I wasn't depressed this morning
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Description
Book Introduction
Silver Prize in the Personal Growth category at the Nautilus Book Awards in the United States
American Bookfest's Best Book in the Mental Health and Psychology category
“How did they say goodbye to the persistent depression?”
The Psychology of Core Emotions from the Bottom of Your Heart
A new science of emotions that overturns the modern paradigm of depression.
Why do some depressions seem inexplicable and endless? Hilary Jacobs Handel, an expert in Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Therapy (AEDP), meets people suffering from chronic depression who have failed to respond to antidepressants or cognitive behavioral therapy.
Sarah was afraid to put herself forward.
Spencer suffered from severe social anxiety.
Bonnie completely shut out her emotions.
They all came to Handel complaining of depression, but none of them were, at least biochemically, depressed.
As it turned out, these were all cases where a defense mechanism for emotions in the form of depression was activated due to major and minor traumatic experiences in childhood.
Handel uses a simple tool called the "Triangle of Change" to help clients become aware of their "defenses," release their "inhibited emotions," and experience their "core emotions" here and now.
In the healing journey of being fully present and regaining core emotions, the pain of trauma is transformed into a 'memory', and the suffering soul is able to re-immerse itself in life.
American Bookfest's Best Book in the Mental Health and Psychology category
“How did they say goodbye to the persistent depression?”
The Psychology of Core Emotions from the Bottom of Your Heart
A new science of emotions that overturns the modern paradigm of depression.
Why do some depressions seem inexplicable and endless? Hilary Jacobs Handel, an expert in Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Therapy (AEDP), meets people suffering from chronic depression who have failed to respond to antidepressants or cognitive behavioral therapy.
Sarah was afraid to put herself forward.
Spencer suffered from severe social anxiety.
Bonnie completely shut out her emotions.
They all came to Handel complaining of depression, but none of them were, at least biochemically, depressed.
As it turned out, these were all cases where a defense mechanism for emotions in the form of depression was activated due to major and minor traumatic experiences in childhood.
Handel uses a simple tool called the "Triangle of Change" to help clients become aware of their "defenses," release their "inhibited emotions," and experience their "core emotions" here and now.
In the healing journey of being fully present and regaining core emotions, the pain of trauma is transformed into a 'memory', and the suffering soul is able to re-immerse itself in life.
- You can preview some of the book's contents.
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index
｜Recommended Articles｜It's Not Always Depression
1. The New Science of Emotions
The story of the 'Triangle of Change'
How Emotions Work
My story
The basic principles of the 'Triangle of Change'
How comfortable are you with your emotions?
2.
Release your core emotions
A story about the body and brain that changes emotional experiences
Fran's fear, anxiety, and sadness
Change at Any Age: Neuroscience and Neuroplasticity
｜Experiment｜Take it easy
3.
Facing trauma
Time to go down to the bottom of your heart
Sarah's Depression and 'Exploring Conflict'
Everyone's been hurt a little: Big Traumas and Small Traumas
Humans Need to Connect: The Science of Attachment
｜Experiment｜Showing Compassion to Yourself
｜Experiment｜Becoming a Parent to Yourself
4. Meet the core emotions
The waves of your heart that you have suppressed
Bonnie's intense anger
Everything You Need to Know About Core Emotions
｜Experiment｜Noticing Inner Experience
｜Experiment｜Finding Core Emotions
5. Let go of inhibitions
Where do these terrible feelings come from?
Spencer's social anxiety
How to Deal with Anxiety, Shame, and Guilt
｜Experiment｜How to calm anxiety
｜Experiment｜Messages that evoke shame
｜Experiment｜The imperatives encountered in everyday life
｜Experiment｜Guilt
Healing Emotions
｜Experiment｜Joy, Gratitude, Pride
6. Kick out the defense
What you have chosen to avoid
The story of Mario's journey from trauma to peace.
