Category: sensory focus

FROM ANGER TO CHALLENGE: A STEP TWO EXAMPLE

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date September 29, 2013
4 Comments on FROM ANGER TO CHALLENGE: A STEP TWO EXAMPLE

Audrey is at a fine restaurant with her parents celebrating her law school graduation.

“Well, your mother and I are so proud of you, Audrey,” says her father.

“Thanks, Dad!”

“Now you know, Audrey, I think it best that you begin your career in my Wall Street firm,” says her father.

“Dad, we discussed this already. I’m going to get a job in the Department of Justice. I made some connections there and that’s where my heart is.”

“We discussed that several months ago, and just briefly,” her father replies. “Now that the real decision is right before you it’s time to get serious. I want to make sure you really think this out thoroughly to prevent you from doing anything foolish.”

I’m twenty-five years old now, Audrey thinks to herself. Dad should respect my decision on this. It’s my life for crying out loud!

As these thoughts fly through her mind she begins to see that her temper is rising. She takes a deep breath, and says, “Dad, I know you’re concerned about me because you love me, and I certainly love you for that. Today I just want to celebrate what I’ve accomplished. Let’s put some time aside next week to fully discuss your concerns.”

“I don’t see why we can’t discuss it now,” says her father. “We have the time right now!”

“Not now, Dad!” Audrey says firmly. “I’m not prepared for this.”

“I think Audrey is being very fair, John,” says Audrey’s mother. “It’s really Audrey’s decision. It’s her life. She agreed to discuss it with you next week. Make a time to do this and let’s get on with the celebration.”

“Okay, Audrey,” her father says with a frown. “We’ll have dinner at home next Friday, and we’ll discuss it then.”

“Thank you, Dad,” Audrey says, and she leans over and gives her father a kiss on his cheek.

Later that night, Audrey is back in her apartment. She gets comfortable in bed and begins to ponder, while imagining her friendly self is listening.

I’ve heard Dad’s arguments twenty times already! Why should I bother to listen again? I wish he would just let me make my own decisions. I’m not a baby anymore!

She pauses, and wonders what her good friend in her mind might say. “It is understandable that you are angry,” comes the imaginary reply. “Don’t you think it would be a good idea to take a few seconds to observe your internal physical sensations?”

“Oh, OK,” Audrey responds. She then closes her eyes and observes tightness in her stomach and that she is chewing on her lip. She continues to observe her internal sensations, without trying to put any words to them. Soon, her anger fades.

A wave of sleepiness comes over her.

I’ll think about this some more tomorrow, she says to herself. Heck, probably the best thing to do is to just listen to Dad once more over dinner next Friday, and then I’ll smile and tell him that I heard him out. Then I’ll declare that I’m going with a career at the Department of Justice.

She smiles, and then she slides down into her bed covers. After an hour of fitful tossing and turning, she finally falls asleep.

The next day, Audrey once again considers how to deal with her father’s concern.

OK, she thinks to herself, it’s time to try out this two-step process. First Step: Spend a few minutes going through the experience in which I became angry with Dad from a few steps back from what actually occurred, observing my distant self in the event.

After going through this experience, Audrey says to herself, I feel like I can be a little more reasonable about what happened. Now I’m determined to achieve my desire to resolve this conflict. Don’t forget that the stress I’m experiencing is normal and fulfillment is not found in easy comfort, security, and routine, but rather in the continual growth in wisdom through what is learned from negative and positive experiences of an active, changing life. Those thoughts are firing me up!

Audrey then takes a deep breath and resolves to get down to the task at hand. Is the plan I came up with yesterday sufficient? she asks herself. Hmmm. Last night I thought that the best way to handle this conflict is to just listen one more time to Dad. Aaaa, he’ll get angry with my decision and then I’ll get angry with him. I’m just not comfortable with this. That means I got to go through a bunch of other stuff to prepare,. Maybe I should just tell Dad to mind his own business and that’s that!

But then she read a Calvin and Hobbes comic that was sitting on her coffee table.

After smiling, she says to herself, I still have several days before my Friday dinner discussion with Dad. There’s no pressure to come up with an immediate plan. I think I’ll try out Step 2—Carrying out a more complete decision process. But I’m going to take another day just to put this all aside.

