DBT Describing Emotions - Guilt

Guilt is the source of sorrows, the avenging fiend that follows us behind with whips and stings. - Nicholas Rowe

Guilt Words

Guilt     Regret     Apologetic     Remorse     Culpability     Sorry

Prompting Events for Feeling Guilt

• Doing or thinking something you believe is wrong
• Doing or thinking something that violates your personal values
• Not doing something you said that you would do
• Committing a transgression against another person or something you value
• Causing harm/damage to another person or object
• Causing harm/damage to yourself
• Being reminded of something wrong you did in the past

Interpretations of Events that Prompt Feelings of Guilt

• Thinking your actions are to blame for something
• Thinking you behaved badly
• Thinking "if only" you had done something differently

Biological Changes and Experiences of Guilt

• Hot, red face
• Jitteriness, nervousness
• Suffocating

Expressions and Actions of Guilt

• Trying to repair the harm, make amends for the wrongdoing, fix the damage, change the outcome
• Asking for forgiveness, apologizing, confessing
• Giving gifts, making sacrifices trying to make up for the transgression
• Bowing your head, kneeling before the person

After-effects of Guilt

• Making resolutions to change
• Making changes in behaviour
• Joining self-help programs

Typical Secondary Emotions of Guilt

• Shame, Fear

DBT Describing Emotions - Shame

Shame is an unhappy emotion invented by pietists in order to exploit the human race. - Blake Edwards

Shame Words
Shame     Discomposure     Mortification     Contrition     Embarrassment     Self-Conscious     Culpability     Humiliation     Shyness


Prompting Events for Feeling Shame

• Being rejected by people you care about
• Having others find out that you have done something wrong
• Doing (feeling or thinking) something that people you admire believe is wrong or immoral
• Comparing some aspect of yourself or your behavior to a standard and feeling like you do not live up to that standard
• Being betrayed by a person you love
• Being laughed at, made fun of
• Being criticized in public, in front of someone else; remembering public criticism
• Others attacking your integrity
• Being reminded of something wrong, immoral or "shameful" you did in the past
• Being rejected or criticized for something you expected praise for
• Having emotions/experiences that have been invalidated
• Exposure of a very private aspect of yourself or your life
• Exposure of a physical characteristic you dislike
• Failing at something you feel you are (or should be) competent to do so

Interpretations of Events that Prompt Feelings of Shame

• Believing that other will reject you (or have rejected you)
• Judging yourself to be inferior, not "good enough", not as good as others; self-invalidation
• Comparing yourself to others and thinking that you are a "loser"
• Believing yourself unlovable
• Thinking that you are bad, immoral or wrong
• Thinking you are defective
• Thinking you're a bad person or a failure
• Believing your body (or a body part) is too big, too small or ugly
• Thinking that you have not lived up to others' expectations of you
• Thinking that your behaviour, thoughts or feeling are silly or stupid

Biological Changes and Experiences of Shame

• Pain in the pit of the stomach
• A sense of dread
• Wanting to shrink down and/or disappear
• Wanting to hide or cover your face and body

Expressions and Actions of Shame

• Hiding behaviour or characteristic from other people
• Avoiding the person you have harmed
• Avoiding persons who have criticized you
• Avoiding yourself - distracting, ignoring
• Withdrawing, covering your face
• Bowing your head, grovelling
• Appeasing; saying you are sorry over and over and over
• Looking down and away from others
• Sinking back, slumped and rigid posture
• The halted speech, lowered volume while talking

After-effects of Shame

• Avoiding thinking about your transgression, shutting down, blocking all emotions
• Engaging in distracting, impulsive behaviours to divert your mind or attention
• High amount of "self-focus"; preoccupation with self
• Depersonalization, associative experiences, numbness or shock
• Attacking or blaming others
• Conflicts with other people. Isolation, feeling alienated
• Impairment in ability to problem solve

Typical Secondary Emotions of Shame

• Anger, contempt, disgust, fear

DBT Describing Emotions - SADNESS

I actually think sadness and darkness can be very beautiful and healing. - Duncan Sheik 