Defense Handling Practice
｜Experiment｜Noticing Defenses
7. Finding the true me
Open mind and true self
Sarah's story again
Seven States of Open Mind
｜Experiment｜Finding My Open Mind
｜Experiment｜Drawing My Triangle of Change
｜Experiment｜Using the Triangle of Change
Conclusion
｜Recommended article｜Finding the ‘reason for pain’
The Power of Emotion-Focused Psychotherapy
Appendix A: Sensory Word List
Appendix B List of Emotional Words
References
annotation
1. The New Science of Emotions
The story of the 'Triangle of Change'
How Emotions Work
My story
The basic principles of the 'Triangle of Change'
How comfortable are you with your emotions?
2.
Release your core emotions
A story about the body and brain that changes emotional experiences
Fran's fear, anxiety, and sadness
Change at Any Age: Neuroscience and Neuroplasticity
｜Experiment｜Take it easy
3.
Facing trauma
Time to go down to the bottom of your heart
Sarah's Depression and 'Exploring Conflict'
Everyone's been hurt a little: Big Traumas and Small Traumas
Humans Need to Connect: The Science of Attachment
｜Experiment｜Showing Compassion to Yourself
｜Experiment｜Becoming a Parent to Yourself
4. Meet the core emotions
The waves of your heart that you have suppressed
Bonnie's intense anger
Everything You Need to Know About Core Emotions
｜Experiment｜Noticing Inner Experience
｜Experiment｜Finding Core Emotions
5. Let go of inhibitions
Where do these terrible feelings come from?
Spencer's social anxiety
How to Deal with Anxiety, Shame, and Guilt
｜Experiment｜How to calm anxiety
｜Experiment｜Messages that evoke shame
｜Experiment｜The imperatives encountered in everyday life
｜Experiment｜Guilt
Healing Emotions
｜Experiment｜Joy, Gratitude, Pride
6. Kick out the defense
What you have chosen to avoid
The story of Mario's journey from trauma to peace.
Defense Handling Practice
｜Experiment｜Noticing Defenses
7. Finding the true me
Open mind and true self
Sarah's story again
Seven States of Open Mind
｜Experiment｜Finding My Open Mind
｜Experiment｜Drawing My Triangle of Change
｜Experiment｜Using the Triangle of Change
Conclusion
｜Recommended article｜Finding the ‘reason for pain’
The Power of Emotion-Focused Psychotherapy
Appendix A: Sensory Word List
Appendix B List of Emotional Words
References
annotation
Detailed image
Into the book
Ignoring your feelings has its consequences.
That's why the number of people suffering from anxiety and depression is increasing worldwide.
Yet, our culture and educational systems don't teach us to understand and utilize our emotions, nor do they provide us with the resources and skills to do so.
Society doesn't even have a basic understanding of how emotions work biologically.
Culture teaches us to deny and avoid our emotions.
The Triangle of Change challenges these cultural norms.
--- 「1.
From “The New Science of Emotions”
AEDP is a treatment method that focuses on healing, not insight.
Insight-focused therapies, such as psychoanalysis or cognitive behavioral therapy, which primarily address thoughts, anticipate symptom improvement through gaining insight. Healing-focused therapies, such as AEDP, aim to bring about changes in the brain and target symptoms from an emotional and physical perspective.
So rather than managing the symptoms, we make them go away.
From what I learned, AEDP was much more direct than psychoanalysis.
The methodology was specific and the results were positive as expected.
(Omitted) The reason AEDP was impressive to me was because it was a methodology based on the latest neuroscience research and clinical theory on the process of treating people's depression, anxiety, trauma, and other symptoms.
Believing that a good analyst could only be one who distanced himself from his emotions, I steadily received psychoanalytic training and delved deeply into the principles and theories of emotions, neuroplasticity, trauma, attachment, and change.
And then I finally discovered a path to change that didn't require me to distance myself from my emotions or block them out.
--- 「1.
From “The New Science of Emotions”
That's why psychotherapists ask their clients about the past so many times.
Childhood experiences, especially those involving negative emotions, are powerful.
The neural networks of childhood are strong and taut.
But if we release the emotions that are stuck in our neural networks (Fran's sadness or Mary's fear) and reorganize our neural networks, we can change how we respond.
Conversely, if you are unable to express your blocked emotions, the neural networks that are imprinted with trauma will continue to become firmly established.
