Rethinking Human Emotion

An interesting read @Appleblossom .

Im not sure how I feel about it exactly. The way I interpreted it was that the feeling is still the same feeling in the physical sensations but changing the words to biological terms changes things. I'm not sure that changing the vocabulary for some of us would help. I did appreciate the cultural differences though and see using the biological terms as being a uniting thing in being and feeling human.

I possibly missed the point too 😜😳. Thanks for sharing. I did enjoy reading it. I do like reading things that challenge us to rethink things.

Just hugs @Teej

For me I have never been good with feeling talk. It was not around me. I did not hear it growing up and never had time to learn it. I have a feelings wheel to "study" on my dining table which I have avoided. Nah does not come easy to me. Does not mean I dont have feelings, just not able to verbalise. Knowing you has helped. Believe it.

@Appleblossom 💜

I'm not sure if you know but when I started therapy I had no feelings words either. I had not processed any of it before. The psychologist I had at the time 'taught' me my feelings. She would ask where in my body I was feeling something. I didn't even know I felt things on my body. This was 2014. And yep, then I learned to match the feeling words on charts to the sensations in my body. I guess it's that you can verbalise it that matters, not the words themseves. But to this day I have lists of feeling words on my phone and the colourful chart ones too. I think it is something that is learned, some of us not until we were old ducks 😜😆

Made a smile spread across my dial @Teej

I have a chance then ... to learn all about it.

Found this a very interesting read @Appleblossom Whilst I personally do not agree with everything she wrote I dothink there are stages for all emotions and recognising them as simply one or another does not get to the crux of the emotion, where it comes from and why we are having it. I find this very relateable when we are dealing with the kids emotional states at school and being able to identify more closely what they are dealing with and why. Fear or anxiety is especially relevant when we look at exams, tests or sport - some level of high arousal can actually benefit an individual in these instances as the adrenalin rush can enhance and extend performance. I do also think though that labelling emotions culturally allows us all to have an idea of what one is experiencing through a mutually agreed upon definition - maybe though we need to look more closely at the range within each emotion and re-defined those levels.

Yes @Zoe7 being able to read and understand children's different emotions at school would make for very attuned teaching. Maybe it is not always possible with the demands on teachers, but bringing it to the table is a start.

It does make it easier to talk with the kids when we can differentiate between what they say they are feeling and what is the underlying issue @Appleblossom It is hard, as you would know, for kids to understand their feelings sometimes and to be able to pinpoint exactly what they are feeling but being able to work through that ith them certainly helps to help them. Listening to them is the first step though and unfortunately some don't do that - kids have a lot to say if we just listen.

Totally agree. @Zoe7 Cultural and context awareness is important though. Eg a teacher told me of her difficulty of dealing with young Sudanese who was afraid and triggered when lining up at school, as for him it suggested possible deaths in his war town country. Levels of fear can be hugely different.

I am not saying everything she says is right. In my life, I was caught between different cultures and being analytical has been important for understanding, analytical about emotions too.

It seems a better and fairer approach than the pathologising approach that lead to a host of MH labels pinned to my family without any real comprehension of the issues faced by the individuals. Yep I am discounting the "comprehension" of the medicos who labelled my family without delivering effective services. We have to lift the game.

There are good medicos and good services. That is what we need. The field of psychiatry is very emergent, its knowledge is not fully substantiated. Definitions are great for argument and debate, but are different to hard solid knowledge.

@Appleblossom I do particularly lke her approach to identifying emotions when we talk about kids - there is a level to their feelings and identifying that level and where they come from is important. I think as adults we are much more knowledgaable in being able to do that but there is always room for improvement and her approach has relevance here. Distinguishing between our primary and secondary emotions is often much harder - something we try to teach our kids at school so they can work out exactly what they are feeling and why. Often what we are feeling as a result of circumstances is multi-layered and breaking down those layers helps to identify the real cause of our emotions and the primary emotion we are feeling - then we can work on how to work through what is going on for us in a constructive and objective way. This of course is harder to do when we are distressed, depressed or upset but can also be freeing when we can get to the crux of the problem and begin to move forward knowing the real reason we are feeling that way.

Bit of a ramble there - and probably does not directly relate to the article itself or the what she has written about but has sparked some thought for me and if that has happened as a result of the article then that is also a good thing ...all food for thought.