Emotional Analysis
- Understanding and Decoding the Information in Your Emotions

Introduction:
We are educated to believe that emotion is bad. Emotion, we are told, clouds the intellect and interferes with the objective analysis of facts. We understand that excessive emotions like intense anger have tremendous power to damage the complex social relationships on which we rely. So they do. However, this is only part of the story.

In this article, we make a working assumption that negative emotions are similar to the fight-or-flight reflex, in that they are an evolutionary "short cut" that prepares us to react to a situation much more quickly than we could if we had to carefully think each situation through.

Emotion as an "Early Warning Signal"

We assume that emotions give us the benefit of a speedy, and more-often-than-not effective response to simple situations, at the cost of a sophisticated response to more complex ones. As such, negative emotions are a useful early warning signal that something may be wrong.

If instant action is required, then we may choose to act. If it is not, these negative emotions can alert us to something we need to pay attention to. We can then use more sophisticated techniques to understand the situation in appropriate detail.

“‘Emotional Analysis” is an approach we use to start to understand and decode these negative emotions. It helps us get to the root of why we are experiencing a particular emotion, and understand the imperfect information that it may be communicating to us.

We can then either rescript the negative emotions that are based on incorrect assumptions or, if assumptions turn out to be correct, can learn from the early warning signals we have received.

The Rationality of Emotion

Emotional Analysis assumes that we experience different negative emotions for different, very rational reasons. It assumes that each emotion has its own underlying set of assumptions, and that we experience a particular emotion because we are making a particular set of assumptions about a situation we are experiencing.

In fact, according to the theory, there are six main automatic assumptions that can lie beneath negative emotions. These are shown in figure 1 below. The emotions we experience in difficult situations depend on which of these assumptions or factors apply. The assumptions behind some common emotions are shown in figure 2 below.

For example, if we were using this tool to understand why we were becoming angry with someone about a situation, we would probably find that we were making the following assumptions:

• That someone or something is preventing us from achieving a goal that is important to us;
• That we feel that this is damaging our self-esteem, or that it is hurting people, objects or ideas that we think are important; and
• That the person we are getting angry with is responsible for this situation.

Using the Tool:
Emotional Analysis is a useful staring point for understanding our own strong emotions, as well as those of others. It helps us to see whether the emotions we're experiencing are alerting us to important information, or whether they are incorrectly founded or an over-reaction to the circumstances.

To use the tool, follow these steps:

• Relax! Once you recognized the emotion, you need to let it pass so you can think clearly and objectively. If you are able to, use the relaxation techniques we explain elsewhere on this site to calm down.
• Identify the assumptions you are making: Start by using the list of assumptions shown in figure 1. Using this as a checklist, work through it and identify the assumptions that you are making. Once you have done this, identify any other assumptions (not on the list) that are influencing the emotion.
• Challenge the assumptions: Approaching each of the assumptions one-by-one, challenge it rationally to see whether the assumption is correct or not. Figure 2 shows examples of some of the emotions that you might experience, the assumptions that lie behind them, and the challenges that you might make to these assumptions.
  
  

  With each challenge, identify whether the assumptions you have made are correct or incorrect. If it helps with this, imagine as you make each challenge that you are your own best friend – do not be harsh with yourself. Be fair.

• Take action appropriately: Where your assumptions are incorrect, the negative emotions should change or disappear as soon as you acknowledge this.
  
  

  Where assumptions either have some element of truth to them or are fully correct, then you need to recognize this. Think through what you need to do to manage these situations. This may include drawing on skills explained elsewhere on this site.
  

  Where you are sure of the foundation of the negative emotion, then you have the option to use it for good effect. For example, in the right circumstances, feeling angry can provide tremendous power and motivation. Expressing it has a shock effect that can help you achieve what you need to achieve, as long as you accept the fact that this may damage relationships.

Summary:
While acting immediately on strong emotion can often leave us looking foolish, emotion should not be discounted. While strong emotion can cause us to make mistakes, it can also act as an early warning system, alerting us to threats in our environment long before we could rationally understand what's going on.

Emotional Analysis helps us to understand the information content of our emotions. It allows us to challenge the underlying assumptions to see whether the are incorrect, or whether they are alerting us to important information that we need to recognize and act on.

To use Emotional Analysis, follow these steps:

• Relax so that you can challenge the assumptions you are making objectively
• Identify these assumptions
• Challenge them rationally and identify valid and invalid assumptions
• Take action appropriately

This tool helps us to manage emotions, the strong feelings that move us to action. The next tool (Cognitive Restructuring) is similar to this, but helps us to manage the more passive, longer-term feelings that we call moods.

Figure 2 - The Assumptions Underlying Some Negative Emotions

Descriptions of are emotions drawn from "Why We Should Think of Stress as a Subset of Emotion", Richard S Lazarus, in the Handbook of Stress (Ed Leo Golderberger and Shlomo Breznitz), 1993, The Free Press, New York

* It is difficult to know how this could be tested objectively; however, it seems reasonable to think that our distant ancestors were more likely to survive if they reacted quickly but approximately, rather than slowly but rationally! [Back up]

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