Emotional Processing , livre ebook

Lion Hudson - Roger Baker

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101 pages

English

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Roger Baker's ground-breaking book, based on the research of his medical team, presents a new way of understanding emotions and new insights into handling emotional pressures, and is illustrated throughout with examples from patients in psychological therapy and from everyday life. The book is divided into 4 parts: 1) The Secret Life of Emotions: introduces the theme of the book and shows how emotional and rational lives are equally valid, 2) Dissolving Distress: looks at our second immune system, emotional processing, which helps us to absorb and break-down emotional hurts and strains, 3) Healing through Feeling: the expression of emotions for good health and well-being, 4) How to Sabotage Emotional Processing: a manual of bad practice.

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Alternative medicine

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Publié par	Lion Hudson
Date de parution	12 septembre 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780745957357
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0400€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Copyright 2007 by Roger Baker This edition copyright 2007 Lion Hudson
The right of Roger Baker to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Lion an imprint of Lion Hudson plc Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England Tel: +44 (0) 1865 302750 Fax: +44 (0) 1865 302757 www.lionhudson.com
ISBN: 978-0-7459-5259-8 e-ISBN: 978-0-7459-5735-7
First edition 2007
Text Acknowledgments Chapter 2 - Chapter 2 : Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version published by HarperCollins Publishers, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.
Author s Note I would like to thank the many patients whose experiences during therapy are quoted in this book. The names and personal details of all these people have been changed to ensure the information is anonymous.
British Library Cataloguing Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: Paul Souders/Corbis
Contents

1 A New Understanding of Emotional Healing

PART I
THE SECRET LIFE OF THE EMOTIONS

2 Pure Reason

3 The Language of Two Worlds

4 Sixth Sense

PART II
EMOTIONAL PROCESSING: DISSOLVING DISTRESS

5 The Emotional Immune System

6 Emotional Processing: Inside Out

PART III
HEALING THROUGH FEELING

7 The One Hard Fact in Psychology

8 Shell Shock

9 Battened Down and Bottled Up

PART IV
HOW TO SABOTAGE HEALING

10 Love and Pasta

11 A Pill for the Body, Soul and Spirit

12 Ruminating Your Life Away

13 Living in Harmony with Emotions

Appendix: The Idea Behind the Science

References
1
A New Understanding of Emotional Healing

The kiss
My mother held me by the hand and led me along the landing to the top of the stairs. I was so small my arm was at full stretch. It was mid-morning but the curtains were still closed and there was a strong, sickly smell of candles burning. She led me downstairs. On every shelf and every surface there were candles flickering. I d never seen so many. The living room, where we two girls, my sister and I, usually played, was full of people sitting round in the shadows and mumbling to each other. I was led over to a box in the centre of the room. My mother picked me up to look into the box. I remember scraping my knees as she lifted me up.
At first I couldn t understand what I was looking at. Flowers and some blacky-grey hair. Then I realized the hair belonged to my auntie. She was lying there, white and still. I didn t know what a corpse was, it was the first time I had seen one. Then I was being tilted forwards, actually towards this dead body, and my lips were being lined up with the lips on the dead body, and I was being told, Kiss kiss your auntie.
I must have let out an awful scream - I remember the shock of hearing my own scream - and I wriggled free and ran off to the kitchen. I was crying and gasping for breath, and had images of dead bodies and Aunt Claire which didn t seem to fit together. My mother rushed in after me, threw me across her knee and began to beat me repeatedly, shouting about embarrassing her in front of the relatives thinking only of myself if you ever show me up again But the phrase that stuck most, I think, was blabbing like a baby . After that I was dragged in again, lifted up much more forcibly this time and pushed forwards, despite my shivering and shaking, and made to kiss the corpse on the lips.
It was getting darker outside the therapy office, and I walked across to the door to switch on the lights.
And do you think this still has an effect on you so many years later? I asked as I returned to my seat.
It s hard to say, Marjorie continued. I ve sometimes wondered if the shock of that kiss has somehow scarred me, but I can t quite figure out how.

