When Should You Avoid Dealing With Emotions?

One of the cornerstones of alcoholism recovery is what's called "emotional sobriety." The idea is that alcoholics and other addicts, if they hope to stay sober over the long haul, must learn to regulate the negative feelings that can lead to discomfort, craving and -- ultimately -- relapse. It's a lifelong project, a whole new way of thinking about life's travails.

But the recovery literature also says "first things first" -- which simply means, "don't drink." Especially in the early days of recovery, alcoholics are counseled not to analyze why they are addicted, or how they might have avoided alcoholism: "Don't think and don't drink" is the maxim. One day at a time, do whatever it takes -- prayer, exercise, meetings -- to distract the mind from the compulsion to pick up a glass.

These are really two very different kinds of emotional regulation, when you think of it. Distraction is unthinking -- cognitive disengagement from thoughts of alcohol and the anxiety of craving by any means possible. It's a blunt instrument in the toolbox of recovery. By contrast, long-term emotional sobriety requires the slow, steady rethinking of all the people, places and things that once did -- and could again -- throw us off kilter.

Recovery programs teach these fundamental principles of emotional regulation because, surprisingly, addicts don't know them intuitively. But they apparently do come naturally to many healthy people.

That at least is the conclusion from some new research out of Stanford University, which has been examining the strategies that people choose for dealing with negative emotions of different kinds and intensities. Psychological scientist Gal Sheppes and colleagues had the idea that people process different kinds of emotional information differently -- and at different stages. If an experience or thought is especially intense and threatening, people can nip it in the bud early. They simply disengage and don't pay attention, in that way blocking negativity from awareness, much as newly recovering alcoholics are advised to do. This keeps potent negative thoughts from ever gaining force.

Milder negative emotions are often not blocked out, but they can still be regulated by a second cognitive mechanism, which engages negative emotions for elaborate processing. This requires storing the negative thoughts and emotions in memory for reappraisal and reinterpretation. At least that's the theory, which the scientists have tested in a series of laboratory experiments. They hypothesized that healthy people would tend to distract themselves quickly from intense emotional experiences, and that they would tend to engage with milder, less threatening experiences, in order to diffuse their emotional power.

They recruited volunteers and had them view photographs depicting different levels of negative emotions. A low-intensity photo, for example, might show a woman holding her head, in an ambiguous state of distress, while a high-intensity photo might show a woman in extreme distress, with blood streaming down her face. The volunteers looked at a series of such photos, half a second each, then they narrated, out loud for five seconds, how they were processing the emotion. Volunteers and observers characterized the volunteers' regulatory strategies as either distraction or engagement and reappraisal.

The results were unambiguous. Many more volunteers opted for cognitive engagement when confronted with a low-intensity photo, and many more chose to distract themselves from high-intensity photos -- suggesting that switching strategies is a normal, healthy way of dealing with negativity in life. The researchers also gave the volunteers a "surprise" memory test at the end of the experiment, and found -- as expected -- that memory for the emotional photographs was impaired whenever volunteers opted for distraction and disengagement. This suggests that distraction, as a strategy for emotional regulation, works by not allowing the emotional information to enter memory at all.

Emotional photographs are powerful stimuli for priming negative emotions, but even so, the scientists wanted a test that was closer to real-life events. So in another experiment, the scientists used the anticipation of electrical shocks to create a lifelike state of anxiety for volunteers. They hooked them up to electrodes, with which they administered 20 shocks of varying intensity. But just prior to each shock, the volunteers viewed a brief written description of the intensity level of the upcoming shock, allowing them time --12 seconds on average -- to choose and use a strategy for regulating their anxiety before getting zapped. The scientists crunched together the data on shock intensity and cognitive choices, and the results were essentially the same as before. As reported in the online edition of the journal Psychological Science, volunteers were much more likely to opt for a reappraisal strategy when confronting an unpleasant but tolerable shock, and they were much more likely to try distracting themselves when they anticipated a strong and intensely painful shock. In short, people have the cognitive flexibility to adapt their regulatory choices for the situation at hand.

It's not surprising that people naturally choose to engage with only mildly-unpleasant emotions. Reinterpretation of emotional events has long been known to be an effective coping strategy. The findings on distraction run contrary to a long-held view that it's important to engage with intense emotional challenges -- and harmful to avoid them. But this view has been losing some of its hold recently. Evidence is mounting that, under extremely adverse conditions, some emotional disengagement may indeed be tonic. This appears to be true for disaster victims, for people with severe, ruminating depression and of course, for alcoholics in early recovery.