It’s the next day. Audrey reminds herself that she is at Step two. OK, I have to do three things to carry out a more complete decision process. First, I have to describe my anger conflict using the DIG Conflict Model. That’s easy. I desire to get a job with the Department of Justice and Dad is interfering with this by insisting I consider more thoroughly what my job options are. I think Dad is guilty of not minding his own business. Let me see if I can frame the conflict from Dad’s perspective. He desires that I go into his Wall Street firm and interfering with this he knows that I’m determined to go to work for the Department of Justice. He thinks I am guilty of being wrong because I have not thought about this as thoroughly as he would like.

Hmmm. As I think about this some more, my guess is that the real conflict Dad has with me has nothing to do with how expert I am at making these types of decisions—he really just wants me to work with him and to guide my career. But unless I address the conflict as he is now defining it, we’ll never get to the real issue.

Now, the next thing Step 2 has me doing is to go over my ABCs of Power list . Here it is. I see the first source of power is A for Advancing Skills. This source of power refers to working toward developing a talent that people you care about value.

After Audrey thinks about the other sources of power, she takes a mile walk just to relax for a while.

When she gets back to her apartment, she sits down on her couch and says to herself, Okay then, tomorrow I’m going to go to the library and spend an hour studying up on what it looks like to be an expert on making decisions. Then when I see Dad on Friday, I’ll impress him with my knowledge, and we’ll go through the decision process together. I’ll make sure that by the time the evening is over he will know that I heard him out. I’ll then summarize his position and declare my decision.

The next day, Audrey begins a search in her library’s bookshelves and comes upon a book titled Decision Making: A Psychological Analysis of Conflict, Choice, and Commitment, by Irving L Janis and Leon Mann.

On page 11, she finds that the authors extracted from an extensive literature review seven major criteria that can be used to determine whether decision-making procedures are of high quality. She writes these down:

Decision makers, to the best of their ability and within their information-processing capabilities:

1. thoroughly canvass a wide range of alternative actions;

2. survey the full range of objectives to be fulfilled and the values implicated by the choice;

3. carefully weigh whatever they know about the costs and risks of negative consequences, as well as positive consequences, that could flow from each alternative;

4. intensively search for new information relevant to further evaluation of the alternatives;

5. correctly assimilate and take account of any new information or expert judgment to which they are exposed, even when the information or judgment does not support the course of action they initially prefer;

6. reexamine the positive and negative consequences of all known alternatives, including those originally regarded as unacceptable, before making a final choice;

7. make detailed provisions for implementing or executing the chosen course of action, with special attention to contingency plans that might be required if various known risks were to materialize.

Later in the chapter, the authors review some of the research supporting this approach. Hmmm, Audrey says to herself, there’s some pretty good evidence this procedure can be helpful.

She then quickly lists the three job alternatives that made the most sense to her—a job with the Department of Justice, a job with her Dad’s Wall Street firm, or opening a private law practice in a small town. She then lists the pros and cons of each.

When Audrey finishes this, she decides that it would be a good idea to talk to some experts about what are, for each of the three alternatives, some pros and cons that she might not be aware of. She decides that the experts for this task are people who are currently working in each of the three types of jobs.

Dad is a good expert for the job as a Wall Street lawyer, she thinks to herself. I’ll have him help with this at our Friday dinner meeting. But he wants so much for me to join his firm, he’ll probably be biased, and he’ll end up playing down the negatives. It would be better to ask someone who doesn’t care if I become a Wall Street lawyer.

To track down lawyers in each type of job, Audrey emails professors from her law school that then put her in contact with former students of theirs who had gone on to careers in each of the three jobs. The discussions she has with these former students are very helpful.

By the time Audrey and her father meet for their Friday dinner, Audrey has given her career a great deal of thought. She impresses her Dad with her knowledge of what it takes to thoroughly consider her job options, the type of research that supports the procedure she had chosen, and the information that she had gathered on the specific options that she considered. She then asks her father for his input.

When her father is done, Audrey carefully summarizes what he had to say. She pauses for a good few minutes, showing her dad she is really thinking over all the information she has gathered. Then she announces her decision that she is going to stick with her initial choice, a job with the Justice Department. Her father once again objects, making a few final pleas for her to reconsider. Audrey recognizes this as negative criticism of her decision.

