The Emotional Self

What is Emotion?

Marsha Linehan (1993) as quoted by Dijk (2012) describes emotion as a “full-system

response”. Linehan explains that emotion does not only include the way an individual feels but
also the way the person thinks, and the physiological reactions he or she experiences. For
example, when one experiences the emotion of fear, aside from feeling afraid, one also
experiences shortness of breath, increase heart rate and other physiological changes. The person
also thought about many things like the need to flee or hide.
In addition, McKay, Wood and Brantley defined emotions as signals within your body that
tell you what is happening. According to these authors, emotions is like an instant news service
that gives you constant update about what the person is doing and experiencing. Emotions could
be our source of information about what is happening in our body and our environment. For
example, a person will feel good or happy if he experiences something pleasurable. On the other
hand, a person will feel anger when being offended.
Furthermore, Ian Burkitt, a sociologist, defined emotions as a pattern of relationships,
processes of embodied evaluation that tells us what or whom is of importance to us in the various
situations that compose our lives. For Burkitt, emotions are both bodily and cognitive
phenomena. Similar to Linehan’s definition.
Lastly, Eich (2015) posited that emotions are not positive or negative, nor it is good or
bad. For her, all emotions are normal part of being a human thus, there is no right or wrong way
to have them. She further stated that emotions do not last forever, as it naturally come and go.
When one experience an emotion, the natural response is to try to get rid of that emotion.
However, this is not being realistic for emotion plays an important role in our life.
Emotions are a normal part of being a human (Eich, J. 2015). We cannot run away from
emotions. Emotions are not positive or negative, good or bad, or right or wrong. If we are going
to label our emotions as bad, or negative, this can keep us from feeling our emotions.
The Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) explains that we are born with emotions wired
into our brain. The expression of our emotions is similar across cultures.

What makes emotion important?

Emotions helps us in three ways. The Dialectic Behavior Therapy of Linehan, outline three
(3) jobs of emotions, these are:
1. Communication. Emotions help the individual be able to communicate well to
others. Emotions are communicated most powerfully by our face, voice tone and
volume, postures, and gestures. Through the person’s facial expression and body
language (non-verbal expression of emotions) that are evoked once an individual
experiences something, other individuals can recognize the emotion of others.
Through this, the individual can respond appropriately to the person’s emotion.
 2. Motivation. Emotions according to Dijk (2012) prompts a person to act. It tells the
individual to “act” and to “stay focused” in certain situations. It also save as time in
important situations. For example, when one sees a mean dog, it won’t take a long
time for him/her to think and run away from the dog. Our emotions like fear for
example, saves us when our life is threatened.
3. Information. Emotions can be signals or alarms in certain situations. It provides the
individual with information even before the brain has process the situation (Dijk,
2012). Take into consideration the time you walk in an eerie place and saw a
shadowy figure ahead of you. Your brain signals you to be afraid, but before it can
process what it is, you run away from it. This task of emotion is said to be what has
helped us survived in threatening situations.

Moreover, Mckay, Wood and Brantly (2007) explains that emotions are signals that help
the individual do to:

1. Survive
2. Remember people and situation
3. Cope with situation in daily life
4. Communicate with others
5. Avoid pain
6. Seek pleasure

The Emotional Self

The Embodiment Theory (Reed and Moody, 2018)

According to this theory, we use our own bodily experience and processes to understand
our own emotional experience, and the experience of others – has provided a mechanism to help
us understand emotional processing. This theory emphasizes the impact of the body on
emotional experience and postulates that emotions are constructed from multi-modal inputs. In
other words, emotions are caused by many factors (inner experiences, society).

Ian Burkitt said “Humans are understood as embodied emotional selves for who thought
and emotion are intertwined”. According to Burkitt, emotions are associated with certain bodily
feelings and also our reflective consciousness that we are able to verbalize and reflect on.
However, these bodily feelings and reflective consciousness will not make sense without a
specific relational context. In addition, feelings and emotions not only make our lives meaningful
but it is also an act of discernment that expresses what we like, dislike, love, or hate. So this
emotional self is something that we cannot separate from the environment because we come
into contact with our environment and our society.
 Furthermore, Burkitt said that “It is within relations and communicative interactions with
others to whom we are directed that the emotional self is formed”. And although feelings and
emotions are themselves evaluations that develop through interactions with others and can
become embodied as dispositions, we also make evaluations about our feelings and emotions.
He also said that “Emotional self arises through embodied social interactions”.

