[stopdog]

I do not fully understand the concept of showing strong emotion. First - showing -why? and second strong emotion? Is strong just more of a type or is it a bigger type like a lot of anger or is it annoyance versus anger? Third - how - is it just crying or throwing something. The woman has told me I don't show her emotions and I am amazed - I usually respond "I just said I was cross or not as happy as I might otherwise be" - what more could one do and not be out of control? And why would one want to do so?
And how is it useful to do it near a therapist?
Granted I can probably name every time I have cried in the last 15 years and not use up all the fingers on my hands to keep track. And it usually has involved death or extreme illness of a loved one or pet. Are strong emotions only the sad or angry ones? Do you have strong happiness and not show the therapist? What is the point of it?
Hence - a poll. It should allow for multiple responses.

[sweepy62]

I'm baffled by that as well. The only strong emotion I identify with is anger. I don't even use the word strong to identify it, it's just anger, either your angry or annoyed IMO , I don't see it as mildly angry or severely or strongly angry.

As far as showing emotion in front of a t, if it happens it does. I can also count a couple of fingers when I have cried. Therapists find it cathartic when clients show emotion or cry in session , I don't understand that logic.

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[PurplePajamas]

My T has talked about this a bunch with me..about how "showing" an emotion is different then just talking about it. Sometimes my T seems annoyed that in our three years of working together, he has never seen me cry. Honestly, I don't think I will ever let the man see me cry. I might cry before session or after session when I am alone but I do not cry in front of people. Just the thought of it is humiliating. Showing any strong emotion in front of someone else feels too exposed to me. But therapists love that stuff...

[Raindropvampire]

I too had trouble with this and still do. When asked "How are you feeling?" MY first thought will always be physical. You feel with your body. But if you respond "My back hurts today but overall not too shabby." Most Ts and shrinks will get annoyed and say "No tell me how you are feeling emotionally." Then I get annoyed because the answer is always the same either angry or depressed or both. Why do they think I'm there??

anger is one I have trouble with. The only time I showed anger at T is the day I hung up on her. And ouch, that hurt me a hell of a lot more than it hurt her!! I have felt angry at her other times but couldn't express it. I never can. As for crying during a session that's definitely not unusual for me, since I am a crier. Was in tears today with her. And sometimes I laugh like any normal person would, because something is funny or I'm having fun, sometimes I laugh because I'm nervous, usually that happens only with t though.

[rainbow8]

Originally Posted by Raindropvampire

I too had trouble with this and still do. When asked "How are you feeling?" MY first thought will always be physical. You feel with your body. But if you respond "My back hurts today but overall not too shabby." Most Ts and shrinks will get annoyed and say "No tell me how you are feeling emotionally." Then I get annoyed because the answer is always the same either angry or depressed or both. Why do they think I'm there??

You would LOVE my T!! She does somatic experiencing so when she asks how I feel and wbere, she wants a place in my body. She would love your answer!

[feralkittymom]

Think about how healthy "normal" children react: there is a spontaneity and immediacy to their emotional responses. There is no suppression or secondary interference with the emotion that is presently experienced. With maturation comes appropriate control of the display of emotions, but this shouldn't effect the experiencing of emotions.

Strong vs weak emotions to me is just an indication of how much or little any given emotional experience feels internally, and that may be reflected externally. It also probably reflects how engaged the nervous system becomes.

Reporting of emotions is not the same process as experiencing them, nor is either the same as demonstrating them. Each involves different areas of the brain and nervous system so the internal effect is different, and each is experienced differently socially so the behavioral effect is different. To report about emotions keeps them distant--which can be useful in certain circumstances. But to not experience them viscerally prevents us from being able to use them productively as an information source, whether to guide our actions, thinking, awareness of needs, etc. It also isolates us from a potentially valuable source of further emotional development, assuming one values that. For me it's an issue of how full a life one wishes to live and how one values the human experience. I think it's as much a philosophical question as a psychological one.