She pauses to think about how she can respond at level five which requires that she try to come up with some way to steer in her father’s direction. Suddenly, an idea comes to her.

After summarizing what her father had said, using her most loving voice, she says, “Dad, you make some very good points. Here’s what we’ll do. After one year of my job at the Department of Justice, you and I will meet again to discuss my career. I’ll have a lot more information by then about what I like and don’t like about that job. You’ll have a whole year to think up some new reasons for me to go into your firm. I’ll only be 26 by then, and so it won’t be too late to change my career path. And if I do decide to change, I bet at least some of the stuff I’ll be learning at the Justice Department will be helpful for a Wall Street lawyer to know.

Audrey’s father looks a little sad as she tells him of her final decision. Still, he nods, and says that he appreciates that she will remain open about the possibility of changing her decision after a year. They conclude their meeting with a sweet hug.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags ABCs of Power, anger, challenge, conflict management, conflict resolution, criticism, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, law school graduation, negative criticism, psychological maturity

anger Bullied bullying conflict management conflict resolution criticism free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum grieving insults interpersonal conflicts Name calling psychological maturity sensory focus suicide taunting teasing

Teenage Suicide and Cyberbullying: A Case Study

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date September 15, 2013
7 Comments on Teenage Suicide and Cyberbullying: A Case Study

One morning I was getting ready to write my weekly blog post when I decided to first glance over at the New York Times‘ front page. A wave of sadness washed over me as I spotted the following headline:

Girl’s Suicide Points to Rise in Apps Used by Cyberbullies

According to the Times, 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick leaped to her death after more than a year of being cyberbullied by a coterie of 15 middle-school children who urged her to kill herself.

Rebecca’s mother, Tricia Norman, said the texts her daughter was receiving were full of hate: “Why are you still alive?” “You’re ugly.”

Ms. Norman complained to school officials for several months about the bullying, and when little changed, she pulled Rebecca out of school. But because Rebecca used the phone apps ask.fm, and Kik and Voxer — the bullying continued.

A number of suicides by young people have been linked to ask.fm, and online petitions have been started to make the site more responsive to bullying. The company ultimately responded this year by introducing an easy-to-see button to report bullying and saying it would hire more moderators.

Questions have been raised about whether Rebecca’s old school, Crystal Lake Middle School, did enough last year to help stop the bullying; some of it, including pushing and hitting, took place on school grounds. The same students also appear to be involved in sending out the hate-filled online messages away from school.

Nancy Woolcock, the assistant superintendent in charge of antibullying programs for Polk County Schools, said the school received one bullying complaint from Rebecca and her mother in December about traditional bullying, not cyberbullying. After law enforcement investigated, Rebecca’s class schedule was changed. Ms. Woolcock said the school also has an extensive antibullying campaign and takes reports seriously.

But Ms. Norman said the school should have done more. Officials told her that Rebecca would receive an escort as she switched classes, but that did not happen, she said.

Given the outcome, I too wish that more had been done. It is my sincere hope that all of my readers will take a minute to pause to experience this sad loss of Rebecca.

A few months ago I published a review of the movie, “Bully.” Today, some of what I wrote back then bears repeating.

The movie’s emotional impact has been an important part of the emergence of a coalition working toward altering intolerable conditions too often regarded as “just kids being kids.”

The movie has spawned The Bully Project, an online site where people can learn more about dealing with bullying. There, kids who are bullied can learn that they are not alone. And educators can learn about how to set up a viewing of the movie for their entire school and to follow up the viewing with classroom discussions.

In one video that we can access at the site, we see an entire school going to the movie and then getting the reactions from students. One kid reports that there was not a dry eye in the auditorium. Others admitted that they had bullied, but now realized it was wrong.

As my regular readers know, also available online is this blog, From Insults to Respect. The blog can be used as a free curriculum that teaches the social skills to deal with these challenging experiences. For schools that already have an extensive antibullying program, the blog can be used to further reinforce its lessons. For schools that don’t have such a program, or has one that uses a mere one or two lessons per year, the blog can serve as an ongoing forum to promote peaceful conflict resolution techniques.