(Omitted) To change the brain's past habitual responses, you have to cut through the undergrowth with a scythe and make a path each time.
Depending on how diligently you pave the way, it can take weeks, months, or even years for a new road to open.
--- 「2.
From “Release the Core Emotions”
Even if the neural network is separated, when encountering a familiar object in the current environment, the neural network that was traumatized in the past is ignited.
Then it feels like past events are happening again in the present.
While moments erased from memory can continue to impact our present lives, healing doesn't necessarily require revisiting long-forgotten memories.
It is more important to understand the feelings of the emotions that remain and deal with them through the triangle of change.
(Omitted) One of the goals of trauma treatment is to make you feel safe when you are safe.
--- 「3.
From “Facing Trauma”
Small traumas arise from events that are hidden or unconscious in an apparently normal life.
(Omitted) In other words, small trauma arises from subjective sensations of pain and wounds.
Even if the caregivers, such as parents, siblings, relatives, teachers, or clergy, had no malicious intentions, and even if others saw them as loving and caring and growing up well, they can still experience small trauma.
--- 「3.
From “Facing Trauma”
Small traumas leave scars just like big traumas.
Sarah froze, terrified that she might offend me.
When clients are asked to verbalize the emotional and physical experiences they experience during therapy, they often report feelings of instability, such as falling into a black hole, having a blank mind, feeling hypnotized, dizzy, numb, and losing consciousness from their bodies.
(Omitted) The client, Martin, was born to a talented lawyer couple and grew up in a wealthy family.
His parents loved Martin, but showed little interest in him.
Martin needed more attention.
Martin was emotionally neglected at home, which led him to develop shame and a belief that there was something wrong with him.
Behind the core emotions of anger and sadness, shame lurked.
Stephanie had an older brother who bullied her younger sisters.
Every time her brother bullied her, Stephanie was overcome with fear and anger.
Fear and anger ultimately breed anxiety and create the belief that home cannot be a safe space.
Bruce's mother was a person who despised the world.
Because of his mother's attitude, Bruce thought he had ruined her life.
Bruce felt that his mother hated him.
Bruce should have felt disgust, anger, and sadness, but he blocked these core emotions with shame and anxiety to avoid feeling terrible.
Maria's second grade homeroom teacher was a mean person.
When students did something wrong, they were openly reprimanded and punished harshly as they pleased.
Maria was afraid of school.
When no one would take her fears seriously, Maria used Harry as a defense mechanism to cover up her fears.
(syncopation)
Michael was the youngest of three children and had mild Tourette syndrome.
Michael remembers feeling hurt and lonely as a child, separated from his siblings and friends.
In my teens, I turned to drugs to 'cure' my fears.
Mary and her sisters grow up to suffer from minor trauma, being scolded severely by their father for minor offenses such as breaking a plate.
--- 「3.
From “Facing Trauma”
“...If you express your anger safely in this space, no one will be hurt by harsh words or violence.
Imagination is a safe way to release the energy associated with anger.
Our brains are virtually incapable of distinguishing between imagination and reality when it comes to processing emotions.
So imagination is a very useful tool.
So, what I'm saying is, let's get the anger out of your body."
--- 「4.
From “Meeting the Core Emotions”
The brain reacts to imagination as if it were real, and this reaction plays an important role in psychotherapy.
For example, simply imagining a client fighting the perpetrator or avoiding the attack that initially caused the trauma can provide a sense of relief, as if it were real.
We know in our heads that we have survived trauma, but we don't know emotionally.
The emotional brain constantly triggers fight, flight, or freeze responses when it doesn't feel safe, which causes distress.
By processing past emotions and integrating a plausible narrative into our personal history, our emotional brain learns that the danger is actually over and we are now safe.
Then trauma becomes a memory.
It's like thinking, 'It happened to me, but it's over now.'
That's why the number of people suffering from anxiety and depression is increasing worldwide.
Yet, our culture and educational systems don't teach us to understand and utilize our emotions, nor do they provide us with the resources and skills to do so.
Society doesn't even have a basic understanding of how emotions work biologically.
Culture teaches us to deny and avoid our emotions.
The Triangle of Change challenges these cultural norms.
