Emotion Regulation Psychotherapy

The core essence of emotional regulation psychotherapy has never been to "eliminate negative emotions" or "force oneself to be emotionally stable at all times", but to help people establish a flexible response model to coexist with emotions through a set of practical training - you will not be led away by sudden emotions to make impulsive decisions, nor will you deliberately suppress your emotions and cause physical and mental problems. Currently, the intervention paths of the mainstream schools have different focuses, and there is no absolute "optimal solution". Matching the individual's personality and life scenes is the prerequisite for effectiveness.

An Internet operator who just finished my long-distance consultation last month came to see me. He had been banging the table with his colleagues over trivial matters for half a year, or he would hide in the garage and cry for half an hour after get off work before he dared to go home. Breast nodules and thyroid nodules appeared on the physical examination report. When she first came to me, she wanted a "method to quickly control her emotions." She said that deep breathing and counting numbers taught on the Internet didn't work, and the more she counted, the more annoying she became.

Five years ago, I might have given her a CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) thought record sheet when she came up, asking her to write down all the triggering events and thoughts that came to her mind every time she was angry, and find the irrational beliefs in them. After all, the core logic of the classic CBT school is that emotions are not caused by the event itself, but by your perception of the event. Once you adjust your cognition, your emotions will naturally stabilize. But after doing many cases in the past few years, I found that this method is easy to use for people who are willing to review and have a strong sense of logic, but for people who have been exhausted by work, it is simply an extra KPI. She sent me a message after filling it out twice and said, "Consultant, I really can't fill it out anymore. I don't even want to wash my face after get off work. I am even more annoyed by having to write this."

Later, I stopped asking her to fill it out and switched to mindfulness-oriented grounding training. There was no need to memorize or write down. Every time I felt emotionally overwhelmed, I would touch the lemon candy in my pocket and follow the 5-4-3-2-1 perception exercises: count 5 things that can be seen in front of my eyes, 4 things that can be touched with my hands, 3 sounds that can be heard by the ears, 2 smells that can be smelled by the nose, and 1 taste that can be tasted in the mouth. She tried it once and said it worked. Last time her boss @ her in the group to change the plan, she had already put her hands on the resignation report document. After touching the candy and doing a round of practice, she was able to calm down and reply, "I will sort out the revision ideas and come back to you in half an hour to align them."

In fact, there have always been differences in the direction of intervention in emotion regulation in the industry. Many counselors in the CBT school think that mindfulness methods "treat the symptoms but not the root cause". They only temporarily suppress emotions. The underlying irrational beliefs have not changed, and they will still explode next time.； But mindfulness-oriented practitioners will retort that if a person is already at the peak of his emotions, if you ask him to review his own problems, isn't that just adding salt to the wound? It is humane to calm down your emotions first before talking about anything else. I personally don’t think there is any need to argue about right and wrong. Just like when you have a cold, some people take ibuprofen for quick results, and some people take cold medicine and feel more comfortable. Whatever suits you is fine.

There are also many people who think that emotional regulation means "keeping calm at all times." I met a middle school teacher a while ago. He has been a class teacher for almost 10 years. He has always regarded "emotional stability" as a professional rule. No matter how big the trouble is, his students remain expressionless. As a result, he was diagnosed with chronic gastritis last year and took medicine for almost half a year. Later, during consultation, I discovered that every time she got angry, she would hold back the anger and the anger would be blocked in her stomach. Later, I told her that she didn’t need to force herself to endure it, and put a stress relief ball in the office. If the student gets angry again, just go back to the office and squeeze the ball for 5 minutes, or just curse at the empty cup. She tried it for two months, but the stomach medicine stopped. You see, deliberately pursuing emotional stability has become another kind of emotional internal friction. This is also the point of view that ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) has always emphasized: emotions themselves are not good or bad, and your strength to fight against them is the biggest source of internal friction.

In the 7 years I have been doing consulting, I have seen too many people regard emotional regulation as a test to get full marks. They feel that they have "failed in practice" when they occasionally get angry. They feel that they have psychological problems after being emoticon for more than two days. In fact, it is really unnecessary. The ultimate goal of emotional regulation is not that you will never be angry or sad again, but that you have the right to choose: before, if you were scolded by your boss, you would slam the table and resign on the spot. Now you can choose to hand over the job first, then go to the boxing gym to punch a punch bag for an hour to vent your anger. ； In the past, if you were heartbroken, you would stay at home and cry for a week without going to work. Now you can choose to go to work during the day and go home at night to cry until you feel happy. You will not let your emotions disrupt your entire life rhythm. This is enough.

Oh, by the way, there are many people selling "emotion management courses" online now. They tell you that if you learn it, you will be emotionally stable forever. Don't believe it. If there is someone who can live a lifetime without mood swings, he is not a human, he is a robot. We ordinary people can win over most people if we can avoid being led by our emotions and can quickly pull ourselves back from the occasional emotional breakdown.