Sadness Words
Sadness     Alienation     Displeasure     Gloom     Despair     Discontentment     Insecurity     Loneliness     Grief     Pity     Sorrow     Unhappiness     Misery     Anguish     Defeat     Depression     Agony     Dismay   Distraught     Glumness     Disappointment     Hurt     Disconnected     Melancholy     Homesickness     Rejection     Suffering     Alone     Neglect     Crushed     Dejection     Woe

Prompting Events for Feeling Sadness

• Losing something or someone that is irretrievable
• Things are not the way you expected or wanted and hoped for
• The death of someone you love, thinking about deaths of people you love
• Losing a relationship; thinking about losses
• Being separated from someone you care for or value; thinking about how much you miss someone.
• Being rejected or excluded
• Being disapproved of or disliked, not being valued by people you care about
• Things turning out badly
• Getting what you don't want
• Things being worse than you expected
• Not getting what you have worked for
• Not getting what you want and believe you need in life; thinking about what you have not gotten that you wanted or needed
• Discovering that you are powerless or helpless
• Being with someone else who is sad, hurt or in pain
• Reading or hearing about other people's problems or troubles in the world
• Being alone or isolated or an outsider

Interpretations of Events that Prompt Feeling of Sadness

• Believing that a separation from someone will last for a long time or will never end
• Believing that you will not get what you want or need in your life
• Seeing things or your life as hopeless
• Believing that you are worthless or not valuable

Biological Changes and Experiences of Sadness

• Feeling tired, run-down, or low in energy
• Feeling lethargic, listless; wanting to stay in bed all day
• Feeling as if nothing is pleasurable anymore
• Feeling a pain or hollowness in your chest or gut
• Feeling empty
• Feeling as if you can't stop crying, or feeling that if you ever start crying, you will never be able to stop
• Difficulty swallowing
• Breathlessness
• Dizziness

Expressions and Actions of Sadness

• Avoiding things
• Acting helpless
• Moping, brooding, or acting moody
• Making slow, shuffling movements
• Withdrawing from social contact
• Avoiding activities that used to bring pleasure
• Sitting or laying around; being inactive
• Staying in bed all day
• Giving up and no longer trying to improve
• Saying sad things
• Talking to someone about sadness
• Talking little or not at all
• Using a quiet, slow or monotonous voice
• Eyes drooping
• Frowning, not smiling
• Posture slumping
• Sobbing, crying, whimpering

Aftereffects of Sadness

• Not being able to remember happy things
• Feeling irritable, touchy or grouchy
• Yearning and searching for the thing lost
• Having a negative outlook; thinking only about the negative side of things
• Blaming or criticizing yourself
• Remembering or imagining other times you were sad and other losses
• Hopeless attitude
• Fainting spells
• Nightmares
• Insomnia
• Appetite disturbances, indigestion
• Depersonalization, dissociative experiences, numbness or shock

Typical Secondary Emotions of Sadness

• Anger, shame, fear

DBT Describing Emotions - LOVE

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Love Words
Love     Compassion     Longing     Adoration     Desire     Lust     Affection     Enchantment     Passion     Arousal     Fondness     Sentimentality     Attraction     Infatuation     Sympathy     Caring     Kindness     Tenderness     Charmed     Liking     Warm

Prompting Events for Feeling Love

• A person offers or gives you something you want, need or desire
• A person does things you want or need the person to do
• A person does things you particularly value or admire
• Feeling physically attracted to someone
• You spend alot of time with a person
• You share a special experience together with a person
• You have exceptionally good communication with a person
• Being with someone you have fun with

Interpretations of Events That Prompt Feelings of Love

• Believing that a person loves, needs or appreciates you.
• Thinking a person is physically attractive
• Judging a person's personality as wonderful, pleasing or attractive
• Believing that person can be counted on, or will always be there for you

Biological Changes and Experiences of Love

    When you are with or thinking about someone:

• Feeling excited and full of energy
• Fast heartbeat
• Feeling self-confident
• Feeling invulnerable
• Feeling happy, joyful or exuberant
• Feeling warm, trusting and secure
• Feeling relaxed and calm
• Wanting the best for a person
• Wanting to give things to a person
• Wanting to see and spend time with a person
• Wanting to spend your life with a person
• Wanting physical closeness or sex
• Wanting emotional closeness