 

 

 

Comments

[Arrive2 net]

11:50 PM on 10/10/2011

"The findings on distraction run contrary to a long-held view that it's important to engage with intense emotional challenges -- and harmful to avoid them." This finding really surprised me since it seems intuitively obvious that engaging the trauma is necessary to overcome it. It seems like the point is its healthiest to avoid extreme trauma from the start, but if you can't avoid it, put off dealing with it until you are ready, then you can apply the "Reinterpretation of emotional events".

There often seems to be a thin line between trying to "reinterpret" emotional events" and just "ruminating" over them.

How do you know when you have effectively dealt with some tauma? When you can permanently put it out of your mind so it no longer haunts you...so perhaps putting it off, then dealing with it..is a cycle that repeats until its put off for good and you are 'healed'.

Bart Schuster
Arrive2.net
Twitter.com/arrive2_net

[Wray Herbert]

07:45 AM on 10/12/2011

Excellent points. Thank you.

[Promise]

12:19 AM on 10/10/2011

I agree that there are times when it's necessary to distance oneself from one's emotions. As the article said, alcoholics probably need to detox from the physical effects of the drug and get their body healthy before starting to process the emotional problems that led to over-drinking. People who have just lost a loved one may have to put the emotions on hold while they attend to necessary tasks---arranging the funeral, etc. Or disaster victims have to attend to getting shelter, food, etc. before they deal with their trauma.

But, for long term health, as this article says, it's mandatory to eventually bring the troubling emtions to mind to deal with them and release them. Otherwise they remain and they do control our lives. There are too many PTSD victims of wars who have returned and are unable to function in a healthy way again. I have a friend who suffered many years of a disastrous marriage and, after her husband finally left, dragged herself into a much better marriage but her unwilingness to deal with the past pain has severely limited her ability to enjoy life. Her motto is "live in the present" without realizing that she is unconsciously dragging her past along with her. . .

One tool for facing past traumas and dealing with them is EFT (emotional freedom technique) which has been used successfully for vets with PTSD as well as all kinds of people with emotional problems and even physical problems .. .

[frank day]

03:54 PM on 10/09/2011

Emotions are to be recognized and then ignored or acted upon.

It's when we "stew" that they become problematic.

Still, easier said than done.

[Kathy Morelli]

06:52 AM on 10/09/2011

Enjoyed this article. The concept that people who are emotionally healthy know how to sort through incoming stimuli and have learned to tolerate emotional distress by "compartmentalizing" reminds me of the work of Marsha Linehan, the developer of DBT. It turns out that some people are able to naturally "tolerate distress," for various reasons, such as maybe they termpermentally have a lower "emotional setpoint" and also were raised in a home where emotional health was valued. But then, other people need to be taught the skills associated with "distress tolerance.'

[frank day]

03:55 PM on 10/09/2011

My theory is that they grew up in an environment that allowed them to manage

their stress without the stressors becoming overwhelming.

Them that's got gets more. That's how it goes.

[sunflower12]

09:51 PM on 10/08/2011

It's my experience that sometimes, when facing crisis, some emotional disengagement is the only way to get through hard times.
I'm a lay person, but I've survived several very difficult situations in my life. Age has given me this ability to distance myself from the problem, something I couldn't do when I was younger.
The emotional distance allows for more balanced decisions.
I'm still a warm -hearted , emotional person, but I've learned to protect myself better.

[MarenS]

02:27 PM on 10/08/2011

Thanks so much for this article. I have severe depression (MDD) and have been on anti-depressants hoping it would minimize the negative thoughts that lower my motivation and are killing my productivity. I noticed that I could substitute "productivity" for sobriety in the phrase emotional sobriety and "procrastination" for drink in the phrase don't think don't drink and it makes a big difference. I can see the value that dealing with negative things at set times in a more supportive and structured environment. Thanks so much for this - its very helpful and insightful.

[rogerfreberg]

01:07 PM on 10/08/2011

Oh how does one respond to a title like:

Question: When Should You Avoid Dealing With Emotions?

Answer: Stop talking to her. (ba-da-dump)

I enjoyed the article very much...and 'heading off' reflexive emotional responses is always the key. Thinking about 'what could happen' in a potentially tense meeting or personal engagement is important to developing an approach to defuse or refocus an area of possible conflict. All too many people are caught off guard and get hot and bothered.

There is an old saying in an argument or suicide bomber: the person who explodes first loses.