When children have unhealthy experiences of any kind, it sets up a secondary, internal control of their natural responses. It's different from maturational control because it involves a secondary emotional process--maybe repression, suppression, shame, humiliation, fear, denial,etc--that is believed to be dysfunctional because those thwarted emotions either will be expressed in some other fashion that is not healthy, or create an imbalance in emotional health that will undermine areas of potential health.

[stopdog]

One would have had to have the emotion before or simultaneous to reporting it. So the emotion was or is there. I don't see that displaying an emotion is necessarily tied to whether one has an emotion or not.

[feralkittymom]

Maybe. But many children whose emotional expressions were minimized, contradicted, denied, neglected, or otherwise invalidated don't necessarily experience the emotion consciously enough to report it. We rely on early--infantile--reflection of our emotional states in order to experience them in any conscious way. It's not a solitary process; it depends upon reaction to develop. If therapy is considered a developmental process of some sort, the display of emotions changes the interaction from an essentially solitary experience to a relational one, open to change.

[JustShakey]

Originally Posted by feralkittymom

Maybe. But many children whose emotional expressions were minimized, contradicted, denied, neglected, or otherwise invalidated don't necessarily experience the emotion consciously enough to report it. We rely on early--infantile--reflection of our emotional states in order to experience them in any conscious way. It's not a solitary process; it depends upon reaction to develop. If therapy is considered a developmental process of some sort, the display of emotions changes the interaction from an essentially solitary experience to a relational one, open to change.

This. When my T asks me how I feel it confuses me. I honestly don't know. I was always told how I should feel and now I look for cues in others to tell me how I should feel. Looking into myself is foreign.
I often can't even locate or be fully aware of sensations in my body. I'll have a headache and not be sure if its bothering me enough to take some tylenol, or I'll be shaking, but not know what part of me is shaking. I nearly didn't make it to the hospital on time when I was having my daughter because I wasn't sure if I was in labor or not.
It's really weird when you think about it. I'm like a spectrometer with a malfunctioning detector or something...

[stopdog]

What is it supposed to change? The feeling or the expression of it? And it is mine, not a group effort. When someone cries and I am there, it is still theirs, not mine. It seems presumptuous to me to think of turning it into mine although I see people do it all the time.

[stopdog]

Plus what counts as showing it? Crying, shouting and laughing all seem a bit over the top to me. The woman says I have shown her anger but she refuses to explain what I did that showed it.

[JustShakey]

I get it SD. Strong emotion feels fake and, yeah, over the top to me too. I'm only just realizing that people are actually being genuine when they're expressing strong emotions around me as opposed to playacting or mocking.

I'm not sure, but I suspect that dismissing others' emotional expressions of concern can be interpreted as anger... I don't mean to dismiss people, but I know I do because I have no idea what the appropriate response is.

[feralkittymom]

Shakey, I told my T I learned about emotions from reading novels and watching TV as a child. Seriously. When you grow up and pain is identified to you as love, anger is love, etc, it really leaves you just wanting to turn it all off.

SD, I think both the emotion and the experience are subject to change, and those, in turn, change how one is in relationship. I don't think all emotion is owned in a static way. If I'm with a friend who is crying, it isn't that I turn her emotion into mine--I don't co-opt it, that would be kind of repulsive to me (and I am repulsed when I feel others do so). But her emotion does effect me and cause me to create my own emotion in response. Usually, displayed emotions reflect and mirror each other: anger to anger, sadness to sadness, etc. I think that's much of what empathy is. And sometimes both receiving and giving that empathy intensifies or soothes whatever the emotion is. But at that point it also becomes a shared emotion that both have contributed to, and I think that felt sharing creates a bond. It's relational. And there is "blowback," both positive and negative, from the creation of that momentary bond. I think that's valuable to me because it allows me to experience myself in a less solitary way and I like that. One hopes, at least in theory, that the blowback experienced with a T is positive because the T should always be modulating response to the client's benefit. So a T may empathize with the emotion of anger, but not reflect anger back at the client, the way those in RL would in an argument.