A particularly powerful way to teach skills that deal with bullying is through narratives that are designed to change the valuation of bullying to make it signify ineptitude rather than manliness. The movie, “Bully,” is one such narrative. The Cool Steve Stories, a trilogy of novels, offers another.

There we become friends with a hero that rejects bullying and yet still manages to achieve respect.

The gut-wrenching story about 12-year-old Rebecca’s suicide cries out to us that for too long we have not done enough to address the awful injustice we find in and around our schools. May her story spur us on to do better.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags anger, bullied, bullies, bullying, conflict, conflict management, criticism, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, negative criticism, suicide, taunting

anger anger venting challenge conflict management conflict resolution free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum interpersonal conflicts sensory focus

DOES VENTING ANGER FEED THE FLAME?

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date September 11, 2013
8 Comments on DOES VENTING ANGER FEED THE FLAME?

Last week we discussed the theory that anger suppression can be harmful (see ANGER SUPPRESSION VERSUS CHALLENGE). We found that there is some evidence supporting the theory, and we therefore looked at the possibility that rather than suppressing anger, we can learn to transform this mischievous experience into a state of challenge without suppression. Since a popular alternative to either suppression or challenge is venting anger, here we take a good look at it.

What do we Mean by Venting?

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of venting anger is slugging a punching bag, cushion, or bobo doll as a means to provide a safe outlet to release the energy contained in the anger. Early in my training, in one of my assigned books the author encouraged his readers to smash a pillow while imagining smashing the person with whom they are angry. Additional proposed ways to vent have been taping a picture of the person who aroused our anger onto a punching bag and then pounding it, throwing darts at the picture; smashing an object , and screaming at the top of our lungs either without any words, or by emitting curses and insults at the party who angered us.

Some people have told me that they vent when they become angry but when I asked them to describe what they do when they vent, they give me surprising answers. Here is an interesting example:

“When I vent,” replied one pleasant woman, “I stand and pray. I reach for the stars. I talk to a good friend, and I like to take comfort from a person who is genuine and understanding. Then I usually meditate… and my mom is always by my side. I never vent right at the person I have become angry at. I find a safe outlet. Venting my anger at innocent people is not an acceptable outlet either!!!”

Another writes:

“After I have excused myself from the angry situation, I go to a private place to give myself a few minutes to settle down. As I do this, I will notice my angry self chattering away, saying things like, ‘That idiot who made me angry is a stupid jerk.’ Other derogatory statements about the source of my anger may come to mind. Perhaps I will think about how I can do harm to the person my mind is insulting. I accept that this is part of the anger process, but I don’t deliberately say anything insulting to anyone; it seems to pour out of me. When it does pour out of me in this way, it feels like I am venting.

“At such times, I see if I can observe my angry self in a nonjudgmental manner. If I can’t, there is no need to punish myself. I understand that anger is a strong emotion, so I seek to be kind to myself as I go through this process—just like a good, compassionate friend would.

“From time to time, I see if I can take a few seconds to observe the physical sensations I am experiencing. The chattering in my mind may make this difficult, so if this does not happen, again I do not seek to punish myself. I just gently remind myself that observing the physical sensations I am experiencing could be useful to do if I can. Usually after a few minutes I calm down.”

And so, venting means a lot of different things to different people.

Research on Venting

In my last post I reviewed some of the research on venting directly at the person who has aroused our anger. In brief, we found some evidence that:

People who believe that freely expressing their anger will discourage future negative responding from their antagonist experience relief after anger outbursts. Those who believe that freely expressing their anger will spur even more severe threatening responses from their antagonist maintain their elevated blood pressure subsequent to angry outbursts. Those who believe kindly responses to provocation will discourage future negative responding from the antagonist experience relief after providing a kind response. Those who believe kindly responses to a provocation will lead their antagonist to take advantage of them will maintain their elevated blood pressure after providing a kind response.

But what about the research that deals with venting anger not directly at the antagonist, but at some object like a punching bag? Brad J. Bushman published an important study that seeks to answer this question (Does Venting Anger Feed or Extinguish the Flame? Catharsis, Rumination, Distraction, Anger, and Aggressive Responding, Pers Soc Psychol Bull, June 2002 28: 724–731).