Expressions and Actions of Love

• Saying "I love you."
• Expressing positive feelings to a person
• Eye contact, mutual gaze
• Touching, petting, hugging, holding, cuddling
• Sexual activity
• Smiling
• Sharing time and experiences with someone
• Doing things that the other person wants or needs

Aftereffects of Love

• Only being able to see a person's positive side
• Feeling forgetful or distracted; daydreaming
• Feeling openness and trust
• Feeling "alive", capable
• Remembering other times and people you have loved
• Remembering other people who have loved you
• Remembering and imagining other positive events
• Believing in yourself, believing you are wonderful, capable, competent

Typical Secondary Emotions of Love

• Exhilarating feeling of joy
• Ecstasy
• Contentment
• When the loved one is not available or doesn't respond, feelings of sadness, grief, anger, hatred or shame

DBT Describing Emotions - JEALOUSY

“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” ― William Shakespeare, Othello

Jealousy Words

Jealous     Cautious     Clinging     Defensive     Fear of losing someone/something     Self-protective     Mistrustful     Rivalrous     Suspicious     Wary

Prompting Events for Feeling Jealous

• Someone is threatening to take away important things in your life
• A desired relationship is threatened or in danger of being lost
• You find your lover is having an affair
• Someone goes out with the person you like
• Someone ignores you while talking to a friend of yours
• A potential competitor pay attention to someone you love
• Someone is more attractive, outgoing or self-confident than you
• A person you are romantically involved with looks at someone else
• apparently flirtatious behaviour of your partner towards someone else
• Your boy/girlfriend tells you that s/he desires more time alone
• Not being treated with priority

Interpretations of Events That Prompt Feelings of Jealousy

• My partner does not care for me anymore
• I am nothing to him/her
• He/she is going to leave me
• He/she is behaving inappropriately
• I don't measure up to my peers
• I deserve more than what I am receiving
• I was cheated
• No one cares about me
• My rival is possessive and competitive
• My rival is insecure
• My rival is envious

Biological Changes and Experiences of Jealousy

• Breathlessness
• Feelings of rejection
• Fast heartbeat
• Need to be in control
• Choking sensation, lump in throat
• Becoming mistrustful
• Muscles tensing
• Feeling helpless
• Clenching teeth
• Wanting to grasp or keep hold of what you have
• Feeling suspicious and mistrustful of others
• Having injured pride
• Wanting to push away or eliminate your rival

Expressions and Actions of Jealousy

• Violent behaviour towards the person threatening you
• Threatening violence towards the person threatening you
• Attempting to control the freedom of the person you are afraid of losing
• Verbal accusations of disloyalty or unfaithfulness
• Spying on the person
• Interrogating the person, demanding accounting of time or activities
• Collecting evidence of wrong doings
• Clinging, enhanced dependency
• Increased or excessive demonstrations of love
• Increased demands of sexual activity

Aftereffect of Jealousy

• Narrowing of attention
• Being hyper-vigilant to threats to your relationships
• Becoming isolated or withdrawn
• Changing the interpretation of previous events to suggest that jealousy is reasonable
• Seeing the worst in others

Typical Secondary Emotions of Jealousy

• Feelings of hatred
• Becoming anxious of others
• Feelings of shame or guilt

DBT Describing Emotions - HAPPINESS

“People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.” ― Abraham Lincoln

Happiness Words

Happiness     Joy     Enjoyment     Relief     Amusement     Enthrallment     Hope     Satisfaction     Bliss     Cheerfulness     Euphoria     Joviality     Triumph     Contentment     Excitement     Jubilation     Zaniness     Delight     Eagerness     Gaiety     Pleasure     Zeal     Ecstasy     Gladness     Pride     Elation     Optimism     Jolliness     Thrill     Zest     Rapture     Exhilaration     Enthusiasm     Glee

