You can thank REO Speedwagon for the title 🙂

What are “feelings” or “emotions”? Emotions are conscious mental reactions (such as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feelings usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body (APA, 2024). Emotions give us energy for motion. They are important sources of information about our internal and external worlds, and we ignore them or defend against them too rigidly at our own peril. 

When we feel fear, for example, it may be that our body has perceived a danger cue telling us that we are under threat, so then our autonomic nervous system and sympathetic nervous system kick into gear to raise our heart rates, dilate our pupils, and pump blood and oxygen to limbs to mobilize the body for a quick response. We may not even become consciously aware of our fear response until well after all this has occurred in the blink of an eye. Other basic emotions have other functions, such as anger notifying us that we might be in danger and need to fight, or maybe an injustice has occurred. Sadness may tell us that we have experienced some kind of loss and we need to slow down, grieve, be alone, or maybe reach out for connection. All of our emotions are fundamentally good and useful, given that they are appropriate to the given context and circumstances. However, many times, our emotions may be defensively excluded from awareness because of their intensity or their interactions with our beliefs about them (e.g., anger is bad because it is un-Christian) or we may react too quickly based upon too much feeling (e.g., reacting to anger by punching a wall). Therefore, for our emotions to be truly helpful, they need to be both felt and regulated. This is where the integration of thought and feelings comes into play, as well as self- and co-regulation of our feelings. 

The basic goals of emotional regulation are: 

1) I can feel my feelings and know what they are, manage my emotions (most of the time), share them with others in socially- and culturally-appropriate ways, and can reflect on my own and others’ thoughts/feelings.

2) I can think about my feelings and feel in response to my thinking.

A real-world example of this might looks something like this: 

I am walking down the street and someone bumps into me. I have a quick thought that maybe they didn’t see me, but because I saw them looking up at me right before bumping me, I reject this hypothesis and think that they meant to do it. Almost simultaneously, I feel my body mobilize for “fight” mode, with my heart rate going up, my breathing get more shallow, my adrenaline pumps, and I can feel my jaw clenching and my hands tightening into fists. If I am in a more self-aware state, I can sense these bodily sensations, and I may be able to label these sensations as “anger.” I’m pissed! That guy bumped into me on purpose (an injustice)! Then, to regulate, I may take a deep breath, keep walking, clench and unclench my fists, and try to tell myself some reasons why he might have done what he did (e.g., maybe he is having a bad day, maybe he was just fired) and wanted to lash out at someone else. I could turn around, say something to him (either aggressively or assertively), but I may decide that he is not worth it, and just continue with my walk. Later, I might continue to think about this, and flashes of anger might continue to arise, but I can continue to breathe, talk to myself, and maybe even complain to a friend about the incident as a way to co-regulate my feeling of anger. If I feel so inclined, I could even extend a mindful attitude of loving-kindness to this person for whatever he might be going through, pray for him, or attempt to forgive him if I have regulated my feelings first. 

This might be difficult, but this is an example of regulating my feelings effectively. I have felt my feelings, “named and tamed” them, recognized where they might be coming from, and then effectively self-regulated and then co-regulated them with someone else. I have also integrated my thoughts with my feelings, and used both mental processes to think through my feelings as well as “feel through” my thoughts. It is this integration and flexibility that characterizes mental health in terms of our emotional functioning. This integration allows us the flexibility to adapt our responses and behaviors to different contexts and settings so that we can respond effectively to the challenges of everyday living. You can imagine that this process goes on constantly, repeatedly, and is one that can take a lot of energy for us to modulate well, so it is important that we take care of our bodies, our minds, and our relationships so that we can continue to use our feelings to inform our worlds. 

There is much more to say about emotions and emotional regulation, but I hope this has given you a peek into what emotional health and emotion-thought integration might look like. Next, we’ll dive into Domain 2: Self & Relationships and explore the ways in which these domains interact to promote mental health. 

References

American Psychological Association (2024). https://www.apa.org/topics/emotions.

Lingiardi, V., & McWilliams, N. (Eds.). (2017). Psychodynamic diagnostic manual: PDM-2 (2nd ed.). The Guilford Press.