Understanding the Principles of Counseling and Psychotherapy Chapter 11

Chapter 12 Overview Introduction to common negative emotions Specific Considerations in dealing with client’s emotions. The relationship between emotions and schema dynamics Therapeutically working with emotions: Processes found in Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT), Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)

Common negative emotions in therapy and counseling Fear/anxiety and sadness/depression Fear helps motivate a person to take flight from whatever the danger is, or to confront and change the fearful stimulus. Anxiety is the dread of something to occur in the future, the belief that something bad may occur- “on edge” alert

Common negative emotions in therapy and counseling Sadness is the result of experiencing a form of loss or disappointment in life, triggered by an event in the past or present. Depression can be related to prolonged episodes of melancholy Please turn to p. 234 and review “Clinical Case Example 11.2

Please turn to p. 235 and review “Clinical Exercise 11 Please turn to p. 235 and review “Clinical Exercise 11.1 De-constructing Emotions

Specific considerations in dealing with client’s emotions Nonlinear listening for expressions of affect: draw attention to affect. Help client to express and understand affect Linear and nonlinear listening for and responding to incongruence: identify the incongruity between a a person is saying and how they are saying it. Linear and nonlinear listening for absence of feelings: observe when a client does not appear to express feelings when it would be normal to do so.

Specific considerations in dealing with client’s emotions Linear and nonlinear listening for inference: helping a client realize that what they are feeling becomes a gateway to what they believe in their schemas. Linear and nonlinear listening for presence: listening for the expression of client feelings. When a therapist is relaxed, engaged, interested, hopeful, and empathetic, a client can experience it.

Relationship between emotions and schema dynamics Schema Dynamics: view of self, view of others, and view of the world and life. “Your strong emotional reaction to what happened is very interesting. Lets look into that some more”.-connects the emotional system’s reaction with the schema dynamics. Emotions inform you that something, which is important or of perceived value is transpiring. Rational vs Irrational behavior.

Therapeutically Working with Emotions Coaching Therapist are emotional coaches Coaches: Collaborate to achieve goals, confer responsibility for success on the “player”, are supportive at moments that require calming, focusing, energizing, etc. Focuses on Arriving or Leaving

Therapeutically Working with Emotions Coaching Arriving: helping client to come to a more informed awareness and acceptance of their feelings. Identification, welcoming, labeling, exploring emotions Leaving: process of deciding whether a particular “place” the feelings reveal is good or not good for the lient. Assess if primary feeling is healthy or unhealthy, identifying maladaptive destructive schemas, alternate adaptive emotions and needs”, transforming maladaptive emotions and beliefs that are destructive with the client.

Using Other Domains in Dealing With Clients’ Emotions Listening and Responding Nonlinear listening for: Expressions of affect Incongruence Absence of feelings Inference Presence The Therapeutic Relationship & Emotions -Conjointly experiencing the client’s experience – empathy

EFT Using the Relationship between Emotions & Schema Dynamics Emotion Focused Therapy based on client’s schema dynamics (Attachment style) and works with their emotional system when problems arise (i.e. reactions)

EFT –Coaching the Therapist’s Approach to Working Successfully with Emotions Emotional Coaching: Therapist collaborates with a client in strategizing to achieve specified goals Confers responsibility for success upon the player (client) Are supportive at moments that require calming, focusing, energizing, etc. Two phases in the emotion coaching process: Arriving: helping a client come to a more informed awareness and acceptance of his/her feelings Leaving: deciding whether the particular place his or her feelings reveal is good or not good for him or her

EFT – Focusing to Foster Recognition and Reflection of Emotion Focusing (Gendlin, 1978) Designed to help clients cope with sense of being stuck Attending to felt sense of sensations, feelings, and cognitions See Information Box: Assisting Clients to Recognize and Reflect on Emotional Processes, p. 271

EFT Therapeutically Working With Emotions Revelations, reflecting, and focusing Aware of feelings and also reflecting upon them. “Here and now” awareness- aware of feelings but lacks understanding of what they are feeling(Greenberg,2004).