Prompting Events for Feeling Happiness

• Receiving a wonderful surprise
• Reality exceeding your expectations
• Getting what you want
• Getting something you have worked hard for or worried about
• Things turning out better than you thought they would
• Being successful at a task
• Achieving a desirable outcome
• Receiving esteem, respect or praise
• Receiving love, liking or affection
• Being accepted by others
• Belonging somewhere or with someone or a group
• Being with or in contact with people who love or like you
• Having very pleasurable sensations
• Doing things that create or bring to mind pleasurable sensations

Interpretations of Events That Prompt Feelings of Happiness

• Interpreting joyful events just as they are, without adding or subtracting

Biological Changes and Experiences of Happiness

• Feeling excited
• Feeling physically energetic, active
• Feeling like giggling or laughing
• Feeling your face flush
• Feeling at peace
• Feeling open or expansive
• Feeling calm all the way through

Expressions and Actions of Happiness

• Smiling
• Having a bright, glowing face
• Being bouncy or bubbly
• Communicating your good feelings
• Sharing the feeling
• Silliness
• Hugging people
• Jumping up and down
• saying positive things
• Using an enthusiastic or excited voice
• Being talkative or talking a lot

Aftereffects of Happiness

• Being Courteous or friendly to others
• Doing nice things for other people
• Having a positive outlook; seeing the bright side
• Having a high threshold for worry or annoyance
• Remembering and imagining other times you have felt joy
• Expecting to feel joyful in the future

Typical Secondary Emotions of Happiness

• Feelings of love, passion
• When the joy is not shared, feelings of melancholy, loneliness, shame or guilt; feeling embarrassed or silly

DBT Describing Emotions - FEAR

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.” ― Jim Morrison

Fear Words

Fear     Horror     Shock     Anxiety     Hysteria     Tenseness     Apprehension     Jumpiness     Terror      Dread     Nervousness     Uneasiness     Edginess      Overwhelmed     Worry     Fright     Panic

Prompting Events for Feeling Fear

• Having your life, your health or your well being threatened
• Eating in a similar or the same situation where you have been threatened or gotten hurt in the past or where painful things have happened
• Flashbacks
• Silence
• Being in situations where you have seen others threatened or hurt
• Being in a new or unfamiliar situation
• Being alone (e.g. walking alone, being home alone, living alone)
• Being in the dark
• Being in crowds
• Leaving your home
• Having to perform in front of others (e.g. school, work)
• Pursuing your dreams

Interpretations of Events That Prompt Feelings of Fear

• Believing that you might die, or that you are going to die
• Believing that you might be hurt or harmed or that you might lose something valuable
• Believing that someone might reject you, criticize, dislike or disapprove of you
• Believing you will embarrass yourself
• Believing that failure is possible, expecting to fail
• Believing that you will not get help you want or believe you need
• Believing  that you might lose help and assistance you already have
• Believing that you might lose someone or something you want
• Losing a sense of control, believing that you are helpless
• Losing a sense of mastery or competence

Biological Changes and Experiences of Fear

• Breathlessness
• Feeling nervous, jittery or jumpy
• Clenching teeth
• Wanting to run away or avoid things
• Feeling nauseous
• Wanting to scream or call out
• Getting cold
• Feeling your hairs standing on end
• Feeling of heaviness or fluttering (butterflies) in stomach
• Choking sensation, lump in throat
• Getting clammy
• Fast heartbeat
• Muscles testing, cramping

Expressions and Actions of Fear

• Fleeing, running away
• Talking yourself out of doing what you fear
• Running or walking hurriedly
• Freezing or trying not to move
• Hiding from or avoiding what you fear
• Engaging in nervous fearful talk
• Shaking, quivering or trembling
• Leaving or crying for help
• Shaky or trembling voice
• Talking less or becoming speechless
• Sweating or perspiring
• Screaming or yelling
• Breathing fast
• Darting eyes or quickly looking around
• Crying or whimpering
• Diarrhea, vomiting
• Frozen stare
• Hair erect

Aftereffects of Fear

• Narrowing of attention
• Being hyper-vigilant to threat
• Losing your ability to focus or becoming disoriented
• Being dazed
• Losing control
• Imagining the possibility of more loss or failure
• Isolation
• Remembering and ruminating about other threatening times, other times when things did not go well
• Depersonalization, dissociative experiences
• Numbness or shock

