what is showing emotion?

I admit I don't get the point of feelings in general. But I do have them. I smile and frown. That would seem to be enough. I get no sense of relief if I cry. I laugh with friends and students and so forth. Not with the therapist but she proved unworthy with playing.
More than that simply doesn't seem necessary in most situations. I can tell the woman what I feel if I am feeling anything. But that does not seem to be what people are suggesting is useful to them.

I suppose she might mean, that you can say 'I am cross with you because xyz', but are the feelings brought into the session? It's kind of like thinking v feeling. I find it hard to get angry with my T in a session, because it feels quite dangerous for me - he might retaliate or leave. What tends to happen, is I get angry about something and bring it into the next session by saying 'I was angry with you because you got my bill wrong', that would be rationalising. I guess if I brought the emotions into the session or said something at the time, I might say 'bl00dy h>_ell, did you have to get the bill wrong again?'. It's not very polite, granted but it is an emotional reaction.

I think it's about connecting to deep feelings - which could be sadness, fear, anger, happiness, love, loss

Stopdog, do you have a hard time identifying your emotions? I have no idea if I am feeling anything a lot of the time, unless it is a strong clear emotion. My therapist is similar to rainbow's, she asks what I am feeling in my body and where and this is much easier for me to work with.

Anger is the one she has said I have shown.

I think I know. The ones I see are not into the body thing and I doubt Imwould do well with that approach. How does it help you to tell the therapist about the body?

It makes it easier for me to gauge how distressed I am, for instance if I am clenching my muscles in my chest really tightly I am probably anxious or scared. She then works with me to relax my muscles. I do it on my own too and get overwhelmed less.

My T has actually asked me how I could tell he was anxious about something. I was able to tell him it was about the tenseness in his muscles, the posture he took in the chair, the change in the rate of his breathing, etc. He seemed a bit disconcerted that I was aware of all of those things with him. I was perplexed that he was not aware that I do that ALL THE TIME. If you cannot assess another person's emotional state and arousal level, you cannot tell where the threats are or when some kind of explosion might be imminent.

For me, if I SAY I am feeling something, I think people should just believe me and accept that is how I feel even if my outer expression does not match what they think it should be to reflect that emotion. I do not think I should have to cry or throw things before people believe that I am sad or angry or whatever. If I am willing to tell you I am angry or hurt, that is a big damn deal and means I like you very much and trust you. But don't expect me to cry in order to prove that I am feeling whatever it is I say I am feeling.

Both of these things make total sense for me. It took a while before I could grasp that my T was not mocking me when he seemed upset about things that had happened to me, or when he tried to express empathy. I have told him I do not know how to respond to his concern, and he says I am not obligated to respond in any particular way. I have concluded that the easiest thing to do is just to say, 'thank you' and go on with my life.

My first time through therapy, this is what I had to do. He would ask me how I felt about something I would tell him how I felt physically. He would then help me figure out what emotion that physical feeling translated to.

Not that anybody asked, but based on my benchmark day yesterday - concert and swim with an old friend - sharing my emotions with my t results in me feeling i have better boundaries, in a crowd and with a friend. I felt much less self-conscious in bad ways, but more pleasantly self-conscious in good ways and able to respond to other people in the moment. I even made iced tea! (Im not a good hostess. I started out being one, then something happened- like my first h).

I think "showing" is not a good word, I prefer "expressing", "communicating" or "sharing".

I think the woman interpreted maybe a tone of voice or a repeated insistence that she "shut up" :-) or a look on your face as an expression of you being angry. None of those would be particularly useful to you as you cannot see or school your face a particular way, feelings are there and will out in some way. We can protest we are not angry and try to "correct" an impression someone else has gotten of us but we cannot change their interpretation of us.

