Much has been said about negative emotions, how we should control our lives by our thoughts; that if we can only change our thought patterns then our behaviour, our mental well-being, even our physical health, will benefit.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) re-emerged as the therapy yielding the most successful results, but is this always the case? Should we be curbing and controlling our “negative” emotions all the time? Is it actually healthy to push these thoughts and feelings underground and try to replace them with happy positive substitutes?
Sometimes, it seems the whole advice on this matter has gone a step too far. I’ve often heard advocates of certain therapies advise clients to avoid mixing with negative people. It is advised they drain your energy. It is advised only mix with people who are positive and successful and to surround yourself with the types of people you aspire to be like. However, in the wrong context and taken too far, doesn’t this just result in a selfish, unempathetic, closed-off, and unrealistic world? Is it not more honest to acknowledge and address our anger, shame, guilt, envy, jealousy, fear, grief, despair…….?
“The inability to tolerate grief, fear and despair… […]… is a major feature of the epidemic of addictions to alcohol, drugs, technology, entertainment, work, sex, etc that afflict our civilisation”… In her book “Healing through the dark emotions” Miriam Greenspan cites aborted grief, fear, and despair as being at the root of the psychological disorders of our time. She claims the inability to face up to and sit with these difficult emotions leads to chronic depressions, addictions, irrational violence and psychic numbing.
Greenspan argues that no emotions are actually negative. She mentions how when grief, fear, or despair are denied or suppressed, they are easily masked and converted to the harder emotions of anger and rage. For example: used constructively and with self-control, anger can foster self-empowerment. However, it can also shield ones’ vulnerability. Greenspan states much of the anger and violence we see in today’s world hides a deep need for a lesson in how to tolerate and befriend grief, fear, and despair. These can, if treated intelligently, evolve as gratitude, joy and faith; a process Greenspan calls “the alchemy of dark emotions”.
Greenspan, M (2003) Healing Through the Dark Emotions, Boston USA: Shambhala
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