1. Expressing Emotions
Psychologists define an emotion as a reaction to a situation that involves a person’s mind, body, and behavior.

2. Common Emotions Love, anger, fear, guilt, happiness, and sadness
The ability to recognize and appropriately express emotions is an important part of a healthy personality.

3. Love Love comes in many different forms.
Love between family members, love in marriage, and love between friends.
All are marked by deep feelings of affection and concern, and can be expressed in many ways—through caring words, loving touches, thoughtful actions, and more.
You can feel love toward places and things, as well as toward people.
Love is one of the most positive emotions of which people are capable.
The capacity to give and receive love is essential to mental health.

4. Anger Anger can be a helpful or harmful emotion.
Anger can provide you with the energy necessary to try to change things.
What is the best way to deal with anger?
Accept your feelings rather than ignore them
Find a healthy way of expressing your anger
Exercise, jogging, hitting a punching bag
After you have calmed down, think about what made you angry
Write it down or talk about it with a friend
Consider what constructive action you can take to improve the situation to prevent another outburst (Count to 10 before you do anything)

5. Fear
Everyone is afraid of something: a figure in the dark, spiders, horror films…
When you feel fear, your heart races and your breathing quickens.
You are preparing yourself to fight or flee.
Do you know people who enjoy scary films or frightening amusement park rides.
These people like to feel the reaction brought on by fear.

6. Fear Fear can also be a harmful emotion.
A person who is afraid of something may choose to avoid the fearful situation rather than confront it.
Fear can lead to physical problems.
You have probably experienced indigestion, loss of sleep, or headaches when you were afraid of something.
If fears persist over a long period, serious health problems may result.

7. Fear
Admitting that you are afraid and talking about it with someone often makes a fear more manageable.
Sometimes it helps to picture the worst thing that can happen.
When your afraid of something, if you think about the worst thing that can happen it doesn’t end up being that bad.

8. Guilt You feel guilty when you think you have done something wrong.
Guilt can be a helpful emotions; it can stop you from doing something you know is wrong, or it can make you take action to correct something you’ve done.
Feeling too much guilt, however, can make you doubt yourself and your actions.
The best way to deal with feelings of guilt is to correct the situation if possible and to talk about your feelings.

9. Happiness Like love, happiness is a strong positive emotion.
Think about a recent time when you felt happy.
Were you happy about something you accomplished?
Or was your happiness a result of a pleasant surprise?
People feel happy for many different reasons and sometimes for no particular reason at all.
Happiness is a normal response to pleasant events in one’s life.

10. Happiness
When a person feels happy, he or she also feels satisfied with life.
Feeling happy makes you feel good about yourself.
What makes you happy?
Take some time to make a list of the things you enjoy. Try to think of a way you can do some of these things more.

11. Sadness
Sadness is a feeling of sorrow or unhappiness that is a normal response to disappointing events in your life.
A day when nothing goes right, a poor grade in school, family problems, or the death of a loved one can all leave you feeling sad and empty.
You may cry, eat more or less than normal, feel tired and rundown, or withdraw from those around you.

12. Sadness
Inmost cases, feelings of sadness pass quickly, and you move on with your life.
If you feel sad for too long, however, this may be a sign that you are suffering from depression.
Depression is an emotional state in which you feel hopeless and worthless.
People who remain in a depressed state for a long time may require the help of a counselor or psychologist.

13. Sadness
If you are sad about the death of a loved one, you probably experience a period of deep sorrow known as grief.
Often, one’s first reaction is to feel numb and deny the death.
Then you may feel angry toward the person who has died.
You may feel the person has abandoned you.
You also may feel guilty about your angry feelings, because you know that the person could not help dying.
Finally, you may feel depressed.
All these feelings are normal reactions to the death of someone you love.

14. Sadness What can you do to overcome feelings of sadness?
It is important to admit the emotion and to share your feelings with a close relative or friend.
If you are sad about a failure it might also help to make a list of your accomplishments or do something nice for yourself.
If you are grieving, allow yourself to cry and to feel all of the emotions the loss brings on.
It is important not to withdraw from other people or isolate yourself.
If you do the feeling can become overwhelming and may interfere with your ability to cope with everyday events.

15. Recognizing your emotions
Did you ever feel both happy and sad at the same time?
Have you ever been overwhelmed by emotion without knowing what emotions you were feeling?
If these experiences sound familiar, then you know how difficult it can sometimes by to understand what you are feeling.
Yet, recognizing your emotions is the important first step toward dealing with them in healthful ways.