Typical Secondary Emotions of Fear

• Intense anger, shame or other negative emotions

DBT Describing Emotions - ENVY

Envy is the art of counting the other fellow's blessings instead of your own.  ~Harold Coffin

Envy Words

Envy     Disgruntled     "Green-eyed"     Bitterness     Displeased     Longing     Covetous     Dissatisfied     Pettiness     Craving     Down-hearted     Resentment     Discontented     Greed

Prompting Events for Feeling Envy

• Someone has something that you really want or need but don't or can't have
• Someone gets positive recognition for something and you don't
• Being around people who have more than you have.
• Someone you are competing with is more successful than you in an area important to you.
• Others get something you really want and you don't get it.
• Being reminded that you don't have things you want when others do
• You are not part of the "in" crowd
• Someone appears to have everything
• You are alone while other are having fun
• Someone else gets credit for what you've done

Interpretations of Events That Prompt Feelings of Envy

• Thinking you deserve what others have
• Thinking others have more than you
• Thinking about how unfair it is that you have such a bad lot in life compared to others
• Thinking you have been treated unfairly by life
• Thinking you are inferior, a failure, or mediocre in comparison to others who you want to be like
• Thinking you were unlucky
• Comparing yourself to others who have more than you.
• Comparing yourself to people who have characteristics that you wish you had
• Thinking you are unappreciated

Biological Changes and Experiences of Envy

• Muscles tightening
• Teeth clamping together, mouth tightening
• Feeling your face flush or get hot
• Feeling rigidity in your body
• Pain in the pit of the stomach
• Jitteriness, nervousness
• Feeling nervous tension, anxiety or discomfort
• Hating the other person
• Wanting the person or people you envy to lose what they have, to have bad luck or to be hurt
• Feeling pleasure when other experience failure or lose what they have
• Feeling unhappy if the other person experiences some good luck
• Wanting to hurt the person or people you envy
• Having an urge to get even
• Feeling motivated to improve yourself

Expressions and Actions of Envy

• Doing everything you can to get what the other person has
• Working a lot harder than you were to get what you want
• Trying to improve yourself and your situation
• Taking away or ruining what the other person has
• Attacking or criticizing the other person
• Doing something to get even
• Doing something to make the other person fail or lose what he or she has
• Saying mean things about the other people or making people look bad to others.
• Trying to show the other person up, to look better than the other person
• Avoiding persons who have what you want.

Aftereffects of Envy

• Narrowing of attention
• Attending only to what other have that you don't
• Remembering and ruminating about all the other times that others have had more than you.
• Ruminating about what you don't have and not being able to think of anything else.
• Making resolutions to change
• Discounting what you have, not appreciating things you have or that other do for you.

Typical Secondary Emotions of Envy

• Shame about feeling envy, anguish
• Feeling degraded or humiliated in front of others
• Frustration, anger or hostility

DBT Describing Emotions - DISGUST

“I had forgotten. Disgust shadows desire.  Another life is never safely envied.”  ― Robert Wells

DISGUST WORDS:

Disgust     Dislike     Repugnance     Sickened     Abhorrence     Derision     Repelled     Spite     Anitpathy   Disdain     Repulsion     Vile     Aversion     Distaste     Resentment     Condescension     Hate     Revolted     Contempt     Loathing     Scorn

Prompting Events for Feeling Disgust

• Seeing or smelling waste products of a human or animal body
• Having a person or an animal that is dirty or unclean come close to you
• Tasting something or being forced to incorporate or swallow something you really don't want.
• Being near, seeing or touching something that reviles you, e.g. "slimy" animals or crawling insects
• Seeing or being near a dead body.
• Touching items worn or owned by a stranger, dead person or disliked person
• Seeing blood or getting an injection or blood drawn
• Observing or hearing about a person who behaves without dignity or who strips another person of his or her dignity
• Observing or hearing about a person acting with extreme hypocricy, fawning.
• Observing or hearing about betrayal, child abuse, racism or other types of cruelty.
• Being forced to watch something the deeply violates your own "wise mind" values.
• Being confronted with someone who is deeply violating your own wise mind values.
• Being forced to engage in or watch unwanted sexual contact.