Regardless of our social status, age, sex and or gender preferences, we have different
kinds of emotions. When one is in a situation that is distressing, the individual experiences
negative feelings and bodily reactions. On the contrary, one feels good when something
pleasurable is being experienced. Our initial reaction to a situation is called as the primary
emotion and our response to the primary emotion, or our emotional reaction to an emotion is
called the secondary emotion. Secondary emotions may be a combination of the primary
emotions and it is a learned emotion. For example, when someone accuses us about something,
we instantly feel angry (primary emotion) about it and hurt the person. However, after a while we
feel guilty (secondary emotion) because of our response to the accusation of the other person.

There are emotions that cause common response or reactions in human beings, but
individuals respond to emotional situation differently. The urge to do something is a natural part
of having any emotion. However, this urge to do something in a particular situation may or may
not be the same to other person’s urges (Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Handbook, 2004).
We cannot control our immediate feelings towards the situation. What we need to control is how
to respond to the extreme feelings that we are experiencing.

Recognizing our emotion, is one of the best responses when we are experiencing
heightened emotion. This kind of response helps us to effectively decide on what to do with our
situation. It is sad to note though that few people recognize or pay attention to how they feel.
This results to a little knowledge of the many important things that are happening to them.
Before they recognize this, it is too late to do something about it (Mckay, Wood and Brantly
,2007).

Adolescent Emotions

Contrary to popular views of adolescence, the research of Offer and Schonert-Reichl in 1992
suggests (In Lahey, p. 1999, 355) that about 80 to 85 percent of adolescents experience a
relatively happy youth, marked by mostly good relationship with both peers and parents.
Another 15 to 20 percent of adolescents, however, experience a difficult, tumultuous
adolescence marked by serious emotional or behavior problems. This may seem like a high
percentage, but it is about the same as the percentage of both children and adults who are
estimated to experience significant emotional distress. Therefore, compared to when they were
children and when they will be adults, adolescents do not appear to be more likely to experience
severe emotional turmoil. This is because it is when the part of the brain that is called striatum
is very active, or this is the part of the brain that is the seat of pleasure. Adolescents are very
particular to highly rewarding and pleasurable activities.

There are two important reasons, however, why it is still may be fair to say that adolescence is a
time of heightened emotional stress. First, the topics over which parents and normal teenagers
have conflict are often more upsetting to both sides. It is common for adolescents to wish to be
with peers instead of at home, and there is a marked increase during adolescence of risky
behaviors, such as unsafe automobile driving, unprotected sex, and alcohol and drug use. This is
because during the first few years of our life, our parents or our families are our significant others.
But during adolescence, it changes from family to peers. Adolescence is a time when we socialize
with others and establish our identity by forming relationships with peers . Second, although the
overall rates of serious emotional difficulties do not change from childhood to adolescence
(about 15 to 20% at all ages), there are changes in the kinds of difficulties that youth with serious
difficulties experience. These adolescents may experience difficult experiences such as problems
with the family or sibings. From there, an adolescent may experience internalizing behaviors such
as anxiety or depression and externalizing behavior such as aggression, defiance, and impulsivity.
During childhood, boys are more likely to have problems than girls. From the onset of puberty,
however, severe episodes of depression, the eating disorder called anorexia nervosa, several
kinds of anxiety conditions, and suicide increase ten-fold. The increase rates in depression,
anxiety, and eating disorders are mostly in girls (Buchanan et al., 1998).

Parent-Adolescent Relationship

According to Matějček, Dytrych (1998) and Čáp (1995) among the factors of family environment
is constellation of the family (completeness, numerousness, sibling constellation), social status
of the family (occupation, employment, finance and material sources), age and personal
characteristic of the family members, the quality of the marital relation, the relation among
the family members. The factors as emotional warmth, conflicts and cohesiveness in the family
can also influence risk behavior of adolescent.

