Don't Let Your Emotions Run Your Life

A. Spradlin Scott

Description

There’s a wide spectrum of emotional sensitivity, and it varies from one person to another. Some people oscillate between over-control and over-expression. Others stuff or hide their emotions for months before they finally blow their stack and “stand up for them selves” through overly aggressive behaviors.

People diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) for example, are are often emotionally sensitive, and may have problems with emotion dysregulation, but they aren’t the only ones who have trouble with managing emotions—we all do. There have probably been times in each of our lives when we can remember not being in our “right mind.”

When we are regularly undone by our emotions, we become victims of damaged relationships, trapped circumstances, self-sabotage, and illness. Don''t Let Your Emotions Run Your Life offers help to all of us who want to gain the upper hand on our feelings and our lives. Even high reactors, people disposed to experiencing strong, even overwhelming emotions on a regular basis, will find its strategies easy to use and effective at managing frequent emotional flare-ups.

This book develops proven dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) techniques into worksheets, exercises, and assessments that show you how to pay attention to emotions when they arise, assess blocks to controlling them, and overcome them to eliminate overpowering feelings. Learn what emotional triggers exist in your environment and become less judgmental about yourself when you do experience a surge. Avoid or reduce the distress that strong emotions cause you. This workbook teaches you to reduce the impact of painful feelings and increase the effects of positive ones so that you can tolerate life''s ongoing stresses and achieve a sense of calm coexistence with your emotions.

Informations

• Publié par: New Harbinger Publications
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 0001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781572247765
• Langue: English

Extrait

Publisher’s Note This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books.

Copyright © 2003 by Scott E. Spradlin  New Harbinger Publications, Inc.  5674 Shattuck Avenue  Oakland, CA 94609

The Emotions Thesaurus on page 195 is adapted with permission fromSkills Training Manual for Treating BorderlinePersonalityDisorderMarsha Linehan, © 1993, The Guilford Press. by

Cover design © 2002 by Lightbourne Images Edited by William Rodarmor Text design by Tracy Marie Carlson

ISBN 1572243090 Paperback

All Rights Reserved

To all of my DBT clients past and present who have been so gracious as to let me participate in their struggles for life and their journeys toward healing.

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Contents

Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

P ART  I The Nature of Emotion

Emotions: The FullSystem Response. . . . . . . . . . .9

What Are Emotions For?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

Primary and Secondary Emotions. . . . . . . . . . . .23

P ART  II Naming and Describing Your Emotions

Why Do My Emotions Hurt So Much?. . . . . . . . . .33

vi Don’t Let Your Emotions Run Your Life

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A PPENDIX

Mindfulness to Emotion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

Identifying Your Emotional Triggers

. . . . . . . . . . .67

Getting the Feel of It: Urges and Actions. . . . . . . . .83

Emotional Fallout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93

P ART  III Reducing Blocks to Emotion Regulation

Challenging Your SelfTalk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101

Lifestyle Changes for Emotional Resilience. . . . . . .

.111

Changing Strong Emotions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .127

P ART  IV Leading an Emotionally Skillful Life

Relationship Skills

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Intimacy Skills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Survival and Acceptance. . . . .

.141

.161

. . . . . . . . . . .173

The Emotion Thesaurus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .195

References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .203

Acknowledgments

A number of people have had a hand in this book coming to be—some directly, others indirectly. I appreciate and thank Patrick Fanning and Matthew McKay of New Harbin ger Press for inviting me to do this project. Also at New Harbinger I must thank Tesilya Hanauer and Heather Mitchener for “editorial motivation,” and walking with me through this process. They made this experience enjoyable and worthwhile. To William Rodarmor, I truly appreciate his wit, focus, and skill. He did a tremendous job of stream lining mangled sentences and paragraphs and saved the public from inane academic jar gon and charts. It was Brad Hubert and Greg Mulkey, then of LukeDorf, Inc., who first sent me to train in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). This led me to Soonie Kim, Ph.D., who pro vided an excellent introduction to DBT principles and practices, and who brought me into the DBT fold, as it were, by inviting me to become a member of the Portland DBT Pro gram. The team at Portland DBT demonstrated phenomenological empathy, compassion, and fallibility. Particularly Alice Rose, LCSW, who mentored me in leading skillstraining groups (to this day I mimic you when I lead groups). It was a great honor to work with true experts. Immeasurable gratitude goes to Marsha Linehan, Linda Dimeff, and Kelly Koerner of Behavioral Technology Transfer Group—the DBT trinity, in my mind. The Seattle intensive was like boot camp for DBT therapists. This training increased my theoretical knowledge of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and DBT, but most importantly, their personal commitment to the clients we treat renewed my compassion, confidence, and

viii Don’t Let Your Emotions Run Your Life

sense of mission in treating borderline individuals. Many of these clients not only survive because of DBT but are also thriving beyond their own expectations. If not for Marsha’s team and research, many of us would still be at a loss for how help our borderline clients. I hope this workbook does justice to DBT, and will be a usable tool for clients and practitioners. It was at the Portland Providence Medical Center’s Crisis Triage Center (CTC), that my limits and creativity were stretched during my stint as “Captain Midnight,” adapting DBT to crisis calls on the graveyard shift. My time there has influenced my practice, espe cially with respect to teaching clients skills for collaborating with crisis service providers. The clinical and medical staff showed hope in the face of despair and helped me to see our work as a healing art. While at the CTC, I’m grateful to have become friends with Jane Erickson, Deb Roth, and Ellen Barker (aka “Encarta”) and for their encouragement on the workbook as well as their general concern for Captain Midnight. Likewise for Marianne Irish for creative friendship and her love of poetry, and Elyce Benham, who was the Sculley to my Mulder and with whom I shared the overnights. I simply must thank all of the café owners and baristas who tolerated me loitering with my laptop during this process. In Portland, Oregon, I thank the Starbucks crew at th 45 & Glisan where I could write on break from my shifts at Providence Hospital. I espe cially thank John Asparro and Valerie Dianna of True Brew Café in Southeast Portland for the most affordable and delicious lattes ever. In Wichita, Kansas, I thank Amy Clarke, an Oregon transplant and proprietor of the Bean Scene, and the kind people at Water mark Books & Cafe. My good friend Rebecca Campbell, doctoral candidate in neuroendocrinology at Oregon Health Science University provided several informal consultations about brain functions, and the napkin diagram of the hypothalamus. Blessings to you and Andrew as you move to New Zealand. T. J. Civis is a creative friend and filmmaker who also encour aged me by working on his own projects and through our shortlived writers group. Finally, I thank my psychologist wife, Jill, for her encouragement to complete this project and all the free therapy. It was her attendance at George Fox University that led us to Portland and resulted in my involvement in DBT, and so, in a manner of thinking, this project is perhaps ultimately thanks to her.