When Marjorie had first come to see me for psychological therapy she was not really sure what she was looking for. In the first session she tended to give minimal answers to questions and was obviously wary of seeing a clinical psychologist and scared of being regarded as a mental patient . The appointment letter with the Department of Mental Health logo had not helped. Her GP had sent a brief referral letter to me mentioning that she had been depressed since the death of her father two years ago, that she was taking an antidepressant medication, and was generally having problems with relationships. He wrote:

She is not the woman she used to be. She tells me she can t cope with life and has retreated to the safety of her house and mixes less with others than she did before. She doesn t really open up and it is hard to tell what is going on inside. She often smiles and is a pleasant and polite lady but I suspect this masks the depression she feels inside.
This was our fourth session together. I had obviously passed the test and she was prepared to open up and share more about herself. In the first session I had spent quite a lot of time explaining that she was not mentally ill, and that treatment by a clinical psychologist was not about curing mental disease but helping her understand more about herself and her emotions.
I continued, Do you think much about the incident with kissing your auntie?
No, not really, this is the first time I ve thought about it in let s say two years.
I recalled a moment earlier in the session when she had briefly looked sad, then suddenly sat up straight and composed. Just before she had referred to her father passing away but had quickly changed the topic to more mundane matters, saying that was all behind her and she was no longer upset by his death. I felt that it would be useful to come back to this point.
Earlier in the session you were talking about the recent death of your father. You suggested it had not upset you at all.
That s right, not in the least, she said.
Do you mean you didn t love him, you didn t have much of a relationship? I quizzed.
No, no, no, that s not it, she said, quite distraught. No, that s the thing. I loved him very much. I still do. But I can t
Do you ever feel like crying? I asked.
I so much want to cry. People say you get a lot of relief from crying, a sort of still after the storm. But I never get that. I want to cry, I d like to but then along comes a block.
At this point in the session I thought it would be helpful for Marjorie to explore this block in more detail, to understand it and to pin it down. So I pursued a line of questions helping her to explore exactly what this block was.
What could you compare the feeling to? I asked. At first she didn t understand what I was getting at, but after some explanation she was able to describe it.
Like a huge black cloud that covers everything and muffles things.
I d like you to just take a few minutes to look into that cloud and tell me more about it. Don t rush, take your time.
After a long pause, she replied, It s a nasty feeling.
Of ?
Just nasty.
Is it like a feeling of depression?
No. Not depression. It s more like Marjorie seemed lost at this point. She was obviously struggling hard to identify what the feeling was.
guilt. Yes, I think it s guilt. A terrible black guilt.
We sat in silence for a while. It was almost completely dark outside now, with a bit of a wind picking up.
Tell me, Marjorie, do you think there is any connection between this guilt and what you told me about kissing your auntie?
The silence was so very long at this point I half wondered if Marjorie had actually heard me, but I sensed that something important was happening.
Then I saw a wonderful thing. Small but wonderful. There was a tear running down her cheek.

Marjorie had learned as a child that it was wrong, very wrong indeed, to make a fuss, to cry or scream. The incident with her auntie s corpse had left a scar, just as she suspected it had, but there had been many other incidents in her upbringing in which crying and making a fuss were scolded too. As became clear in later sessions, Marjorie not only had a blockage with tears but also with any lighter feeling such as joking, laughing or showing affection, even at the age of forty-six.
Before our session Marjorie knew she had a blockage in her life but she had not understood what it was all about. The session had helped her clarify that when she was about to experience tears and other emotions a black cloud of guilt descended and blotted out her feelings. Also she had not seen how closely linked her emotional reactions were to experiences in her childhood. She had assumed that, because they were so many years ago, they no longer exerted any influence over her. She now realized that her childhood experiences had taught her that expressing feelings openly was selfish, childish, bad and an embarrassment to others. Over the next few sessions, as Marjorie began to reject this phony guilt and allow herself to cry and show affection, she broke free of the emotional restraints that had blighted her life for many years.
Suppression

To keep a stiff upper lip: Vb. keep calm, compose oneself, keep cool; master one s feelings, keep one s hair on; not turn a hair, not bat an eyelid; be patient, show restraint, forbear; put up with, stand, tolerate, bear, endure, support, suffer, abide; grin and bear it; brook, take it from, swallow, digest, stomach, pocket.
Roget s Thesaurus
The stiff upper lip belongs especially to Britain. The British are apparently renowned throughout the world for their mastery over the lip. But wait - what about Princess Di s funeral? What about t