, are you feeling guilty or ashamed about your anger, depression, or other emotion?
Defining \lour Emotional Problems
The aim of CBT is to help you overcome your emotional problems and move you towards your goals. As with all kinds of problem-solving, Defining Your emotional problems is the first step in solving those problems.
Making a statement
Writing down a problem statement has three main components – the emotion, the theme or event (what you feel your emotion about), and what you do in response to that emotion. You can effectively describe an emotional problem by filling in the blanks of the following statement:
Feeling_(emotion) about_
(theme or event), leading me
To_(response).
For example:
Feeling Anxious About My face turning red in social situations, leading me to Avoid going out to bars and clubs and to splash my face with water if I feel hot.
Feeling Depressed About The end of my relationship with my girlfriend, Leading me to Spend too much time in bed, avoid seeing people, and take less care of myself.
When positives are negatives
Although this chapter deals with unhealthy negative emotions because these are the most common factors in emotional disturbance, you can’t forget that negative positive emotions do also exist.
An example of a negative positive emotion is holding a Rigid demand, Such as ‘I must get approval from my boss’ and then feeling a surge of delight when thedemand ismet. You may feel good about the approval and your confidence may soar for a time, but you’re still vulnerable to unhealthy negative feelings if you later fail to get your boss’s approval. If you hold a Flexible preference For your boss’s approval, you can feel healthily pleased if you get approval and healthily disappointed if you don’t.
Another example of unhealthy positive emotions is the feeling of euphoria associated with Hypo-manic (excessively happy or ‘high’) states. People who suffer from bipolar affective disorder (formerly known as manic depression) can experience alternating periods of extreme low-mood and extreme high-mood. During high periods, people with bipolar affective disorder are often prone to making rash decisions and behaving in erratic, sometimes risky ways. People with bipolar affective disorder may seem to be very happy when in fact they’re hypo-manic and suffering from a genuine psychiatric
Condition. Bipolar affective disorder can be treated effectively with medication and CBT. Many of the tips for overcoming Unipolar (or general depression)thatyou can find in Chapter 10 are also be very helpful for people with bipolar disorder. Appendix A lists organisations that you may find helpful.
If you think that you, or someone close to you, may have bipolar affective disorder, we strongly recommend seeing a psychiatrist to get a comprehensive assessment. Prescribed medication is an important part of managing the distressing symptoms of this disorder. Psychiatrists generally have more specialised knowledge about the disorder and appropriate medicationsthan general physicians.
One key CBT strategy for helping people to manage bipolar depression involves making an activity schedule (see Chapter 10). Write down a plan of your daily activities and stickto doing them regardless of your mood. The crucial point is to establish a Consistent\eve\ Of activity in your daily life. Sticking to a daily schedule of activities can help you avoid being under-stimulated during lows (thereby combating a downward spiral into depression) and helpyou avoid becoming over-stimulated during highs (thereby preventing an upward spiral into hypomania).
Rating your emotional problem
Human nature leads you to focus on how bad you feel, rather than how much better you feel. As you reduce the intensity of any emotional disturbance, you can find motivation in being able to see a difference. After you describe a problematic emotion, rate it on a scale of 0-10, based on how much distress the emotion causes you and how much it interferes with your life.
As you work on resolving your emotional problem by making changes to your thinking and behaviour, continue to rate the distress and interference it is causing you. Your ratings are likely to go down over time as you make efforts to overcome your unhealthy negative emotions. Review your ratings regularly, once a week or so. Doing this review helps remind you of your progress and replenishes your motivation to keep up the good work!
Share your ratings with your CBT therapist if you have one. Your therapist can haul out your rating records and show you the progress you’ve made if your motivation begins to flag.