He had three groups of people experience an anger arousing experience (someone providing very negative criticism of a paper they wrote). Participants in the first group vented by hitting a punching bag as long, as hard, and as many times as they wanted to. While they hit the bag, they were told to think about the other participant who had criticized their essay. For a visual aid, they were shown a photo ID of a same-sex college student described as the “other participant” on a 15-inch computer monitor. Participants in the second group also vented by hitting a punching bag as long, as hard, and as many times as they wanted to. But while they hit the bag, they were to think about becoming physically fit. As a visual aid, they were shown a photo ID of a same-sex athlete from a health magazine on a 15-inch computer monitor. Participants in the third condition did not hit the punching bag. Instead, they sat quietly for a couple minutes while the experimenter supposedly worked on the other participant’s computer. No attempt was made to reduce the anger of participants in this group. After participants in the first two groups finished hitting the punching bag and the participants in the third group sat quietly, they all reported how angry they felt. Next, they were given the chance to administer loud blasts of noise to the person who had angered them. People in the first group (those who were told to think about their antagonist while punching the bag) felt angrier than those in the other two groups. People in the first group were also the most aggressive, giving more loud blasts of noise, followed by people in the second group. Those in the third group who had sat quietly for two minutes after being negatively criticized were the least aggressive.

DISCUSSION

Whereas Bushman’s study doesn’t condemn every form of venting, the results do suggest that venting to reduce anger can be like using gasoline to put out a fire.

When people try to release their anger by hitting something, eventually they get tired, the workout leads to the release of endorphins which produces a natural high, and eventually they begin to stop the violence against the relatively safe objects. Thus, they are led to believe that they have now released all of their anger energy.

In my view, people calm down more quickly without the banging, kicking, and punching. If they want to enjoy a high from exercise while they wait for their calm to return, a good walk or run does the trick.

If you find that your angry self is using this banging, kicking, and punching approach, it is not the end of the world. Nevertheless it can be helpful to let your angry self know that there are some problems with this violent-like approach. While carrying out the hitting an object approach you are practicing actions that are very similar to violence. This makes it more likely that if you can’t get to a private place to calm down, you will display these types of behavior in public. This can come across to some as frightening and immature. Your reputation may diminish. Moreover, you may accidentally punch something that you think is soft and find that something in the softness was hard. You can injure your hand or break something valuable.

Of course, if you have practiced the mock-violence technique for a long time, it is not easy to break the habit. If you go about trying to stop in the wrong way, you will experience frustration that you can easily interpret as suppression.

It is better to first become convinced when you are not angry that you will be better off learning to substitute the mock-violent actions with something more constructive. If it doesn’t work the first time, there is no reason to turn violent toward yourself, or even insulting. Instead, be kind, and say to your “angry self” that you will get another chance to try this new approach again in the future. In time, you will find yourself getting better and better at this.

What may be a more productive way to deal with anger? I have in previous posts made some suggestions (see for example BEING A WISE FRIEND TO YOUR ANGRY SELF, PART 1, and BEING A WISE FRIEND TO YOUR ANGRY SELF, PART 2). Here’s a slightly different approach.

During the time when you have arrived at the time and place where you can fully experience your anger in private without any effort at suppression, you will find that knowing that you have eliminated the pressure of a quick response, along with the passing of time, will result in a period in which you will have calmed down enough so you are capable of a thorough job of problem solving. Begin by imagining that you have returned to the time and place of the angry experience, and you are preparing to observe the scene just as it happened. As the unfolding of the event gets underway, take a few steps back. Move away from the situation to a point where you can watch the event unfold from a distance and see yourself in the event. Focus on what has now become a distant you. Watch the situation unfold as if it were happening to the distant you all over again. Replay the event as it unfolds in your imagination as you observe your distant self. After going through this imaginary exercise, take advantage of this relatively calm period to map out a strategy to address the concerns raised during the anger arousing situation.[1]

Well, that’s just about all the time we have for today. I hope that you will stop by again real soon.