Most of studies cited that during adolescence problems focus on parent-adolescent conflict
(Smetana, 1995). Studies indicate that pubertal maturation leads to a more egalitarian
relationship between adolescents and their parents, with adolescents having more autonomy
and influence in family decision-making. There is also evidence that conflict between adolescents
and parents, especially mothers, increases around the onset of puberty. It was once believed that
this conflict subsided as adolescents matured; however, there is now less certainty that parent-
child conflict declines in later adolescence (Laursen et al., 1998; Sagrestano et al., 1999). Basically
an individual loses the value of living when stress, cognitive immaturity, and lack of emotional
bonding interact and overwhelm an individual's ability to cope. By Wagner et al. (1995)
adolescents who demonstrated poor attitudes to living and had a tendency to suicidal ideation,
reported significantly more stress related to parents, lack of adult support outside the home, and
sexual identity than did control groups.
Interestingly, the peer’s daily influence on daily life and problems increases, for an important
decision or critical situation adolescent prefers parents more often than peers (Macek &
Lacinová, 2006). The quality of the relation parent-adolescent is linked to the quality of the
relation with peers too. The high parents control and strictness often leads to the enlarged peer
orientation and to the looking for the alliance against parents. Moreover bad relation with parent
increases amount of peers, but it has nothing to do with the quality of those relations (Dekovic
& Meeus, 1993, In Macek, 2003, p. 56).

Peer Group

Adolescents show marked changes in their social relationships. Adolescence is a time of drifting
and sometimes of breaking away from the family unit. While relationship with peers become
increasingly important through late childhood, by adolescence peers have become the most
important people in the individual’s life. The rejection of peers can lead adolescent into risky
behavior like alcohol use, drugs, small transgressions (Lahey, 1995; Prokopčáková, 2000).

As peers influence becomes more powerful than parental influence, adolescents begin to adopt
the values, attitudes, style of dress, and language of their peers. Sometimes peer influence is in
direct opposition to the wishes of the parents, resulting in painful conflict – which reaches its
height at about the ninth grade – as parents attempt to reassert their authority (Lahey, 1995).

Friendship shows development during adolescence especially as the need for negotiation and
discourse evolve in the service of cooperation. Adolescents think that friends no longer have to
be alike in all features but are different individuals. Adolescents deal with differences by
exploiting them in discourse which was used for mutual clarification, they view friendship as a
principled relationship which serves their interests and does not require defensiveness.
Friendship allows adolescents to explore aspects of themselves with the guarantee of feedback
from a sympathetic critic (Bosma & Jackson, 1990).

Dealing with Our Emotional Self

Adolescence is a turbulent time of development because of biological, psychological, and social

changes. Thus, understanding our emotional self is important. Emotional Regulation is defined
as an attempt to influence emotion. This regulation can occur for both positive and negative
emotions but it is often used to negate the impact of an unpleasant emotion.

Two forms of emotional regulation:

1. Cognitive Reappraisal – involves evaluation of the situation prior to making personal

evaluation about it. We manage how we feel by using reason to appraise the situation.
This approach can be very helpful because it allows us to be logical in situations.
 2. Suppression – involves denial and masking of facial expressions to hide one’s current
emotional state. When we try to hide pain, the feeling may feel less painful. In
suppression, you are aware and you control your emotions. In some situations,
expressing our emotions may not always have positive outcomes. However, there are
also cases wherein we have to express what we truly feel. Suppression of our
emotions may be useful when we try to avoid escalating the current situation that we
are in.

Self-Esteem is defined as how you feel about yourself as a person – your overall judgment of
yourself. It is a measure of how much we like and approve of our self-concept. Another way of
thinking about it is that self-esteem is how much respect you have for yourself, while self-image
is how you see yourself. Your self-esteem may be high or low, depending on how much you like
or approve of yourself. Our feelings of self-worth form the core of our personality and nothing is
as important to our psychological well-being. The level of our self-esteem affects virtually every
aspect of our lives. How you see yourself will give others an idea about how to perceive and treat
you. Our self-esteem also affects our chosen careers, the people we make friends and enter into
relationships with, and what we do with our skills and abilities.