Emotions can work for both self-knowledge and as an indication to others of what they might want to consider in interacting with you. I believe our emotions interact with our perception of others' emotions to help orient us. If we feel someone is angry at us, some try to pacify the other person, for example, or avoid them, etc. Whether the other person is/is not angry at us according to them is a function of our ability to "reality test" and discuss our and their feelings together. One can "be" angry without shouting or much physical expression. I think a lot of the physical expression is because the person does not have or has not learned to use words effectively. I still remember when I went to pick up my car that had been in the shop all day, paid for it and then went to get in it and none of the work had been done, my light switch was still out, hanging by wires next to the steering wheel, looking under the hood, nothing was new, etc. I wanted to "kill" the shop manager so I burst into tears My girlfriend had to explain the problem and "light a fire" under them to get it fixed, NOW!

I have been angry with the woman and others. So it is not that she is wrong that I have been angry, I just don't know why she said I showed her anger but not anything else. I think I have done them all the same.

(I don't tell her to shut up - that would be rude. I tell her I don't want her to talk or ask if she thinks she will be able to manage not to talk. The polite way.)

stop, i was thinking about your question about why do we express emotions. i think it is similar to talking. why do we speak to others? i think we express our emotions to both communicate and connect with others. it's just another form of expression like body language, or even sex, is another form of expression.

beyond that, i think it's how we're wired to be. if we over- or under- do emotional expression it seems to cause problems either relationally or with our health.

I appreciate the perspectives and information.

Expressing emotions is non-verbal communication. We see emotions in our pets - waving tails, wagging tails, submissiveness, laid back ears, etc. we convey our emotions to them in the tone of our voice, our stance and our touch.

From my understanding. What they really want to to know/see is that you can express your feelings and emotion besides hearing the words,

For me I have a very hard time showing emotions because when I was growing up up had to hid so much. I can tell people matter of factually what happened/is going on but can't express my true feelings about it all. That is what t wants to know.

But Why would one want to do so? I mean it is fine if someone does, but what is wrong with not? Why would it be a useful goal?

i think it may depend on the person.

i learned to control my emotional responses because of a bad situation. i was taught expressing certain emotions was wrong, so i didn't. and i buried them. if that situation hadn't interfered, i might be a different person. i don't think i'd be the person to cry at the drop of a hat, but right now i barely cry at all.

i guess maybe it's the *why* that's important. is it just who you are? or is it a learned response that could be causing one harm?

Per my post in cant explains thread today - i would say that BY DEFINITION, being defensive is not a choice, whereas maintaining healthy boundaries is. I know that sounds like semantics. But when people are being defensive with each other, you cant get thru to each other. When youre maintaining healthy boundaries, you can hear each other but still agree to disagree.

In other words, i dont really know either! No, no - seriously now. Last year or two, my friend asking me (over and over) about my mother resulted in me not wanting to talk to my friend anymore. Last week, im more like, i dont think she gets it. She is not grasping my feelings, i dont think. Maybe im not doing a good job of sending them. But at least its different from last year. It would be nice if she could understand me. It would be great.

I suppose I learned it as well as being somewhat naturally inclined. It does not seem bad to me. I don't want to be a different person.
I don't agree about the defenses and boundaries thing and don't see it connected to display of emotion at all, if I am understanding what you are saying.

I think I lump too much together. In your situation here, hankster, I would have no trouble not wanting to talk to my friend because she is harping on my mother's and my relationship -- I would not feel particularly defensive about it, I would say she was not very good at boundaries; only I should be bringing up my mother's and my relationship? Yes, maybe I should be telling her, as part of my boundary work, that I do not wish to discuss my relationship with my mother with her at this time and I'll let her know when/if I do but I don't really have to think about her, whether she "gets it" or not, that's her problem and a different issue to whether I want to talk to her or not (either to exercise my boundary or just because I'm annoyed at her).

I think boundary maintenance is expression of an emotion. We let the other person know where our boundary is in a particular case. We do not necessarily indicate exactly what we are feeling but we do indicate that we are feeling, that we have a feeling nerve/a preference, etc. The problem I see with that though is we do not necessarily give enough information to the other person and they are more likely to get what we might be feeling wrong by guessing. We have seen here I think how people think about boundaries and their therapist setting boundaries and how they feel their own boundaries are crossed, etc. and mostly there's a "war"/anger/agression/fear/"keep away" thing that gets imagined. I can imagine you, stopdog (or any of us), not wanting to bring in certain emotions to therapy because you do not feel they are germane to the situation. However, I can also see your therapists as misinterpreting your boundaries there, feeling you are resisting, etc.