[1]Evidence for the effectiveness of this strategy can be found in the following: O. Ayduk and E. Kross, 2010, “Analyzing Negative Experiences without Ruminating: The Role of Self-Distancing in Enabling Adaptive Self-Reflection,” Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4, 841-854. E. Kross, A. Ducksworth, O. Ayduk, E. Tsukayama, and W. Mischel, 2011, “The Effect of Self-Distancing on Adaptive Versus Maladaptive Self-Reflection in Children,” Emotions, 11 [5], 1032-1039.

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Tags acceptable outlet, anger, angry situation, challenge, disrespectful, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, venting anger

conflict resolution Emotional pain free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum meditation psychological maturity sensory focus wisdom

DEALING WITH EMOTIONAL PAIN

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date July 8, 2013
11 Comments on DEALING WITH EMOTIONAL PAIN

You get a phone call and discover the person you have fallen in love with has decided to end the relationship.

An event is coming up and each time you think about this, you experience waves and waves of fear.

Some big kids at school teased you in front of your friends and when you get home you find yourself vividly recalling, over and over again, what happened. These images are accompanied by gripping, gut-wrenching feelings of embarrassment.

Americans typically use three approaches when they are faced with such experiences. Let’s take a quick look at them, and then consider three very different approaches that are free and backed by research effectiveness studies.

Three Typical American Approaches to Deal With Emotional Pain

1. Drinking alcohol or taking pills.

Here we see a man who is using the drinking approach, and he ends up falling into the great sea of turmoil.

2. Trying to avoid thinking about the emotional pain.

Here we see Linus using the avoidance approach. People who try to avoid the problem of emotional pain sometimes say they don’t pay any attention to it, or that they just ignore it.

3. Trying to divert your attention to something more pleasant.

Here we see Ted trying to “face his fear” by diverting his attention to some fantasy.

If you are using one or more of these three approaches and find that you are completely satisfied with the results, I’d still like you to consider trying three different ones. They won’t cost you a dime, and there is scientific support for each.

Three Different Approaches to Dealing with Emotional Pain

1. Sensory Focus

“Sensory focus” involves turning your attention to the physical qualities of the pain and observing the sensations you are experiencing.

If the sensations bring forth words such as pain, or awful agony, you accept this without judgment. You very gently, when you feel ready, return your focus to the physical sensations as if you are tasting, for the first time, some fresh mountain water from a tropical island. Just let the sensations wash over and through you for a couple of minutes. Do this each time you begin to experience the sensations. Also, find some time once in the morning, and once in the evening to take a couple of minutes to sit by yourself and practice doing this.

Although for many Americans distraction is believed to be more effective for managing distressing painful experiences than observing the physical sensations, when compared in experimental studies, distraction most often turns out to be the inferior technique.

Now, I should point out that if you look quickly online, you will see research reports that claim just the opposite—that distraction leads to better outcomes than experiencing the felt qualities of distress. These reports are usually based on an analysis that failed to make a distinction between sensory focus and emotion focus. Emotion focus has individuals attending to the emotional aspects of the pain. For example, someone going through a painful experience might focus on a thought such as, “This pain is making me feel terribly angry.” Notice that the emotion focus approach has one observing a set of words describing the feeling, whereas sensory focus has one observing its physical sensations.

In more recent studies, researchers have been making a clearer distinction between emotion focus techniques and sensory focus techniques. It now looks like sensory focus tends to be more efficacious than distraction.[1] More importantly for dealing with distressing emotional experiences, sensory focus was found to be even more effective when researchers looked not just at the short term effects of coping, but what happened in the long term.

Most studies on the effects of different coping styles look at what happens within four minutes of a painful experience. In such studies, sensory focus tends to be a more effective coping technique, but occasionally distraction did just as well, or even a little better. In a study by Kevin McCaul and Carl Haugtvedt,[2] for example, distraction reduced distress early in the four minute trial, but attention to sensations was a superior strategy for the last two minutes.” When studies looked at what happens when pain lasts longer than a few minutes, or a similar pain occurs again a week later, sensory focus over time more clearly is the better coping strategy.

