[Mari]

Hi,

This article suggests we should not try to handle difficult emotional issues.

When Should You Avoid Dealing With Emotions?http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-h...hy-living-mind

One of the cornerstones of alcoholism recovery is what's called "emotional sobriety." The idea is that alcoholics and other addicts, if they hope to stay sober over the long haul, must learn to regulate the negative feelings that can lead to discomfort, craving and -- ultimately -- relapse. It's a lifelong project, a whole new way of thinking about life's travails.

[. . . ]
These are really two very different kinds of emotional regulation, when you think of it. Distraction is unthinking -- cognitive disengagement from thoughts of alcohol and the anxiety of craving by any means possible. It's a blunt instrument in the toolbox of recovery. By contrast, long-term emotional sobriety requires the slow, steady rethinking of all the people, places and things that once did -- and could again -- throw us off kilter.

Recovery programs teach these fundamental principles of emotional regulation because, surprisingly, addicts don't know them intuitively. But they apparently do come naturally to many healthy people.

It's not surprising that people naturally choose to engage with only mildly-unpleasant emotions. Reinterpretation of emotional events has long been known to be an effective coping strategy.
The findings on distraction run contrary to a long-held view that it's important to engage with intense emotional challenges -- and harmful to avoid them.
But this view has been losing some of its hold recently.
Evidence is mounting that, under extremely adverse conditions, some emotional disengagement may indeed be tonic.
This appears to be true for disaster victims, for people with severe, ruminating depression and of course, for alcoholics in early recovery.

M

[Mari]

HI,

Here is an abstract of a study at Stanford University:
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early...18350.abstract
Stanford University

Despite centuries of speculation about how to manage negative emotions, little is actually known about which emotion-regulation strategies people choose to use when confronted with negative situations of varying intensity. On the basis of a new process conception of emotion regulation, we hypothesized that in low-intensity negative situations, people would show a relative preference to choose to regulate emotions by engagement reappraisal, which allows emotional processing.

However, we expected people in high-intensity negative situations to show a relative preference to choose to regulate emotions by disengagement distraction, which blocks emotional processing at an early stage before it gathers force.
In three experiments, we created emotional contexts that varied in intensity, using either emotional pictures (Experiments 1 and 2) or unpredictable electric stimulation (Experiment 3). In response to these emotional contexts, participants chose between using either reappraisal or distraction as an emotion-regulation strategy.
Results in all experiments supported our hypothesis.
This pattern in the choice of emotion-regulation strategies has important implications for the understanding of healthy adaptation.

M

[Mari]

Hi,

Apparently, it is better for people to focus on low emotional issues rather than than high emotional issues. That is my read, anyway.
It is better to disengage when things get hard.

I think that we can do that some of the time. We can modulate ourselves when things are going well with the mood and the situation and the meds. Otherwise, all bets are off and we pay attention to stuff that is upsetting to us.



M

Thanks for this research. I can say from my own experience that everything re: alcohol recovery is true. Without being able to disengage from these overwhelming emotional triggers, I could never have stopped drinking--not even with all the other tools of AA.

I chose to be triggered by my recent Hovel wrenching. At some level I think I knew it could be my undoing. I guess I wanted that--at some level. Fortunately, it wasn't the uppermost, & I let you folks drag me back to safety. I'm not sure how much risk taking a life can handle, especially a bipolar life.

Theyre great links, Mari. I hope people read them in their entirety if this sparks anything for them.

[bizi]

Originally Posted by Mari

Hi,

Apparently, it is better for people to focus on low emotional issues rather than than high emotional issues. That is my read, anyway.
It is better to disengage when things get hard.

I think that we can do that some of the time. We can modulate ourselves when things are going well with the mood and the situation and the meds. Otherwise, all bets are off and we pay attention to stuff that is upsetting to us.



M

thank you for posting these, I know for me...I have to pay attention to emotional stuff and deal with them other wise it fesstors just under the surface leaving me vulnerable....
bizi

Just goes to show you that there's a continuum along which we move even in the bipolar world, & it's important to bring this up now & then, bizi. Although what Mari's research revealed was right-on for me, for you it's not. Thanks for reminding us that although we have so much in common, we are still in our essence each very much an individual. We make our own choices, one by one.
I wonder, though, whether there's ever cause to re-evaluate? Can a right choice at one stage of life not remain the right one for a later stage?
Not judging. Just wondering.

[waves]

Originally Posted by bizi

thank you for posting these, I know for me...I have to pay attention to emotional stuff and deal with them other wise it festers just under the surface leaving me vulnerable....
bizi

yeah, i'm a lot the same way, i have to at least deal with things within myself or in therapy... somehow.

but i have to agree that there are some situations when disengagement is the key to self-preservation, not that it is necessarily easy. but it can be learned.

Thanks for these finds, Mari!

~ waves ~