What should I do if someone can’t express their emotions?

In the following semester, Mitchell kept this note with him, and a miracle happened! The words on the note were concise and to the point. From this, Mitchell firmly believed that "I will get better" instead of expecting "the situation will get better" like in the past. He knew that he had to rely on himself to regulate his emotions. Children are actually very emotionally capable.

In addition, the parents also posted a schedule on the refrigerator at home to supplement him with behavioral management adjustments. Mitchell's parents kept a checklist of daily talking points and improvement in abdominal pain. The abdominal pain stopped after a week (this is usually noticeable in the first two weeks as reflected on the chart). Later, they kept this table to remind each family member to maintain spiritual communication.

Resolving the branch emotions of older boys

It would be great if Jacob could say to his parents or coaches: "I'm so disappointed, I really want to crawl through a crack in the ground." "He didn't hit the ball when he had the opportunity", then his physiological activities related to emotions will be well relieved. However, he drove this emotion to a side road by bullying his sister. In terms of psychotherapy, the so-called "resolution" means talking about the things related to the emotion. These things may be serious or possible. is trivial. Emotional processing is not a one-time process, especially for something that hurts deeply. Often, both parents and children benefit from immediate communication about emotional matters, and a starting point provides the possibility of maintaining communication until a successful resolution is achieved.

In any case, a boy's primary goal is to experience or "feel" emotion, and secondarily to process the emotion through expression rather than directly acting on it or making it disappear. If Jacob had expressed his disappointment over the crucial miss, he might have avoided being confused and hurting his sister by diverting the ball away. Jacob kept his emotions so well hidden that his parents were unable to see the intense sense of loss that lay behind his aggressive behavior. As a result, Jacob does not deal with the emotions of losing (not winning) and loss in healthy ways. For most children, hiding depression will slowly turn into shyness, and always being shy is definitely not okay.

The fourth example mentioned above is a relatively extreme case of using suicide as a branch of emotional expression. David grew up, but his family never talked about emotions with him, which caused him to ignore emotions for a long time. During a family conversation David revealed that he wanted to hurt his ex-girlfriend. He can't explain why he didn't hurt her in the end, and he can't guarantee that he won't hurt himself again (so he's still in therapy). In the hospital, his process of understanding other people's moods was also slow, and he could not even remember his own feelings and emotions. Through communication with others and within the family, David's family is slowly correcting the habits that led to David's emotional problems.

"Exercise" boys' emotional expression

When a boy's emotions are ignored, his emotional experience or ability to feel will be lost. One way is to avoid the problem of neglect forever, and the other way is to consciously intervene and exercise the boy's emotional expression. Exercise is individualized, but the general principle is to help boys develop and maintain their emotions at an appropriate level through emotional exercise.

Synthesis: An Important Ability

Emotions may have evolved from what I call synthesis. Synthesis occurs when a person's emotions are "mixed" with his thoughts or other emotions. Integration is very helpful in controlling strong emotions like anger and fear. Unfortunately, our culture values ??thinking and “intelligence” far more than feelings and emotions. But there is no thought without spiritual touch, and this is a basic concept throughout this book. In fact, some scholars (Powers, Wales, and White 1994; Sarowey and Sluyter 1997) insist that every emotion is accompanied by thoughts, that is to say, thoughts and emotions are naturally inseparable. of.

As a little exercise, pay attention to the following words and phrases and take a moment to think about them carefully. As you do this, pay attention to the corresponding emotional changes in yourself: death...money...Christmas...traditional holidays...Muslim Ramadan...money...marriage...exercise...chocolate...divorce... Lottery winning. If you pay careful attention to the above and "feel" it carefully, you will naturally experience the corresponding emotions.

Integrating emotions and thinking When it comes to applying integration to a boy's emotional development, it means that the boy and his guardian must focus on the emotional aspects of the boy's thinking. The ultimate goal of integrating emotions and thinking is to control and master them. The simple act of describing emotions can be regarded as a common form of integrating emotions and thinking. Emotions at this time are no longer simply physiological and chemical processes occurring in the body. From a physiological reaction to a synthesis of emotion and thinking, a typical example is the note mentioned above from Mitchell's parents ("It's true that I'm a little scared, but it doesn't scare me."). This combination allowed Mitchell to "communicate" with his abdominal pain and helped him control the intense psychological feelings.

Other ways of integrating emotions and thinking include: (1) talking to someone you trust; (2) talking to yourself (talking to yourself internally); (3) talking to yourself Psychological feelings are "recorded" clearly. Perhaps the greatest benefit of this emotional technique is that it gives boys an opportunity to transform sensory experiences into valuable psychological feelings and thoughts.

Integrate an emotion with other emotions Not only with thoughts, emotions can also be combined with other emotions. It is also possible to combine negative emotions with positive emotions, which in most cases enhances tolerance and can prevent people from despairing in sad situations, or restore self-confidence in frightened situations. Integrating positive and negative emotions allows boys to better cope with and navigate their emotions. It’s a balancing act, and too much sadness without comfort, or too much anger without comfort, are both unbalanced emotional experiences. If negative emotions are not balanced, feelings of loss and indifference will occupy the heart. Therefore, integrating positive and negative emotions is beneficial for achieving a balanced emotional experience.