True Recovery

Emotions describe us; what we're feeling inside.  Remember from the EJECT model, emotions stem from our thoughts.  For centuries, theorists have argued over what the basic emotions are.  Theories range from two (happy and sad) to eleven (anger, aversion, courage, dejection, desire, despair, fear, hate, hope, love, sadness).  In DBT, however, we refer to six basic emotions:

• love
• joy
• anger
• sadness
• fear, and
• shame

While there are roughly 500 words in the English language to describe emotions, these all fall under one of these six categories.  For example, we often describe joy using the words delight, blissful, ecstatic, and thrilled.  When it's difficult to find the emotion, pull out this list and find the closest one.

Primary and Secondary Emotions

To further complicate reading our emotions, we often feel several emotions at the same time.  They may even conflict with one another.  Think of the "bitter sweet" concept.  I can recall my own conflicting feelings during my high school graduation ceremony.  On the one hand I felt joy about my accomplishment and the upcoming summer vacation.  I felt sad about being separated from the friends I'd become so close with.  I also felt fear of the unknown life ahead of me.  My mother asked me how I was doing and I said, "GREAT!"  Partly because I didn't understand the emotions I was having at the time.  And I had no interest in discussing my emotions with my mother, in front of all my high school buddies.  So it's possible for a single experience to trigger several emotions within us.

Sometimes, however, emotions themselves trigger other emotions.  The primary emotion, is the one triggered by the event.  The secondary emotion is triggered by the primary emotion.  To me, this secondary emotion masks the primary emotion.  Two huge examples of these masking secondary emotions in my life are shame and anger.  Let's say I dislike a coworker of mine, and learn that they've been fired (experience).  Within me, that triggers a feeling of joy.  Suddenly, because I feel joy over something bad, I begin to feel shame.  I'll then start to formulate my reaction based shame rather than joy.  In this situation, it's probably best not to throw a party, dance and sing over some else's demise.  Still, it's important for me to acknowledge my own feeling of joy to myself.