Interpretation of Events That Prompt Feelings of Disgust

• Believing that you are swallowing something toxic.
• Believing that your skin is contaminated.
• Believing that your own body or body parts are ugly.
• Believing that an object has negative or unwholesome sensory, (e.g. smell, feel, taste) characteristics
• Disapproving of or feeling morally superior to someone, disrespecting someone or their beliefs.
• Extreme disapproval of self or one's own feelings, thoughts or behaviours.
• Believing that a person is disrespecting authority or the ethical norms of the grup, or is disloyal to or not honouring of others in the community.
• Judging that a person is deeply immoral or has sinned and/or violated the natural order of things.
• Judging someone's body as extremely ugly
• Believing that by being around a person you will become contaminated, e.g. by "poisonous ideas".
• Believing others are evil or the "scum" of the earth.

Biological Changes and Experiences of Disgust

• Feelings of nausea
• Intense urge to get rid of something
• Sick feeling
• Wanting to destroy something
• Urge to vomit, or vomiting
• Urge to run away, or push away
• Gagging, choking
• Feeling contaminated, dirty, unclean
• Aversion to drinking or eating
• Feeling mentally polluted
• Urge to take a shower
• Fainting
• Having a lump in your throat

Expressions and Actions of Disgust

• Vomiting, spitting out
• Closing your eyes, looking away
• Washing, scrubbing, taking a bath
• Cleaning your body surface
• Changing your clothes
• Cleaning your apartment
• Avoiding eating or drinking
• Pushing or kicking away, running away
• Treating with disdain or disrespect, disregarding
• Going first, stepping over, crowding another person out
• Physically attacking the cause of your disgust.
• Using obscenities or cursing
• Clenching your hands or fists
• Frowning, or not smiling
• Mean or unpleasant facial expression
• Speaking with a sarcastic voice/tone
• Nose and top lip tightened up
• Lip curled on one side, smirking

Aftereffects of Disgust

• Narrowing of attention
• Closing down senses
• Feeling ugly
• Feeling dirty
• Becoming hypersensitive to dirt
• Ruminating about the situation making you feel disgusted and not being able to think of anything else
• Depersonalization, dissociation experience, numbness

Typical Secondary Emotions of Disgust

• Intense shame or fear

DBT Describing Emotions - ANGER

"The strongest person is not the good wrestler. Rather, the strong person is the one who controls himself when he is angry." - Prophet Muhammad

ANGER WORDS

Anger   Aggravation     Agitation     Annoyance     Bitterness     Exasperation     Ferocity     Frustration     Fury     Grouchiness     Grumpiness     Hostility     Indignation     Irritation     Outrage     Rage     Vengefulness     Wrath

Prompting Events for Feeling Anger

• Having an important goal blocked or prevented.
• Having an important or pleasurable activity interrupted, postponed or stopped. 
• You or someone you care about being attacked or hurt physically or emotionally by others
• You or someone you care about being threatened with physical or emotional pain by someone or something
• You or someone you care about being insulted
• Losing power
• Losing status
• Losing respect
• Not having things turn out the way you expected
• Experiencing physical pain
• Experiencing emotional pain
• Not obtaining something you want (that another person has)

Interpretations of Events That Prompts Feelings of Anger

• Believing that you have been treated unfairly
• Believing that important goals are being blocked or that pleasurable activities are being interrupted, postponed or stopped
• Believing that other are attacking or trying to hurt you or someone that you care about
• Believing someone is insulting or disrespecting you or trying to control you.
• Believing that things "should" be different than they are
• Rigidly thinking "I'm right."
• Judging that the situation is illegitimate, wrong or unfair.
• Ruminating about the event that set off the anger in the first place or in the past.
• Blaming

Biological Changes and Experiences of Anger

• Muscles tightening
• Feeling extremely emotional
• Teeth clamping together, mouth tightening
• Frowning, or not smiling
• Making aggressive or threatening gestures
• Having a mean or unpleasant facial expression
• Walking heavily, stomping, slamming doors
• Brooding or withdrawing from others
• Walking out.
• Gritting or showing your teeth in an unfriendly manner
• Using a loud voice, yelling or screaming
• Sarcastic or caustic voice tone
• Acting quarrelsome or sarcastic
• Crying
• Using Obscenities or swearing
• Grinning
• Criticizing or complaining
• A red or flushed face
• Talking about how lousy thing are