--- 「1.
From “The New Science of Emotions”
AEDP is a treatment method that focuses on healing, not insight.
Insight-focused therapies, such as psychoanalysis or cognitive behavioral therapy, which primarily address thoughts, anticipate symptom improvement through gaining insight. Healing-focused therapies, such as AEDP, aim to bring about changes in the brain and target symptoms from an emotional and physical perspective.
So rather than managing the symptoms, we make them go away.
From what I learned, AEDP was much more direct than psychoanalysis.
The methodology was specific and the results were positive as expected.
(Omitted) The reason AEDP was impressive to me was because it was a methodology based on the latest neuroscience research and clinical theory on the process of treating people's depression, anxiety, trauma, and other symptoms.
Believing that a good analyst could only be one who distanced himself from his emotions, I steadily received psychoanalytic training and delved deeply into the principles and theories of emotions, neuroplasticity, trauma, attachment, and change.
And then I finally discovered a path to change that didn't require me to distance myself from my emotions or block them out.
--- 「1.
From “The New Science of Emotions”
That's why psychotherapists ask their clients about the past so many times.
Childhood experiences, especially those involving negative emotions, are powerful.
The neural networks of childhood are strong and taut.
But if we release the emotions that are stuck in our neural networks (Fran's sadness or Mary's fear) and reorganize our neural networks, we can change how we respond.
Conversely, if you are unable to express your blocked emotions, the neural networks that are imprinted with trauma will continue to become firmly established.
(Omitted) To change the brain's past habitual responses, you have to cut through the undergrowth with a scythe and make a path each time.
Depending on how diligently you pave the way, it can take weeks, months, or even years for a new road to open.
--- 「2.
From “Release the Core Emotions”
Even if the neural network is separated, when encountering a familiar object in the current environment, the neural network that was traumatized in the past is ignited.
Then it feels like past events are happening again in the present.
While moments erased from memory can continue to impact our present lives, healing doesn't necessarily require revisiting long-forgotten memories.
It is more important to understand the feelings of the emotions that remain and deal with them through the triangle of change.
(Omitted) One of the goals of trauma treatment is to make you feel safe when you are safe.
--- 「3.
From “Facing Trauma”
Small traumas arise from events that are hidden or unconscious in an apparently normal life.
(Omitted) In other words, small trauma arises from subjective sensations of pain and wounds.
Even if the caregivers, such as parents, siblings, relatives, teachers, or clergy, had no malicious intentions, and even if others saw them as loving and caring and growing up well, they can still experience small trauma.
--- 「3.
From “Facing Trauma”
Small traumas leave scars just like big traumas.
Sarah froze, terrified that she might offend me.
When clients are asked to verbalize the emotional and physical experiences they experience during therapy, they often report feelings of instability, such as falling into a black hole, having a blank mind, feeling hypnotized, dizzy, numb, and losing consciousness from their bodies.
(Omitted) The client, Martin, was born to a talented lawyer couple and grew up in a wealthy family.
His parents loved Martin, but showed little interest in him.
Martin needed more attention.
Martin was emotionally neglected at home, which led him to develop shame and a belief that there was something wrong with him.
Behind the core emotions of anger and sadness, shame lurked.
Stephanie had an older brother who bullied her younger sisters.
Every time her brother bullied her, Stephanie was overcome with fear and anger.
Fear and anger ultimately breed anxiety and create the belief that home cannot be a safe space.
Bruce's mother was a person who despised the world.
Because of his mother's attitude, Bruce thought he had ruined her life.
Bruce felt that his mother hated him.
Bruce should have felt disgust, anger, and sadness, but he blocked these core emotions with shame and anxiety to avoid feeling terrible.
Maria's second grade homeroom teacher was a mean person.
When students did something wrong, they were openly reprimanded and punished harshly as they pleased.
Maria was afraid of school.
When no one would take her fears seriously, Maria used Harry as a defense mechanism to cover up her fears.
(syncopation)
Michael was the youngest of three children and had mild Tourette syndrome.
Michael remembers feeling hurt and lonely as a child, separated from his siblings and friends.
In my teens, I turned to drugs to 'cure' my fears.