Many of the ideas we have about ourselves were acquired from two sources:

1. How others treated us

2. What others told us about ourselves

The Real Cause of Low Self-Esteem or Negative Self-Image

The primary cause of low-self-esteem or negative self-image probably goes back to childhood.
Negative parental behavior and messages can have a profound effect on our self-esteem.
Inadequate, unhealthy childhood experiences can affect the formation of a child’s identity, self-
concept, and level of self-esteem. Research shows that the single most important factor in
determining self-esteem is the parents’ style of child rearing during the first 3 years of life.

When the parents are not empathic, when the parents are neglectful, disciplines their children
in a harsh manner, this can affect a child’s self-esteem in a negative way and grow insecure and
self-critical.
 Reconnect with Your Body and Your Emotions

According to Marianne Woodman, what you know in your head will not sustain you in moments
of crisis. Confidence comes from body awareness, knowing what you feel in the moment. The
most effective way to reclaim all your emotions (pain, anger ear, guilt, shame, joy, and love) is to
begin to pay attention to your body. Even when you unconsciously repress your feelings, your
body remembers them. These are called body memories. For example, when you feel that your
heart is beating fast, you may feel anxious or nervous because your brain is capable of associating
that bodily experience with a traumatic or sad experience that you went through in the past. Your
body remembers if you are rejected, neglected, or received pain when you were young. In
addition, our body would experience different sensations with different emotions.

It is important for you to listen to your body or allow yourself to reconnect with your body to
express and release all the pain that you may have experienced during childhood. One of the
most effective ways of discovering who you are is to pay attention to your emotions. Some would
even define self-awareness as being conscious of our moods and our thoughts about our moods.

According to Daniel Goldman, self-awareness -- recognizing a feeling as it happens – is the

keystone of emotional intelligence… the ability to monitor feelings from moment to moment is
crucial to psychological insight and understanding… People with greater certainty about their
feelings are better pilots of their lives, having a surer sense of how they really feel about personal
decisions.

Unfortunately, for many who have been neglected and abused in childhood, emotions are a
frightening thing because it may remind a person of how he or she is treated before. That is why
people who are survivors of abuse and neglect tend to deny or repress their emotions. Many
people are also so overwhelmed that their emotions become their enemies. Dysfunctional
behaviors, including abusive or victim like patterns, substance abuse, and suicidal tendencies, are
often attempts to cope with intolerably painful emotions. However, reconnecting with feelings
can provide a person with strength, courage, and joy. Once we reconnect with these emotions,
it can empower us to take better care of ourselves and raise our self-esteem.

Learning about Yourself through Your Emotions

The key to learning about yourself through your emotions is to experience them without
inhibiting, judging, or avoiding them by distracting yourself. This is called being mindful. Being
mindful of our emotions will help us discover who we really are.
Fill Up Your Emptiness with Your Own Feelings

Survivors of neglect or abuse tend to have low-self-esteem and have feelings of incompleteness
and inadequacy. Because of this, they tend to find something outside of themselves for a sense
of completion like romantic love as a solution to these empty feelings. However, it is important
to note that no one can complete you, except you.

Shedding Your Idealized Self-Image and Embracing Who You Really Are

Idealized Self-Image includes personal standard of action, thought, behavior, feeling,

appearance, and accomplishment. Achieving this idealized self-image may be difficult. Why?
Striving for this idealized self-image may bring parental approval as a child but when you grow
up, it may not bring you inner peace. You may ask yourself “How about me? Am I happy with this
idealized image?”. The strain of constantly comparing ourselves with what is ideal may provoke
anxiety and may be exhausting because striving for what is ideal is impossible. We are bound to
fail, find ourselves lacking or not good enough. This sets us up for more shame and guilt. As an
adult who is developing, you may check if your idealized image gives you peace, confidence, or
anxiety. If it makes you feel anxious, then it is best to embrace who you truly are in a way that
you become a better version of yourself.