Expressions and Actions of Anger

• Physically attacking the cause of your anger
• Verbally attacking the cause of your anger
• Pounding/throwing things
• Walking out
• Using loud voice
• Grinning
• Red Face
• Crying
• Talking about how lousy things are
• Using obscenities or swearing
• Sarcastic voice tone

Aftereffects of Anger

• Narrowing of attention
• Remembering and ruminating about situations that have made you angry in the past.
• Attending only to the situation making you angry
• Ruminating about the situation making you angry and not being able to think of anything else
• Imagining future situation that will make you angry
• The personalization, dissociative experience, numbness

Typical Secondary Emotions of Anger

• Intense shame or fear

DBT Emotion Regulation - Understanding the Emotion

“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use  them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”  ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Functions of Emotions: What Emotions Do For You

There is a reason why humans (and other mammals) have emotions. The purpose of regulating emotions is NOT to get rid of them. We Need Them!

Emotions Motivate and Organize Action:

• Emotions motivate our behaviour. Emotions prepare us for action. The action urge connected to specific emotions is often "hard-wired".
• Emotions save time in getting us to act in important situations. Emotions can be especially important when we don't have time to think things through.
• Strong emotions help us overcome obstacles - in our minds and environment.

Emotions Communicate to and Influence Others:

• Facial expressions are connected to emotions. Facial expressions communicate faster than words.
• Our posture, gestures, words and voice tone can also be hard-wired. Like it or not, they also communicate our emotions to others.
• When it is important to us to communicate to others, or send them a message, it can be very hard for us to change our emotions.
• Whether we intend it or not, the communication of emotions influences others.

Emotions Communicate to Ourselves:

• Emotional reactions can give us important information about a situation. Emotions can be signals or alarms that something is happening.
• Gut feelings can be like intuition; a response to something important about the situation.
• The can be helpful if our emotions get us to check out the facts.
• Sometimes we treat emotions as if they are facts about the world: The stronger the emotion, the stronger our belief that the emotion is based on absolute fact. "If I feel unsure, I am incompetent."
• If we assume that our emotions represent facts about the world, we may use them to validate our thoughts or our actions. This can be trouble if our emotions get us to ignore the facts.

EMOTIONS DO NOT VALIDATE OUR EXPERIENCE OF THINGS

Factors Reducing Emotion Regulation

• Biology - Biological factors may make emotion regulation harder
• Lack of Skill - You don't know what to do to regulate your emotions
• Reinforcement of Emotional Behaviour - Your environment reinforces you when you are highly emotional.
• Moodiness - Your current mood (apathy, irritation, boredom) not your skills controls what you do.
• The Emotional "Sea Of Dyscontrol" - With overwhelming emotions, you fall into the "sea of dyscontrol" where you feel like you are drowning under hurricane strength waves of emotions.
• Emotional Myths - Emotion myths get in the way of your ability to regulate emotions. Myths that emotions are bad or weak lead to avoiding emotions. Myths that extreme emotions are necessary or are part of who you are.

DBT Emotion Regulation Skills

"We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity, but a balance and order and rhythm and harmony." - Thomas Merton

Emotion Dis-regulation

• The inability, even when one's best efforts are applied, to change or regulate emotional cues, experiences, actions, verbal responses and/or non-verbal expressions under normative conditions.

Overview of Emotion Regulation Skills

1.  UNDERSTAND and NAME THE EMOTIONS YOU EXPERIENCE

• What good are emotions?
• Model for Describing Emotions
• Ways to Decrease Emotions.  

2.  DECREASE EMOTIONAL SENSITIVITY; Reducing unwanted emotions

• Changing emotional responses to situations
• Reducing vulnerability to negative emotions (ABC PLEASE skill to be described later)

3.  DECREASE EMOTIONAL INTENSITY: Stop or reduce the intensity of unwanted emotions once they start

• Mindfulness of current emotions
• Managing extreme emotions