It was more a situation of, the only way that i felt i could control that we would not talk about it, was to avoid her. I had no boundaries; i couldnt tell her to stop. If she wanted to, then i HAD to. I think that is what is bothering me so much about my cousin contacting me telling me that my mother has this or that to say to me - because if SHE wants to, then i HAVE to. When do i get to be the queen of me?

I don't think there is anything wrong with not showing emotion. For me, "showing" emotion is about not hiding emotions, and it has been a useful goal for me to not hide what I'm feeling from other people (at least some of the time). The therapist isn't in a different category from most others, in the sense that it isn't my specific goal to show emotion in therapy more than anywhere else.

The benefit I've noticed for myself when I don't hide my emotional reactions from other people is that I feel like a more authentic person, more centered (calm), more powerful (in a good way, not as in using power against other people), less afraid of other people and their emotional reactions. This might in part be because I grew up in a family where I often had to hide my emotions or risk negative consequences, so feeling free to express emotion is like breaking the silence and dysfunctional patterns of my past.

There are definitely times when I choose to hide my emotional reactions, because I'm with people who aren't very safe or because I'm not ready to face my own response. I think that might be another useful benefit of not hiding emotions for me, that if I express them, then I feel them and own them. For me, avoiding anything, including emotions, has negative responses for me. I feel most whole when I deal with rather than avoid my emotions and/or thoughts and/or perceptions.

As time has gone on, I feel less invested in hiding my emotional reactions from other people. Some of it does apply to therapy, as my T is a very safe person to share these with. In turn, that makes me more brave about letting others into my emotional life. I've discovered that even the worst reaction from someone else, such as trying to "bully" me out of how I think or feel, or teasing or making fun of me for what I think or feel, isn't much of a big deal anymore. I think that the longer term benefit of not hiding how I feel is that it has reduced the shame I feel. If I'm hiding something, then I think I unconsciously think I should be ashamed of it. Less hiding, more openness, the shame seems to have dissipated over time. I feel much better about myself, more compassionate towards myself and the effects I wish weren't produced by the abuse I suffered.

Laughter is an emotion or tied to an emotion? What emotion? I've always seen laugher as a response to someone and something. More like communicating "that was humorous" or "I appreciated that". People cry or shout because they are experiencing some underlying emotion. For example crying because you are sad or scared or shouting because you are angry. Laughing is different. I've never laughed because I was happy... without being drunk or on something else. Laughing can make you happy but I don't know if just being happy can create it. I can laugh while feeling horrible. I feel like laughter has little to do with emotions and more to do with social interactions.

I guess if you laugh because you're uncomfortable it might be clearly linked to an emotion.

laughter can come as a result of many things, but the commonly tied emotion is delight or joy. i think of my baby. he will do something (like look upside down between his legs) and giggle because he's delighted and finds the situation funny.

i've laughed when nervous.

I think one can have a happy laugh, a sardonic laugh, nervous laugh and so on. Just like one can cry from grief, despair, unhappiness, bitterness etc.

because Ts see so many people that are emotionally repressed i think they see emotional expression as a positive thing. if a person has trauma from their childhood it is one thing to talk about the trauma but a completely different thing to feel the emotions that they may be repressing about the trauma. holding in painful emotions is not healthy although so many of us do it. we do it because feeling those emotions, and our interpretations of the trauma, can be incredibly painful. it is easier to repress or control the emotions & beliefs although i don't think that is done consciously. when one has worked through the painful emotions and beliefs (e.g. that abuse was the person's own fault) then they feel like a huge weight has been lifted off them or that someone opened the pressure release valve. this doesn't always happen all at once or right away but it is incredibly freeing when it does happen. i've read that when we repress our painful emotions we also repress joy, peace, love the positive emotions. so, once we release the painful emotions we are better able to experience positive emotions.