Posts Tagged ‘interpretations’
Are you in touch with your true cartoons?
In DBT, primary emotions are emotions that people have about a situation or event. Secondary emotions are emotional reactions to emotions. Figuring out which is which may be helpful for people that have a lot of trouble sorting out what they feel, identifying what causes feelings, and knowing how to make use of feelings. The overall goal is to enable people to express emotions accurately.
Let’s take the example of anger. Sometimes, when people get angry, they say things they do not mean. They deliver “low blows”, say things that are extremely hurtful, and launch into full attack mode.When anger shows up, it is very possible that other primary emotions (betrayal, hurt, scared, or sad) are also part of the picture.
Imagine how the conversation would be different if the person who expresses anger was actually expressing any of the above emotions. “I was really upset when you didn’t show up. I thought something might have happened. At first I was really worried, and then I started thinking that you might have forgotten about meeting with me altogether. I wasn’t really sure what to make of the situation. I have this tendency to think no one cares about me when this happens. Perhaps you could tell me what happened.”
Another example may go something like this: Feeling afraid but then feeling ashamed for feeling afraid. Sometimes people are afraid of intimacy and connection but act on the shame. For instance, having a really good time with friends (feeling appreciated, included, and valued) is followed by withdrawal and avoidance. Is this you? If so, what words would you put on your fear that would be more accurate? Are there any elephants in the room that you’ve failed to consider?
Posted in Emotion Regulation | 
Tags: Cartoon elephants, Change, communication, Emotion, Function of behavior, interpretations, Relationship, Understanding emotion, validation | 
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Finding wisdom during emotional chaos
Our emotions get activated despite our best efforts to control them. So how do we know when to trust our “gut”? After all, when we have a “bad feeling” about a situation- and we rely on our feelings to avoid painful or scary scenarios- then how do we know when to approach a situation despite our anxiety about it?
While I am not sure there is a simple answer, here are some factors to help think this through. First of all, consider the importance of your emotion. Be clear about what you actually feel. Try to get a “sense” for the feeling itself. Next, consider the information that your feeling may be giving you about your environment. What is the actual threat? What could or would happen if you acted on the feeling? What (if any) action is your feeling prompting you to take? If you avoid taking action, what might the consequences be?
Consider the extremes. If you never trusted your “gut”- ignored or avoided feelings all the time- you may be vulnerable to getting yourself into bad situations. If you always trusted your gut- you may prematurely make judgments about people or situations that are unfounded or inaccurate. You might come across as overconfident or hyper-vigilant, and find yourself unable to tolerate situations that aren’t actually threatening.
Finding clarity in chaos may take trial and error, the willingness to be corrected, openness, and curiosity. Trusting your gut may also mean speaking up, being “seen”, and risking confrontation and disagreement. Neither one may be entirely confortable! Remember, making changes involves taking risks. Often discomfort and misery drives us to seek alternative solutions by trying out new behaviors.
What is mentalization-based therapy?
Last week I had the opportunity to observe a mentalization-based group therapy. Mentalization was developed by Peter Fonagy and Anthony Bateman and is the only other treatment (besides DBT) that has strong empirical (scientific) support for treating borderline personality disorder.
What exactly is mentalization? This is my own attempt to describe what I know about it so far: We are constantly making interpretations about the intentions of other people, and we tend to be pre-occupied with their intentions towards us. When we assume the intentions of others we think we “know” what other people are wanting, thinking, or feeling. While sometimes this is perceptive and accurate, poor (or inaccurate) mentalizing can often exacerbate conflict or add stress to relationships.
Consider the following scenario: You are late to work. Consider what your reaction might be if your employer insisted that the following scenarios are true:
“You must really hate me. You do hate me, don’t you? Why don’t you tell me why you hate me so much and we can get everything off our chests. Come on. You can be honest. Tell me what your problem is with me.”
“You think you are too good for other people. What makes you think you are better than everyone else? If you think you are better than everyone here, then maybe we should give you extra work so you can keep proving to the rest of us how important you are.”
When other people do not “mentalize” accurately, it can increase defensiveness and emotional arousal. And talk about being misunderstood! When other people insist that their interpretation of your behavior is accurate (when it is not), it makes it more difficult to keep emotions on an even keel and steer clear of more conflict. Can you think of a time in which this has happened to you?
In a mentalization-based group, group members are encouraged to generate many “interpretations” of reported or observed behaviors. Some of these “interpretations” may be accurate and some may not. Some may be entirely out of this world! Attempts at accurate mentalization (“You must have been really taken aback when your boss said those things!”), may increase understanding, lower emotional arousal, and enable a person to use the group for perspective-taking and problem solving. Additional benefits include seeing things from a wide variety of viewpoints (What might have been going on with your boss that day?), considering things that have not been previously considered, increasing compassion when others misinterpret intentions, and staying level-headed when there are strong urges to engage in extreme ways of responding.
Posted in Behavior Change | Tags: Acceptance, Change, dialectics, interpretations, Meaning, Relationship, Stress | No Comments »
A note on dialectics and relationships
Person A is described as miserly, grumpy, short, and abrupt. We’ll say that Person A doesn’t offer any extra information when asked personal questions, rarely smiles, and almost never makes eye contact.
Now, one way of responding to this situation is to simply say that Person A is kind of a jerk. You could sort of see how Person A is pretty unlikeable, and you could even kind of get yourself on a non-liking tangent.
While being on the non-liking tangent may have some benefits to you, it actually may not help you solve interacting problems with Person A. If anything, it may make interacting with Person A slightly worse- if not downright uncomfortable.
Assuming that Person A is someone you can’t avoid, and assuming that you could get more relaxed and self-confident around people that drive you a bit crazy- you’d probably have to do something besides walking around thinking that Person A is a jerk.
Thus consider alternative interpretations of Person A’s behavior. Start with the potential benefits of “miserly, grumpy, short, and abrupt.” I would have to guess that Person A is not a time waster- he probably doesn’t like to chit- chat. This in turn might mean that he is more efficient, which could be an attractive trait to some. He probably also doesn’t have a lot of people around that bug him very much. Who knows? Perhaps he likes his privacy. Perhaps he is lonely. Perhaps he didn’t grow up with a lot of easy going personalities. Perhaps he grew up around people that were really harsh and abrupt with him.
You see how coming up with different interpretations for Person A’s behavior can change your feelings about Person A? Alternative explanations might provide understandable reasons for behaviors that may be hard to understand. And when we can be more understanding, we can be more accepting of ourselves and of others.
Posted in Dialectics | Tags: dialectics, interpretations, Relationship, Stress, Understanding emotion | No Comments »