Could you tell me a bit more about the kind of work that you are doing?

I’m a psychologist and I see children, young adults, and some adults. I help them with psychological issues, such as depression, and anxiety, but also ADHD and autism.

When we spoke before, you told me that a lot of issues that people are struggling with when they go into therapy, have to do with emotions. Why do you think people find it so hard to deal with their emotions?

I think that in the society we live in, we do not have much time to think about our emotions and to feel them. Also, we aren’t taught about it in school or by our parents. That is why I think it is a topic that doesn’t get enough attention in our lives.

What kind of function do our emotions have?

I think emotions direct our behavior. So, when we feel emotions, we know what to do. We know what decisions to make. If we don’t feel them, we have nothing to direct us to what we need or to what we want. That is why emotions are really important to feel. Like for example, anger. When you feel angry, you know someone went over your boundaries and you need to set your boundaries. So, if you do not feel the anger, you do not know that you need to set those boundaries again. All of our emotions are really important to feel so that they can direct our behavior.

We are making a lot of decisions based on our rationality. With this, are you saying that rationality is not as important as we think it is in our decision-making?

That is not entirely what I mean. I rather think we underestimate the importance of emotions. Being rational is really important as well. For example, when we feel angry, we need our rationality to pick the right behavior. Otherwise, when you just feel angry it could be that you get aggressive and hit someone. Our rationality tells us not to do that but to instead express our anger with words. Therefore, I think both emotions and rationality are really important but they do need to be in balance.

How about when we are feeling different emotions at the same time? For example, when we want to make a decision we feel happy about, but know that it will hurt another person. In that case, we would need to choose between our happiness and guilt. How do we know which emotion we should be listening to then? 

It will probably be different in every situation to which emotions you will listen most, but I think it’s really important to think about what will help you as a person and also to not forget about yourself. I think in the way we live now we forget about ourselves a lot and we think a lot about other people. That is especially the case when we have children and a partner. We think about taking care of them first and sometimes in that, we forget about ourselves. So, what you should ask yourself are questions such as: How can I help myself, what will be the consequences for others, and is it worth the consequence for me? Does it make me happy enough to make this decision?

Feeling angry and sad or even feeling afraid are really important emotions to feel, but sometimes through life, we learn to not feel those emotions and to not express them. Like for example, think of a sad child who feels the urge to cry. Some parents would hit that child as a response. In that case, there is a realistic chance that the child would start to associate the feeling of sadness with anxiety because he or she would expect to get hit by his or her parents.

So those kinds of children would learn certain behaviors to not feel that anxiety and that sad feeling. It could lead to for example unhealthy eating behavior or self-blame. When the latter is the case, children can start to feel angry with themselves just to not feel their sadness and anxiety. When these kids become adults, they might perform self-destructive behavior when they feel anger towards themselves, while not being aware that they are actually scared or are feeling sad.

So, if I understand correctly, they are kind of taking over the role of their parents when they are adults. They start punishing themselves because they’re used to being punished. They associate having negative emotions with punishment.

For example, yes.

In short, are you saying that when people are experiencing different emotions at the same time it’s important for them to listen to all of them because they should all be used in making decisions? What is the value of a negative emotion such as anger and sadness? Why is it important to express those types of emotions?

Well, I think they’re all activating emotions, so when we are angry, it means that someone crossed our boundaries and we need to set them again. When we feel sad, there is something terrible we’ve been through that we need to process. But, if we do not feel that anger or sadness, we do not process the situation or we do not set boundaries so we can change the situation for the better. If we do not feel those emotions, they build up.

Sometimes I use the analogy of a bucket when I work with younger children. In this context, water is the emotion that fills the bucket. So, the water fills up until it flows over. And when it flows over, trouble starts. When that happens, we can no longer control our behavior so we become extremely angry or sometimes we might even get depressed. This is why we need to empty our bucket in time.

Let’s talk a bit about trigger points. When we experience those, we experience negative emotions such as anger. Still, sometimes we are able to point out what is happening to us through words. Still, next time we might get triggered by the same thing. How do we prevent ourselves from experiencing those trigger points in the first place?

I think it depends. In certain situations, it is really healthy to feel emotions like anger or sadness. For example, when someone yells at you and calls you names it’s perfectly healthy to get angry. I wouldn’t recommend not trying to feel your anger. But sometimes through life, we might get into certain situations that do a lot to us. When we get older, we might get into a situation that reminds us of that trauma. Then, we might feel emotions that do not really fit into that situation. Like for example extreme anger. That has to do with something we have been through earlier on.

Referring back to your question, it is possible to not feel those emotions again. But most people do need a little bit of help with that. A therapist helps you for example by talking about these earlier situations so you can process them. Then, when you get into new situations that used to trigger those earlier experiences, you won’t be triggered anymore. But it is pretty hard to do that by yourself.

What kind of intervention do you have with the client to help him or her with his or her trigger point?

Well, trauma is mostly about a situation that we haven’t processed yet. It is something that we have suppressed and try to forget. During the sessions, we mostly focus on processing a situation by talking about it and by exposing ourselves to those memories. A therapist guides you in that process. It is mostly exposing ourselves to those memories so we can process them properly. It is about feeling the emotion you are feeling about that memory right now and back then. Also, it is about accepting how you behaved, how you acted, and what happened to you.