Now some have argued that sensory focus works with men, but not women. However, even for brief pain lasting for just a few minutes the results have been inconsistent. For example, Thompson and his associates[3] found that women experienced less pain with distraction, but Roelofs and his associates[4] found that women who report that they are high in pain-related fear benefited more from the sensory focus technique than they did from distraction. In this study the whole painful experience was of the short term variety, lasting four minutes. There are fewer studies involving women and longer term pain, but Leventhal[5] and his associates found that women in labor who were instructed to monitor their pain sensations experienced a sharp decline in pain and negative mood during active labor. There was no decline in the control group that received no such instruction. Note that labor tends to last several hours, in contrast to the four minute type of pain that is usually the object of study in the scientific literature.

It appears that when you focus on carefully observing the sensations, your body mobilizes its internal resources to cope with the distressful experience. You have seen what happens when you cut your finger. You experience some pain, and before long your body, in an incredibly complex process, begins healing. Within a few days the cut is completely gone. You see from this that your body has a way to deal with the cut in a manner that the greatest scientists cannot yet duplicate. Similarly, when you take the time to fully observe the sensations from a distressing experience, your body over the course of time appears to carry out a process to address the distress in an incredibly helpful manner.

2. The Expressive Writing Technique

Over the course of four days, write for a minimum of 15 minutes at each sitting about something that has led to your challenging emotional experience. As you do so, make sure you include not only what happened, but also what you felt when it happened, and how you now feel about what happened. Include your deepest emotions and thoughts about what occurred. Really let go and explore your feelings and thoughts about it. As you do so, recall the sensory experience of these feelings, not just the words that define the experience. In your writing, you might tie this experience to your childhood, your relationship with your parents, people you have loved or love now, or even your career. How is this experience related to who you would like to become, who you have been in the past, or who you are now?

You can write about the same issue every day or a series of different issues. Whatever you choose to write about, however, it is critical that you really let go and explore your very deepest emotions, sensations, and thoughts.

As you go through this experience, many people report that after writing, they sometimes feel somewhat sad or depressed. Like seeing a sad movie, this typically goes away in a couple of hours and in the long run is beneficial.

If you find that you are getting extremely upset about a writing topic and come to feel it is unwise to continue, trust your judgment and stop writing or change topics. You might try to return to the extremely unsettling topic again in a week or two. If you again begin to have feelings that are so extremely upsetting that you feel it is unwise to continue, trust your judgment and stop. Try one more time to write about this topic in a month or so. If you end up striking out, you might want to seek out a professional counselor to help you to process this sensitive material (see HERE for some suggestions for obtaining this type of counseling services).

Expressive writing has demonstrated in research studies to improve health outcomes and to reduce the anguish people experience during episodes of depression. You can find the research supporting the expressive writing technique by clicking here and here.

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3. Meditation

For most people, meditation doesn’t provide relief of emotional challenges as quickly as sensory focus, but when it is combined with sensory focus and the expressive writing technique, it can lead to long term improvements.

In an earlier post, I describe a simple form of meditation, along with the research supporting its effectiveness (see Anger, Ruminations and Meditation). Millions of people for thousands of years have attested to both its health and emotional benefits.

So, there you have it, three approaches to dealing with emotions that are free, and can turn what is now experienced as pain into a valued source of creativity. Rather than something that has been perceived as negative, it is possible to come to understand that these challenging experiences are our only opener of our eyes to the highest levels of truth.

[1] J. Suls & B. Fletcher, 1985, The relative efficacy of avoidant and nonavoidant coping strategies: A meta-analysis. Health Psychology, vol 4 (3) 249-288.

[2] K. McCaul and C. Haugtvedt ,1982, J. of Personality and Social Personality, , vol 43(1), 154-162.

[3] T. Thompson, E. Keogh, & C. C. French, 2011, “Sensory focusing versus distraction and pain: moderating effects of anxiety sensitivity in males and females,” Journal of Pain, 12(80), 849-858.

[4] J. Roelofs, ML Peters, & M. van der Zijden, 2004, “Does fear of pain moderate the effects of sensory focusing and distraction on cold pressor pain in pain-free individuals? The Journal of Pain, vol 5, 250-256.

[5]E. Leventhal, H. Leventhal, S. Shacham, & D. V. Easterling, 1989, “Active coping reduces reports of pain from childbirth,” J. of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 57(3), 365-371.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags emotional pain, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, meditation, psychological maturity, sensory focus, wisdom