The results were unambiguous. Most of the volunteers opted for cognitive engagement when confronted with a low-intensity photograph, and most chose to distract themselves from a high-intensity one, 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 result suggests that distraction, as a strategy for emotional regulation, works by not allowing the emotional information to enter memory at all.
This Won’t Hurt a Bit
Intense images are powerful stimuli for priming negative emotions, but even so the scientists wanted a test that was closer to real-life events. In another experiment, they used the anticipation of electrical shocks to create a measurable state of anxiety for volunteers. They hooked them up to electrodes, with which they administered 20 shocks of varying intensity. 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. As before, the volunteers spoke out loud about which cognitive strategy they chose. 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 Psychological Science in September, volunteers were much more likely to opt for a reappraisal strategy (“this one won’t be so bad”) 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 generally have the cognitive flexibility to adapt their regulatory choices for the situation at hand.
The finding that people naturally choose to engage with only mildly unpleasant emotions is not surprising. Reinterpretation of emotional events has long been known to be an effective coping strategy, and it is often taught as a part of cognitive-behavior therapy. The findings on distraction, however, run contrary to a long-held view that it is important to engage with intense emotional challenges—and that avoiding or “repressing” them is harmful. This interpretation has been steadily losing ground. Evidence is mounting that, under extremely adverse conditions, some emotional disengagement may indeed be tonic. This approach appears to be true for disaster victims; for people with severe, ruminating depression; and of course, for alcoholics in early recovery.
This article was originally published with the title The Nuts and Bolts of Emotional Sobriety.
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4 Comments
Add CommentYou want emotional sobriety? Just be glad you are not a lab mouse! see sciam's own article here http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=depression-how-depressed-is-mouse
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you happen upon an emergency needing calm cool collected thinking and action(kid is bleeding badly, car fire, plane is crashing etc), most of us simply turn off the emotional response. Which in my experience delays the response, not eradicating it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost addiction patients, especially newly abstinent, suffer from a mild or severe ALEXITHYMIA. The difficulty or inability to identify and express emotion. Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome is the major source of this condition. Most of it is transient and dissipates with time. The issue here that is relevant also to us professionals, is to re-frame the belief systems of what role emotional expression plays in recovery and to life. One of the most observable cognitive distortions is, EMOTIONAL REASONING. For example; " I feel it is terrible therefore it is." The reason that I see this in most cases, is because of the past centuries dogmatic elevation of emotional expression as vital in mental health, as a huge element of our cultural ethos. "how does it make you feel", has become synonymous with shallow, over invested parody. The needs of our newly sober patients are to identify what thinking and the beliefs were present that blindly bound them to using. Identifying thinking is very do able, thoughts are accessible and emotions have no life without thinking generating them. The focus on joining and then on abstinence stability, is not a struggle for the patient when it comes to knowing ones thoughts. But to do something they have no ability to do; like identify their emotions when for a very long time chemicals were masking them , is unwittingly creating in them, a sense of failure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have been an addiction focused treatment professional LCSW for 25 years in practice and for the last 18 years, have been a clinical director of a NYC major drug program at a major hospital, and also for 18 years I manage the National Football Leagues' drug program for the 9 teams in the northeast. Please respond and let's create a dialogue on this. Best wishes,
Andrew Park LCSW-ATOD
Andrew, I live outside Chicago now but used to head up the Chemical Dependency Counselor program at Suffolk Community College out on the Island. I agree with what you have said here and would like to place it in the context of my own experience.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was taught, as a kid, that it was inappropriate to show feelings. I incorporated that it was also inappropriate to have feelings. I was in counseling briefly when I was 25 or so and when the counselor asked me "how do you feel about that?" I literally had absolutely no concept of what she was talking about, much less if I had feelings or what they were.
Many years later, trying to get sober, I began to learn about feelings, what they were, how to identify them, and most important, what to tuck away for later and what to deal with now. I learned that feelings, though they may hurt, cannot harm unless I let them. My choice. I well remember the very first time that I felt joy and was able to identify and enjoy it. WOW!
I learned all the techniques in this article and put them into practice with a good deal of success. It's been a really good life for the last 40+ years. And----I learned it all in AA, long before the days of formal credentialling for addictions counseling and cognitive behavioral therapy.
It still amazes me that these pioneers in recovery were so insightful and so far ahead of their time-so to speak. Maybe they didn't have the jargon, the science, the training, but for many of us they damn well knew how to get sober and to recover.
The formal study of addiction and the practice of counseling has come a very long way since then but in some ways not all that much has really changed. We will always owe them a lot.