As human beings, we all inevitably and intrinsically immersed in emotions. In fact, the emotional states that we experience play an important role in our life, guiding our choices and helping us to organize even complex action plans.
Emotions within cognitive-behavioral therapy
According to the classic cognitive model, emotions represent the natural consequence of internal and automatic evaluation processes of the events and situations to which we are exposed daily.
To change the intensity and frequency of unpleasant emotions such as sadness, anger, guilt, fear and anxiety, it is therefore necessary to “renovate” those thoughts that generated them, replacing them and integrating them with other more functional and adaptive assessments.
Let’s take an example: suppose that Maria has developed an intense fear of dogs (dog) since as a child it was attacked by a large dog and this experience has understood this very much. At the sight of a dog, Maria will tend to automatically evaluate the situation as threatening: “Oh my God, there is a dog … he will bite me!“And, consequently, he will feel anxiety and fear at the sight of the animal.
Anxiety will induce her to implement some Escape and avoidance behaviors who, in turn, will not be able to deny his assessment of dangerousness of that situation. Indeed, the more the time will pass, the more in Mary’s mind it will be structured and the belief will strengthen that even a small and harmless puppy can be dangerous.
Cognitive renovation
The replacement of dysfunctional thoughts with others more rational (EG: “That dog is on a leash and can’t hurt me“,”He is a small dog and moreover he is ignoring me“) He will be able to lead Maria to try a minor anxiety and fear. In order to help her suspend the escape and avoidance behaviors thus modifying her beliefs about the threatening of any dog.
The replacement and rationalization of DISFUNCTIONAL AUTOMATIC BUILDS This is precisely what the cognitive therapy through the technique called “cognitive renovation”
Following this process of renovation of thoughts, Mary will be more motivated to undertake what is called “exhibition itinerary”, which represents the practical component of cognitive behavioral therapy. Rational beliefs will help Mary to progressively get involved in the face of the sight of a dog, tolerating more negative emotions that automatically arise in that situation and suspending those behaviors that maintain her fear and limit her life.
An evolution of the classic model: emotional beliefs
Although cognitive behavioral therapy monsters very positive outcomes for various problems such as phobias, anxiety, depression and obsessive spectrum disorders, there are some cases in which cognitive renovation seems not to be sufficient to promote motivation towards progressive exposure to feared situations. Others in which, despite the repeated exposure, the negative emotions associated with the trigger stimulus do not seem to be reduced to intensity and frequency.
In these cases, despite the cognitive renovation and the exhibition techniques are certainly helpful, they do not seem to be sufficient to allow a marked clinical improvement of the situation.
Why does this happen?
According to Robert Leahy (2015), cognitive-behavioral therapy may not be fully effective in all those cases in which there are further negative cognitive beliefs that do not concern the situation-producer (eg to see a dog) but the emotions experienced in that situation such as, for example, anxiety and fear.
The emotional beliefs identified by Leahy therefore do not concern external situations as, rather, of the internal emotional processes to which we all attribute a meaning and an evaluation.
The emotional beliefs, often irrational, can be positive or negative and, always according to Leahy (2015) extend 14 domains long.
Among these domains, there are some negative emotional beliefs that in particular end up impacting the perceived malaise and the maintenance of specific psychological disorders.
Among these we find, for example, the belief that
- Emotions can last forever,
- emotions are not controllable and therefore they are dangerous,
- some emotions they make no sense and therefore it is not right to try them,
- the Other people do not feel the same emotions Faced with similar situations,
- some emotions are negative in itself and therefore it is right feel guilty and be ashamed When we experience them,
- Faced with a situation, it is not normal to be able to experience more emotions even in contrast between them.
These beliefs may be present specifically for some emotions and not for others. Mary, for example, could believe that anxiety is a dangerous and uncontrollable emotion that will never pass them but may not have the same beliefs about other emotions such as, for example, sadness or joy.
The logical consequence of the presence of negative beliefs concerning the presence of specific emotionsit concerns the use of behavioral strategies aimed at avoiding trying the emotions-produced or reducing them as soon as possible when they appear.
Mary, for example, could implement public parks avoiding strategies not only for the fear of meeting a dog but also because he considers this fear as unmanageable and uncontrollable.
