Sometimes when we’re in arguments with people and are feeling strong emotions like anger and frustration, we can say and do things that go too far. When this happens, the
We all have times when we are in a bad mood, and we’re not very pleasant to be around. We might not know the reason, and sometimes we don’t know
Sometimes we have strong feelings that trouble us, and we know we need to work through them. It would be a natural tendency to talk to people close to us
Our simplistic view of emotions It can be tempting to think simplistically about emotions. We see people expressing emotions and we say, “This person is expressing fear, this other person
Sometimes we find ourselves in very uncomfortable and difficult circumstances; we are challenged and highly stressed by aspects of our life. It can feel like it’s almost impossible to keep
Sometimes we feel nothing. We can find ourselves in situations that others find quite emotional but we feel unaffected. Sometimes we can wonder what all the fuss is about. At
It’s a commonly held view that we want too much as adults because we were too spoiled when we were young. More particularly, as adults we focus excessively on compulsive
We all bring history into our relationships, and sometimes that history is difficult for new partners. For some, it is very difficult to accept the things that our new partner
When we talk about changing our lives, we often use the analogy of a remote control. We talk of rewinding our life to a better time or fast forwarding to
For some people, it can be hard to contain and control how they feel and how they act. This is extremely frustrating for the person and can cause difficulties in
Many of us face problems with our own behaviours that we find difficult to solve. Sometimes these problems have dogged us for years and we’ve tried for a long time
When artists talk about the source of their creativity they often feel it comes from their emotional side. This is especially true regarding the pain that they feel. When they
Those contemplating psychotherapy start with the automatic idea that they should be working towards greater expression of what they think and feel. Whilst this might be right for some people, this
One of the difficulties of being human is that we have both a conscious and an unconscious. By definition, we are aware of what’s in our conscious and unaware of
We seem to have a pretty clear idea about what physical fitness is. I think that many people would also agree on what mental fitness is. However, when it comes
When we feel someone is being ‘too negative’, we can sometimes want to ‘correct’ this with positive thinking. However when we do this, we often find that our efforts are
Last weekend saw two finals; of the AFL and the NRL, and these games, like countless other games and finals. illustrate some important things about us and the way we
We all experience anger in our lives, but some people feel that they have way too much. They see the effect on the people around them; their anger is something
Kitayama S. & Markus H. R. (editors) (1994) ‘Emotion and Culture: Empirical Studies of Mutual Influence’, American Psychological Association, Washington DC This was a book that I picked up for
Although we sometimes find our emotions troublesome, we also to some extent take them for granted. We assume that the things we feel are the same as the things that
Why do we feel bad so often? It certainly seems that there are many more emotions that people don’t want to feel – anger, sadness, fear, shame, guilt, disgust –
When we are trying to deal with the world of emotion, we can often forget or be confused about the differences between moods and emotions. Getting clear on the differences
One of the things that people are seeking when they start the process of psychotherapy or counselling is to be understood. Often they feel that they are misunderstood by family
We’ve all been given the advice that we should get rid of our negative emotions. We feel that if we only have positive emotions, we’ll have better lives. However, in