Mary and her sisters grow up to suffer from minor trauma, being scolded severely by their father for minor offenses such as breaking a plate.
--- 「3.
From “Facing Trauma”
“...If you express your anger safely in this space, no one will be hurt by harsh words or violence.
Imagination is a safe way to release the energy associated with anger.
Our brains are virtually incapable of distinguishing between imagination and reality when it comes to processing emotions.
So imagination is a very useful tool.
So, what I'm saying is, let's get the anger out of your body."
--- 「4.
From “Meeting the Core Emotions”
The brain reacts to imagination as if it were real, and this reaction plays an important role in psychotherapy.
For example, simply imagining a client fighting the perpetrator or avoiding the attack that initially caused the trauma can provide a sense of relief, as if it were real.
We know in our heads that we have survived trauma, but we don't know emotionally.
The emotional brain constantly triggers fight, flight, or freeze responses when it doesn't feel safe, which causes distress.
By processing past emotions and integrating a plausible narrative into our personal history, our emotional brain learns that the danger is actually over and we are now safe.
Then trauma becomes a memory.
It's like thinking, 'It happened to me, but it's over now.'
--- 「6.
From "Kicking Off the Defense"
From "Kicking Off the Defense"
Publisher's Review
★ Silver Prize in the 'Personal Growth' category at the Nautilus Book Awards in the United States ★
★ American Bookfest's Best Book in the Mental Health/Psychology Category ★
“How did they say goodbye to the persistent depression?”
The Psychology of Core Emotions from the Bottom of Your Heart
“A person who appears to be clearly depressed, a person who shows clinically depressive symptoms
It does not respond at all to antidepressants or psychotherapy.
How can that be?
Perhaps the source of his suffering lies elsewhere.”
_From Hilary Jacobs Handel's New York Times column, "It's Not Always Depression"
It's not always depression... sometimes it's shame.
A column in the New York Times in March 2015 begins like this:
“There are people who are obviously depressed, people who show clinically depressive symptoms.
But that person doesn't respond at all to antidepressants or psychotherapy.
How could that be? Perhaps the source of the person's suffering lies elsewhere."
The title of the column is “It’s not necessarily depression.
“It's Not Always Depression, Sometimes It's Shame” was the most clicked article in the New York Times that day and the hottest topic of the week.
Hilary Jacobs Handel, the columnist and psychotherapist who wrote this article, goes on to publish a book that offers a new and practical perspective on the perplexing and chronic "symptom" of depression.
Why do some depressions never end?
The shortcut to healing the heart is 'emotion'.
We have been taught that 'thoughts change emotions, thoughts affect emotions.'
But the truth is usually the opposite.
This is why it is useless to advise someone suffering from depression or other illnesses to “change their thinking.”
Under one-sided common sense, clients have difficulty escaping the 'symptom' of depression and become increasingly more difficult.
Handel usually refutes mainstream psychotherapy, saying, “Psychotherapy that focuses on thoughts and content is the most indirect and ineffective treatment.”
“Trying to bring about deep and rapid change through cognitive insight is like pushing a car to its destination instead of driving it,” he says, emphasizing that the shortest path to healing psychological pain is through “emotions.”
In typical counseling sessions, clients are usually encouraged to disclose past events that may have triggered their anxiety and depression.
On the other hand, in Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Therapy (AEDP), an emotion-centered and experiential psychotherapy mainly used by Handel, the therapist helps the client explore the seven 'core emotions' (anger, sadness, fear, disgust, joy, excitement, sexual arousal), the 'inhibited emotions' (shame, guilt, anxiety) that block them, and the 'defenses' that are protective devices used to avoid feeling these two types of emotions, and ultimately leads the client to meet their true self and reach comfort.
And this process happens through a simple tool called the 'ChangeTriangle'.
This book can be said to be a self-treatment manual that explains 'Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Therapy', or AEDP for short, one of the empirical approaches, so that anyone can follow it.
It's designed so that even those without prior counseling experience, not to mention psychologists, can engage in self-analysis on their own. AEDP is the most experiential approach among the various types of psychodynamic therapy, helping individuals connect with their true selves by encountering core emotions or their most vulnerable areas.