[blur]

Originally Posted by stopdog

Plus what counts as showing it? Crying, shouting and laughing all seem a bit over the top to me. The woman says I have shown her anger but she refuses to explain what I did that showed it.

i don't know why your T wouldn't tell you what you did to express anger. it seems like it would help you understand better. some examples of expressing anger might be turning red, raising your voice, sounding irritated, becoming agitated, using sarcasm, tensing your muscles etc.. there are all sorts of ways to express anger as there is probably for any emotion. there is a continuum of intensity of expressing feelings. it isn't all on or all off.

i think all feelings can probably be expressed strongly, but i'd say some feelings tend to be lesser versions of other emotions such as annoyance and anger. if one is really annoyed i'd think they are probably angry. there may be shades of difference between really annoyed and being angry but it isn't terribly important which someone calls it.

i like what FKM is saying about the differences between talking about feelings, feeling the feelings and expressing the feelings which i believe is then called an emotion because we emote/express them. i also had the experience of being told what i felt or had my emotions corrected by my mom and when i realized that as an adult it really made me mad because it really screws with your emotional development. in a lot of homes only certain feelings are allowed to be expressed. it's like when people say "boys don't cry" or "real men don't cry". boys & young men, and some of us women too, very much get the message that softer emotions like hurt should not be expressed. so, a lot of men--again women do this as well--then channel that hurt into anger because that is generally a socially acceptable emotion for men. women who got the message they couldn't express their hurt may tend to get depressed. this is probably why anger is considered a secondary emotion meaning it is covering up some other emotion, usually hurt and fear. maybe that makes depression another emotion removed because depression is commonly anger turned inward.

i tend to repress my anger and get depressed and for many years had no idea i felt so much anger. so not being allowed to express certain feelings can make you unaware that you even are experiencing the feelings. now i'm trying to figure out how to express anger in healthy ways. emotions are not meant to be either all stifled or all expressed at full tilt. we have to learn to express them but in ways that are healthy for ourselves and others.

great thread topic. emotions are mysterious and fascinating to me because i don't understand them all that well myself.

[Ford Puma]

When the dream has vanished we fain would keep
When the heart like a watch runes out of gear
and all the savour goes out the year
Oh then is the time - if we could- to weep

But no tear softer this dull pale woe
We must sit and face it with dry sad eyes
if we could to hold it the swifter joy flies
we can only be passive and let it go.

Ella Wheeler.

My interpretation of emotion.

[brillskep]

These options seem too few to me to be honest, which is why I also picked Other (beside crying). Most of these options could be summarized in one option about not wanting to show emotion or understanding how, in my opinion. I also consider laughter to be showing a strong emotion, but I didn't pick it because in my case, I laugh a lot, I get amused easily, so it's not a big deal that I laugh with my therapist. I can even feel amused and laugh if there's something funny in a tense / stressful situation, like an exam or a personal conflict. I like the option about telling the therapist how you feel in a calm tone and I think that's very important and informs about emotion - but I don't think it's showing emotion. There are more ways to show emotion though - a frown or smile or reluctant look on your face, some people hit the couch / chair or themselves when angry, tone of voice can indicate a lot about emotions (even strong ones) - such as raising your voice, your voice cracking or turning into a whisper, swallowing, breathing slower or faster, talking slower or faster or just stopping all of a sudden ... I think all of these have the potential to show strong emotion. Of course it depends on the context though.

[roimata]

In my experience, the therapist I see likes to point out whatever emotion she thinks is presenting for me by relying on the expression I have. If I concentrate on it, sometimes I find that she is right. And sometimes it is just my face strategizing to misrepresent my (lack of) emotions. I believe it is called inappropriate affect, as I tend to default on indifference or misplaced excitability/anxiousness. Like a golden retriever, I think.

Showing strong emotion would probably mean weeping or throwing a tantrum to me. In my case, shaking violently is as 'strong' as it gets. I would not consider laughing to be showing strong emotion. But I personally get some satisfaction knowing therapy has not been an intense emotional ordeal for me. It's like denying someone the same award they win every year. Your mileage may vary.

