I have had more than one client say something like: “I have no time for emotions; they’re a waste of energy, just so much hot air.” And though many people try to eliminate emotions from their conscious awareness and avoid the emotions of others, emotions are a psychic reality. And I would submit that they are a key to living well. So, what value do emotions have? What purpose do they serve?

First, a few definitions. “Emotions” are electrochemical signals, processed by the limbic system in the brain, that provide feedback about what we are experiencing. They are like news bulletins sending us constant updates about what is important to attend to. A related term, “feelings,” refers to the subjective awareness of our own emotional state. “Moods” are feelings that have persisted for a matter of hours. Researchers have proposed basic families of emotions. One such list includes the following:

• Anger: irritability, indignation, exasperation, animosity, resentment, hostility, outrage, hatred, violence
• Sadness: grief, gloom, melancholy, loneliness, self-pity, despair, dejection, depression
• Fear: anxiety, wariness, apprehension, nervousness, dread, terror, phobia, panic
• Enjoyment: happiness, joy, relief, contentment, delight, amusement, pride, satisfaction, thrill, sensual pleasure, mania
• Love: acceptance, friendliness, affinity, trust, kindness, devotion, infatuation
• Surprise: shock, astonishment, amazement, wonder
• Disgust: distaste, revulsion, abhorrence, aversion, disdain
• Shame: guilt, embarrassment, chagrin, remorse, humiliation, regret, contrition

Four of these — fear, anger, sadness, and enjoyment — appear to be universal, since they are recognized by all cultures, including preliterate people. Then there are countless combinations of these fundamental emotions. For example, in jealousy there are elements of anger, sadness and fear. Contempt is the combination of anger and disgust.

All emotions carry with them action potential, that is, an impulse to act. And each emotion prepares the body for a different kind of response. For example, with anger, blood flows to the hands making it easier to strike an enemy; with fear, blood goes to the large skeletal muscles making it easier to flee. Feelings of love and enjoyment can activate the parasympathetic nervous system inducing a relaxation response. Emotions and the action potential they entail serve a multitude of purposes:

• Anger and fear mobilize actions (fight and flight) that increase the chances of survival. Emotions are contagious; this allows us to warn others and thus enhances group survival.
• Emotions serve as psychological rewards and punishments because they impel us to seek pleasure and avoid pain.
• In general, emotions provide motivation to act in coping with situations. For example, guilt can lead us to apologize. Anger (tempered by thought) can lead us to be assertive.
• Emotions are vivid and quick ways of communicating that transcend language.
• Our emotions serve the purpose of validating our perceptions. They give us a sense of certainty and clarity and thus enhance our confidence.
• Emotions can unify us. In the aftermath of 9/11, powerful feelings of loss, anger and fear tended to erase the differences that divide us. We saw this in the (temporary) suspension of the normal partisanship in Congress.
• And finally, emotions add color to our personalities and to our lives. Life would be quite flat and relationships boring without the vibrancy of feelings.

How do emotions actually work? There are three elements that comprise an “emotional moment”:

• an external or internal (e.g., thought, memory) stimulus is perceived and interpreted on the basis of,
• the storehouse/history of emotional memory, and
• the person’s present physical and emotional state.

Then there is one of three outcomes:

• The emotion dissipates on its own like a wave breaking on the shore, with the person having had little or no awareness of it.
• The person follows the action potential in the emotion and acts instantly, impulsively, with virtually no conscious decision. Road rage acted out is an obvious example. Children exhibit a lot of this impulsive reaction to emotion.
• The emotion sets off a chain reaction of thoughts and secondary feelings (feelings about feelings). The neocortex (the thinking brain) is activated with its powers of perception, data collection, categorization, prioritization, logic, analysis (e.g., risk/ benefit), imagination, strategizing, and long term planning.

It is this third scenario, in which there is interplay between thinking and feeling, between head and heart, that we experience as typical. And ordinarily, emotions and thinking operate cooperatively, each doing its job: emotion being the sentinel, sifting through reams of sensory input and lifting out for attention only what’s significant (based again on past emotional history); thinking then goes to work refining this material and sometimes blocking the emotion’s impulse to action.

But strong emotion can be a tidal wave swamping our rational faculties. We have all experienced the futility of reasoning with someone in the throes of intense emotional upset. The question of how to regain control, of how to get head and heart back in balance is one of the most frequent goals of therapy, whether this is presented in the form of depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, panic attacks, compulsive behavior and so on.

In summary, emotions are powerful signals saying, “pay attention, this is important.” While for the most part, we cannot choose our emotions, we can and do need to choose how to respond to them and that will be the subject of a follow up article in the next newsletter. Stay tuned!