1. Emotional processing course How to understand and handle your emotions Professor Roger Baker, Consultant Clinical Psychologist Mrs Sandra May, Primary Care Counsellor Mrs Ann Henderson, Primary Care Counsellor © Roger Baker 2006

2. Welcome

3. Emotional processing “most people successfully process the overwhelming majority of the disturbing events that occur in their lives” Rachman 1980 “it is as if the body has a second immune system, an emotional system, devoted not to physical protection but protection from emotional hurt and trauma” Baker 2003

4. Sessions Session 1Understanding emotions Session 2Are emotions our friends or enemies? Session 3What does our emotion rule book say? Session 4Bottling up emotions or facing them Session 5Looking emotions in the eye Session 6Tying it all together Session 7Follow up session

5. “Emotional processing; healing through feeling” Dr Roger Baker, Lion-Hudson Publishers, 2007

6. Why run the course? Emotions are an important source of information about the world Listen to feelings and understand them better Identify blockages to emotional life Face emotions, not avoid Learn to express feelings better Find the right balance in emotional life

7. ‘On waterloo bridge ’ by Wendy Cope

8. Why group sessions Can take in information and apply it as individuals But with the added benefit of learning from others’ experience Realise you are not alone and not mentally abnormal Help each other

9. Confidentiality All information shared in the group is confidential It should not go outside the group Please don’t share others’ information at home (feel free to share your own) This helps us to feel more secure in sharing things R E S P E C T

11. Identifying emotions Emotions are complex Mixture of positive and negative elements Many different emotions They change quickly We can ‘pick’ certain aspects of the memory to focus on Unhelpful rumination on negative events

13. Identifying emotions: the interview Our expectation about the friendship Our beliefs about what happened Our general way of viewing the world We have typical ways of judging the intentions of others The emotions we experience are affected by:

14. What are normal feelings? (1) We have many different feelings/emotions each day Emotions do not have to be powerful (eg anger) but can be quite small (eg mild feeling of satisfaction) Some emotions are simple eg anger, others complex eg guilt at feeling so happy, tinged with yearning to be a better person Emotions are usually a reflection of important things (positive or negative) happening to us

15. What are normal feelings? (2) These things can be big (car crash) or small (late for work) The strength of our feelings is usually related to the strength of the trigger event (eg loss of a fiver v loss of a parent) We are more sensitive when tired, fatigued, ill, alcohol or drug use, under stress We can have feelings about having feelings (eg exasperated at feeling anxious)

16. Session 1 - Homework What’s the positive emotion you feel most often? What’s the negative emotion you feel most often?

17. Even if you found today difficult, please come to the next session. Keep going. If there’s something which makes it difficult for you to return, please tell Sandra or Roger. We might be able to sort it out.

18. See you next time