In the same way, going to visit relatives who have a dog in the garden, Maria could resort to some protective behaviors, such as the use of an anxiolytic drug, not so much to avoid the dog in itself, as to reduce her state of anxiety, judged as dangerous in itself.
Validation and acceptance of emotions
The emotional beliefs identified by Leahy affects two superordinate domains that we can call validation and acceptance of emotions.
Validation refers to the ability to recognize the right to be able to experience certain emotions, while acceptance concerns the ability to accept, in fact, the presence of that emotion without doing anything to contrast it.
The therapy of emotional patterns
The therapeutic model proposed by Leahy, called Therapy of emotional patterns (East – Emotional Therapy Schema), has its roots precisely in the constructs of validation and emotional acceptance and aims to renovate irrational and problematic beliefs about emotions.
This model proved to be very useful as an integration tool for the classic cognitive-behavioral approach in the treatment of various psychopathological conditions such as depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Especially for the most resistant forms (Leahy, 2015) or particular conditions, such as that of Obsessive-compulsive disorder focused on fear of contamination based on the disgust or on the feeling of “not in place” (Not Just Right Experience) in which the emotion associated with the anxious situation has a rather long extinction curve, that is, it does not pass in a short time but tends to remain for longer periods and reactivate even at a distance of a time.
In these situations, in fact, an exposure aimed at obtaining a simple decrease in negative emotion, as it happens for anxiety, often proves to be bankruptcy and it is necessary to structure an intervention that affects dysfunctional beliefs about the presence of the negative emotion and the ability of the individual to be able to tolerate it.
Emotional patterns in everyday life
An approach oriented to validation and emotional acceptance, as well as the renovation of irrational emotional beliefs is not limited solely to the treatment of psychopathological conditions. It can also be a precious tool for all people who manifest a low emotional tolerance or tend to mull out, to feel guilty or to be ashamed of specific emotions.
Emotional schemes and envy
In this regard, for example, theenvy Perhaps it represents one of the most demonized emotions in our culture. Many people experience a very intense sense of guilt in the face of this emotion and are ashamed of them deeply considering that it is not an acceptable emotion and that other people do not feel it with the same frequency.
Envy, in its benign and more common form, is instead a universal and evolutionary emotion useful since it pushes us instinctively to improve ourselves to achieve the desired state that we see and envy in the other.
Validate benign envy As a natural emotion and accepting its presence it can help us not to implement dysfunctional strategies for the management of our emotional state, such as a brooding or ruminative process that, absorbing our energies, inevitably would push us towards a depressive state (depressive envy), instead reducing actions aimed at improving ourselves or our condition.
Emotional patterns and resilience
Another aspect in which it can be very useful to integrate a path of acceptance and validation to a process of cognitive renovation of negative emotional beliefs concerns all those life events that are configured as an objective source of suffering and in which standard cognitive-behavioral therapy has a limited utility since the situation in which we find ourselves is actually adverse and, therefore, its evaluation is not so irrational.
This category includes, for example, diseases, mourning and all those life events, more or less dramatic as the end of a love or a dismissal, which can deeply destabilize the emotional state of those who live them.
The most recent therapeutic approaches identify in the third generation of cognitive-behavioral therapy the most effective tools to manage these situations, in particular referring to models based on acceptance, such as ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy – Hayes; 2009).
Integrating these approaches with careful analysis of dysfunctional emotional beliefs can be useful to promote full acceptance of the emotions related to the adverse event.
An example
We think, and example, of the anger that can be experienced frequently at certain moments of the elaboration of a mourning or the partial sense of relief that you can try following the death of a dear sick and suffering for some time.
In both cases the emotions experienced are completely normal and physiological, many people, however, live them with considerable Shame or sense of guilt.
The same applies to the beliefs of duration with respect to the suffering caused by the loss of a loved one: the perception is often that the pain will never be left.
Although this belief can partly be justified, it is also true that no harsh emotion unchanged forever. The sadness for an important loss will remain but, undoubtedly, over time it will change shape, intensity and meaning.
Even in the most difficult moments, therefore, to renovate one’s emotional beliefs can be useful to face particularly painful life events thus increasing one’s ability to bend in front of events, without however breaking.
Bibliography
- Hayes, SC, Strosahl, KD, & Wilson, Kg (2009). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
- Leahy, RL (2015). Emotional therapy scheme. Guilford Publications.