[kraken1851]

From my perspective, any emotion can be strong. And I typically experience emotions as strong when I cannot control them or distance myself from them anymore. To me it's emotion minus the reflection and control I normally exercise. As I mostly experience negative emotions as "strong" (anger, sadness, feeling guilty) I really quite dislike having them. I don't find having them has a cathartic effect on me - overall, they just make me feel out of control, which sucks.

As for showing them - I suppose that in therapy a display of emotions could help Ts to better read and understand what's going on in their clients. I definitely don't show a lot of emotion, and sometimes I think it must be frustrating for t to basically see a blank face without knowing whether anything he says makes an "impression" on me (quite literally). Of course, I can tell him how I feel, but ultimately that is always a rehearsed, reflected-on version of emotions to which I have already added my own interpretation of how I feel and what this "means".

[Aloneandafraid]

Originally Posted by brillskep

These options seem too few to me to be honest, which is why I also picked Other (beside crying). Most of these options could be summarized in one option about not wanting to show emotion or understanding how, in my opinion. I also consider laughter to be showing a strong emotion, but I didn't pick it because in my case, I laugh a lot, I get amused easily, so it's not a big deal that I laugh with my therapist. I can even feel amused and laugh if there's something funny in a tense / stressful situation, like an exam or a personal conflict. I like the option about telling the therapist how you feel in a calm tone and I think that's very important and informs about emotion - but I don't think it's showing emotion. There are more ways to show emotion though - a frown or smile or reluctant look on your face, some people hit the couch / chair or themselves when angry, tone of voice can indicate a lot about emotions (even strong ones) - such as raising your voice, your voice cracking or turning into a whisper, swallowing, breathing slower or faster, talking slower or faster or just stopping all of a sudden ... I think all of these have the potential to show strong emotion. Of course it depends on the context though.

Thank you for this thread SD. I would really like to know why my voice just seems to disappear when I get in the room? It literally turns to a whisper just like you said, Brillskep. I should also mention that I want to cry when I am with her but I can't. It is almost as if i am holding all emotions back for fear of letting go too much? I really wish i could tell her how bad it is and let it all out. Thank you for this post.

[stopdog]

Originally Posted by brillskep

These options seem too few to me to be honest, which is why I also picked Other (beside crying). Most of these options could be summarized in one option about not wanting to show emotion or understanding how, in my opinion. I also consider laughter to be showing a strong emotion, but I didn't pick it because in my case, I laugh a lot, I get amused easily, so it's not a big deal that I laugh with my therapist. I can even feel amused and laugh if there's something funny in a tense / stressful situation, like an exam or a personal conflict. I like the option about telling the therapist how you feel in a calm tone and I think that's very important and informs about emotion - but I don't think it's showing emotion. There are more ways to show emotion though - a frown or smile or reluctant look on your face, some people hit the couch / chair or themselves when angry, tone of voice can indicate a lot about emotions (even strong ones) - such as raising your voice, your voice cracking or turning into a whisper, swallowing, breathing slower or faster, talking slower or faster or just stopping all of a sudden ... I think all of these have the potential to show strong emotion. Of course it depends on the context though.

Is there a point to it for you?

I try not to show strong emotions in therapy. Sometimes I fail. I have never cried or shown too much anger, though. I don't think showing emotions is necessarily a healthy thing. When I do in RL (such as in this forum), it often turns out to be a very bad thing, so it stands to reason that it is good for me to try to avoid it in therapy.

[iheartjacques]

I've shown quite a few emotions in T's office. He can read my emotions pretty well - anger, sadness, despair, proud mum moments, amazement, etc
I don't have a problem telling him how I feel. Isn't it healthy to let it out?

If it is healthy for you, then it is definitely healthy. I don't believe in universals though.

[unaluna]

I like feralkittymom's discussion. I love the poll! my first impulse was to answer, "when your insides match your outsides". What is the point of spending time with someone unless youre sharing an emotional connection? Hopefully a positive emotional connection. Otherwise boundaries up.