[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