Do you think accepting something is the same as forgiving someone?

No, I think accepting that it happened is that you can look at the memory and you can process it. With acceptance, you don’t feel the need to push that memory away anymore. Forgiveness is forgiving a person who did something to you and that is another step. Sometimes people don’t get there. Also, sometimes people do not want to get there. Regardless, that decision is up to them.

How about accepting things that you did yourself? We spoke before about guilt. How does that work? A lot of things we discussed before, had to do with the external world but this one really has to do with an internal struggle. How do you accept things about yourself that you don’t feel good about?

That has more to do with feeling compassion towards yourself. Then, you focus on trying to understand why you made a certain decision at that moment in your life. Sometimes we also really look back at our childhood and see how certain behaviors and patterns came into existence in our life so that we can understand why we made that decision. When you understand it better, you can also feel more compassion towards yourself and forgive yourself for the decision you made at that time.

In our society why do you think we are dealing with emotions in such a self-destructive way?

I think in this society we have certain opinions about emotions. What I see, for example, is that men and boys have a certain idea of manhood and in that idea, there’s no room for feeling scared or feeling sad. This is why they try to suppress those emotions, even though those are really healthy emotions to feel. Imagine standing in front of a lion and not feeling scared. You would get eaten. If you feel scared, you know you will need to remove yourself from the situation. You would need to get somewhere safe.

I think there are certain ideas of how we should behave and how we should be and that does not always leave room for all the emotions we actually feel. In certain circles and societies, they see feelings and expressing emotions as weak. In those cases, people tend not to show them, to make sure they aren’t viewed as weak. For that reason, if you want to change, it can be difficult with certain people around you who do not accept those emotions. Therefore, sometimes we also talk about making new friends for example, or finding other ways to express them. So, it also has a lot to do with the people around you and how they feel towards expressing emotions.

What would you say is a good way for women to deal with the sadness or anger they witness in men? 

Encourage it. Let it be there and tell them it is okay. That you do not view them as weak or as less of a man. In my personal opinion, I think it is really strong to be able to show those emotions and to be able to feel your vulnerability because it takes a lot of strength to cry and to say how you feel. It takes so much more strength than to suppress it. As women, we should encourage that and talk about it. We should tell them it’s okay and let them know that we still love and accept them when they show their vulnerability.

This is something I really recognize myself. I personally noticed that I find it very hard to express negative emotions. It feels more natural to me to suppress emotions like sadness. For example, to me, it feels like it is not safe to cry. Once you know where it comes from, what is the next step? What can people do themselves in order to feel safe with feeling negative emotions?

It might not be what you want to hear but it’s mostly just trying it out. Feel the anxiety you feel when you get sad and try to take baby steps. So, for example, next time you feel sad and you feel like crying but you are with someone else and you notice that you start to suppress it, try to say how you feel. Try to feel what you are comfortable with. Try it out and see how the other person reacts. Then, next time you might feel more comfortable with showing a bit more of your emotions. Accept that it is you feeling scared and that it is okay to feel scared in those situations.

That is really good advice that I think people could really implement. At the same time, though, it sounds like being able to take those steps really depends on the people we have around us. 

That is correct. I think you should start with someone you feel comfortable with and who you think can accept those emotions from you. Don’t pick just anyone. It is normal to select the people to whom you show your vulnerability.

So, what we should do if we aren’t able to express our emotions is to try to put them into words. In that way, we find out whether it is a safe thing to do with that person. This sounds like a very long and difficult process.

It is. Your patterns probably existed for a long time. It takes a lot of time to unlearn what you have learned. It will take time and a lot of courage and a lot of strength. Sometimes we won’t be able to express it and we might sometimes fall back a bit, but it is a process. It will work. People can change.

What kind of role would you say a parent plays in this situation? We learn a lot of things subconsciously when we are younger. Do you think we can only really process things when we are able to express those emotions with the ones from whom we have learned our behavior?

I think it will be different for everyone. It depends a lot on your parents as well. Some parents will be able to respond positively towards you expressing those emotions, but some of them are not. This might have to do with what they have learned as a child or because of what they have been through in life. You know your parents best so that would be something you would need to decide for yourself.

We can also take baby steps with our parents. Try to express how you feel in words a bit and see how it lands. See how they react and see if that is what you need. If that is what helps you, you can take it a bit further. If the response is not what helps and doesn’t give you what you need in this process, then maybe it is a good thing to ask yourself whether your parents are able to help you in this process. If they aren’t, try to focus on the good sides of your relationship. So, the things that do connect you and the positive things you can get from them. Focus on what they can give you and try to accept that the relationship is what it is.

I personally also think it has got to do with having compassion for your parents. If your parents do not provide you with that safe environment, it might also have to do with the fact that they aren’t able to. 

That is true. And that doesn’t mean that they don’t love you.

Are there any other misconceptions about emotions that you want to point out?

It is mostly what we just talked about. The largest misconception I hear is that we should not feel certain emotions and that certain emotions aren’t allowed to be there. I think every emotion is important and is allowed to be there. Once you allow all the emotions that you are feeling, you are able to empty your bucket. It gives you space to think, to feel, and to see things more clearly. Every emotion has its own function. Feeling sad is to process something that happened to you. Next, feeling angry is to set your boundaries because someone crossed them. Feeling scared means that you might be in a situation that is threatening. They all have a really important function.