Therapeutically Working with Emotions Revelations, reflecting, and focusing Thoughtful awareness of feelings and is also able to determine if they want to feel that way. Once information is reflected the client can decide what to do about a particular feeling state feeling (Greenberg,2004). Accepting the feelings, the feeling is attempting to tell the client something and that something important is present.

Therapeutically Working with Emotions Focusing to Foster Recognition and Reflection of Emotions Focusing-helps client’s cope with feeling stuck or uncomfortable, and not being able to move on (being disconnected from internal feelings) (Genlin,1978). Attending a “felt sense” of sensation, feelings, and cognitions located in the client’s body (educate client). Use Early Recollections to connect to schema dynamics Negative emotions have a 2:1 ratio to pleasant emotions.

Please turn to p. 271 and review Information Box : Assisting clients to recognize and reflect on emotional processes.

Therapeutically Working with Emotions Regulation Understanding and dealing more appropriately and effectively with emotions and emotional reactions. Using one’s cognitive powers of attention, recognition, and thoughtful reflection- start using them for one’s benefit (informative, motivating)

Therapeutically Working with Emotions Regulation …client’s need emotions to tell them, without thought, that something important to their well-being is occurring, and they need their thinking capacities to work on the problems that emotions point out and that reason must resolve” (Greenberg,2004,pp.29-30). This is the key connection between cognitions and emotions

Therapeutically Working with Emotions Soothing Learned in childhood The objective is for a client to provide feelings of emotional comfort to themselves as an antidote to a wide spectrum of negative thoughts, urges, and feeling. Through the means of: self talk, treating self well and engaging in a healthy feeling experience. Allows for disengagement of emotions that for the moment are sensed as overwhelming. Important tool to teach clients regarding the regulation of emotion.

Acceptance & Commitment Therapy: Working with Emotions Alternative to experiential avoidance Cognitive Diffusion Alter the undesirable functions of thoughts & private events, rather than trying to alter their form Contact with the Present Moment Demonstrate ability to exert control over behavior Observing the Self as Context Shifting sense of self based on context of the moment Values Clarifying and acting in accordance with personal values Committed Action Important tool to teach clients regarding the regulation of emotion.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: Working with Emotions Mindfulness Core concept of DBT What skills: observe nonjudgmentally what is going on in a circumstance describe what has been observed participate: become fully focused and involved in the events How skills Employing nonjudgment… a) One-mindfully: maintaining nonjudgment focus b) Effectively: doing what works and avoiding what does not You cannot simultaneously feel anger and laugh at the same time. Often it breaks the tension enough to allow for the client to reappraise their circumstances. This will be covered more in the Level 3 chapters.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: Working with Emotions Distress Tolerance The ability to accept, in a non-evaluative and nonjudgmental fashion, both oneself and the current situation, acknowledging the realities of the situation via: Distraction – designed to delay impulse to react to unpleasant stimuli Self-Soothing – behaving in a nurturing, comforting, kind, gentle way toward oneself See Clinical Exercise: Therapeutic Methods for Self-Soothing on p. 283. You cannot simultaneously feel anger and laugh at the same time. Often it breaks the tension enough to allow for the client to reappraise their circumstances. This will be covered more in the Level 3 chapters.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: Working with Emotions Emotion Regulation Designed to help a client recognize, identify, and reflect upon one’s emotions to establish the beginnings of a rational process of circumstances Facilitates an increased sense of competence in dealing with emotions in the present Placing them in perspective as tools rather than autonomous entities You cannot simultaneously feel anger and laugh at the same time. Often it breaks the tension enough to allow for the client to reappraise their circumstances. This will be covered more in the Level 3 chapters.

Please turn to p. 275 and review Clinical Attitude and Disposition: Self Soothing and Therapeutic Detachment.

THANK YOU. Any Questions?