16. Recognizing your emotions
The next time you are experiencing a strong emotion, pause briefly to reflect on you feelings. During a pause try to
Put a name on the emotion you are feeling. Be aware, however, that some emotions, such as anger, can make other emotions, such as fear or guilt.
Determine what triggered the emotion. Try to pinpoint the exact source of your feeling without confusing the matter with surrounding events.
Think back to past times that you felt the same way. What similarities do you notice? Are there any important differences?

17. Recognizing your emotions
By pausing to reflect on your feelings in this way, you will learn a lot about yourself and your emotions.
With practice, recognizing your emotions will become more automatic.
Over time, you will begin to see patterns in your reactions and emotional responses.
Still, there will always be times when intense feelings cloud your ability to sort things out.
When this occurs, pause and take the time to clarify your feelings.
The end result will be a deeper understanding of the situations and of yourself.

18. Coping with your emotions
Sometimes emotions can become too much to handle.
In such cases, people may use coping strategies.
A coping strategy is a way of dealing with an uncomfortable or unbearable feeling or situation.

19. Defense Mechanisms
Some coping strategies occur on an unconscious level.
Freud called these unconscious coping strategies defense mechanisms because they are ways people defend themselves against difficult feelings.

20. Common Defense Mechanisms
Compensations: Making up for weaknesses in one area by excelling in another area
You do poorly in school, so you make up for it by becoming the lead saxophone player in the school band and starting up your own jazz band.
Rationalization: Making excuses for actions or feelings
You work in a convenience store on weekends. When no one is watching, you take some candy and magazines. You figure it’s a large store and they can afford it.
Denial: refusing to recognize the existence of an emotion or problem
Your parents are getting divorced, but you act as though nothing is wrong. When concerned friends ask how you feel about it, you laugh at them and tell them it does not bother you

21. Common Defense Mechanisms
Reaction Formation: behaving in a way opposite of the way you are feeling
You feel guilty about smoking a cigarette. You cover your feelings by bragging to friends about your smoking.
Projection: putting your own faults onto another person
At your after-school job you do not complete your tasks. When you get fired, you blame your boss saying she did not take the time to explain the tasks to you.
Regression: returning to immature behaviors to express emotions
You are mad at your brother for using you bicycle. You scream at him and your parents, run into your room, and slam the door.

22. Defense Mechanisms
You probably recognized some defense strategies that you use.
You should also notice that all the defense mechanisms involve a bit of fooling yourself.
By twisting the reality of a situation a bit in your mind, it becomes easier to accept.
Fooling yourself in this way allows you to put off dealing with problems and the emotions it causes
You experience temporary relief and can think through the problem with a clear mind.
If used in moderation, defense mechanisms can be helpful coping strategies.
When overused, they can stunt your emotional growth.
If you become too dependent on defense mechanisms, you may not learn to express your true feelings.

23. Other coping strategies
Think back to the last time you experienced a strong, negative emotion. Perhaps you were angry at a friend or disappointed that you didn’t get the after-school job you wanted. How did you react?
Unconsciously, you probably used a defense mechanism, such as rationalization, to make the situation easier to accept. But how did you react outwardly?
People react in many different ways to their own strong feelings.
Some responses are helpful: that is, they improve the situation or help the person handle it better.
Other responses are harmful—they worsen the situation and sometimes even create additional problems.

24. Some helpful ways of coping are listed below.
What other coping strategies have worked for you?
Confront the situation head-on. If possible, take action to improve the situation.
Release your built-up energy by exercising, cleaning your room, or being active in some other way.
Take a break by reading a book, taking a walk, writing in your journal, or otherwise relaxing.
Talk through your feelings with a family member, friend counselor, or other trusted person.

25. Harmful ways of coping
Unfortunately, strong emotions sometimes cloud a person’s sense of judgment.
If this occurs, the person may turn to coping strategies that actually worsen his or her problems.
Using alcohol or other drugs and acting out in violent ways are examples of negative coping strategies.
Withdrawing from your friends and family is another harmful response.
Learning to express your emotions in positive ways is not an easy skill to master.
Most people need help dealing with their emotions from time to time. Sometimes just talking about your feelings will help you see things more clearly. Other times, school counselors, members of the clergy, or mental health specialists may be available to help you learn to better cope with life situations.

26. Expressing feelings in a positive way
Accept you feelings
a) Strong emotions, even unpleasant ones, are normal. Denying them will not make them go away, and it may cause them to erupt later in destructive behaviors. It is important to identify and accept you feelings; then you can start to work on expressing them constructively.

27. 2. Inventory how you typically react
Everyone experiences emotions such as love, fear, sadness, and anger. Are you aware of how you usually react to these feelings? To help sort it out you could, on index cards, list your recent responses to each of these emotions. Briefly describe when and how you expressed each feeling in the recent past and how the situation was resolved. Circle those responses that you felt led to a positive outcome.