_From the 'Recommended Writings' | Jiyoung Byun, PhD in Clinical and Counseling Psychology, Author of 'Time to Read My Mind'
Both the therapist and the client sympathized
The Psychology of New Emotions
In "I Wasn't Blue This Morning," we learn the most effective techniques for reconnecting with the emotions we often deny, and they can be used by anyone, anywhere, anytime.
The author shares his own personal story of growing up, marriage and divorce, experiencing depression, and becoming a psychotherapist. He illuminates the elements of core emotions, suppressed emotions, and defenses, and shows how understanding their interactions can help us regain peace of mind.
The elements that make up the 'Triangle of Change', a core tool of AEDP, interact as follows:
First of all, humans have a ‘core emotion.’
The core emotions are the seven innate emotions necessary for survival: fear, joy, sadness, disgust, anger, excitement, and sexual arousal.
They tell us what we want, what we need, what we like or don't like.
Secondly, 'inhibitory emotions' block core emotions, preventing us from being overwhelmed by them and allowing us to maintain sociality. There are three types: anxiety, shame, and guilt.
Finally, 'defense' refers to everything we do to avoid emotions.
It is a mental safeguard that prevents us from suffering from or being overwhelmed by emotional pain.
Our brain uses "suppressed emotions" to keep us from panicking and to maintain a sense of reality.
And to relieve the emotional pain and overload that comes with that frustration, we create 'defenses'.
Defenses are originally created with good intentions, but when they are not updated or malfunction, people become alienated from their emotional experiences.
Finding the truth of my suffering
The story of the 'Triangle of Change'
The 'Triangle of Change', which is shaped like an inverted triangle, is structured to help you notice the 'defense' you are using at the upper left corner, then find the 'suppressed emotion' that the defense is avoiding at the upper right corner, and finally move to the bottom corner to properly experience the 'core emotion' that the suppressed emotion is suppressing.
And once we fully experience the core emotions, we reach the state of "openheartedness" that we feel when we are our "authentic self," a state of true immersion and a sense of self, and thus achieve true healing.
By using the ‘Triangle of Change’
When you listen to what your ‘body’ is saying and discover your ‘core emotions’,
You will meet your true self again
For a person to truly understand his or her own thoughts and whole self, he or she must 'experience' emotions, especially core emotions.
This is why, when relieving psychological pain, we must prioritize the 'emotions' themselves, rather than just cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or medication.
To this end, the author suggests various ways to experience emotions in the first part of the book (Chapter 2), such as abdominal breathing, grounding (practicing planting your feet firmly on the ground), imagining a sanctuary, observing your surroundings, and observing your inner self.
All emotions are rooted in the body, and to escape psychological symptoms such as depression and anxiety, you must be able to recognize your emotions and physical reactions.
Fortunately, with a little help and some simple practice, anyone can become more aware of the emotions arising in their body.
This is very beneficial as it provides a clue to relieving emotional disorders such as depression and social anxiety.
Awareness is ultimately the prerequisite for all healing.
When you experience core emotions in the 'here and now'
The mind changes deeply and quickly.
According to the author, who has been trying to understand the "science of emotions" by combining neuroscience and clinical psychology, we know intellectually that we have endured and survived trauma, but we do not know emotionally.
The emotional brain constantly triggers fight, flight, or freeze responses when it doesn't feel safe, which causes distress.
So, only by processing past emotions and integrating a plausible narrative into our personal history does our emotional brain learn that the danger is actually over and we are now safe.
Then trauma becomes a memory.
You can think, 'It happened to me, but it's over now.'
In that day's counseling session, Mario's body and mind remained safely with me in the present, and he returned to his past memories and escaped from danger, completing the impulse of 'wanting to run away but not being able to run away'.
He released the energy that was trapped inside him and locked the traumatic scene in time.
_ From '6. Kick Out the Defense'
When we properly experience our core emotions in the 'here and now' along the 'triangle of change', the past trauma that constantly brings back terrible pain begins to separate from ourselves, transforming into a 'memory' rather than a trauma.
That's where healing begins.
People who have been suffering re-accept their emotions, regain their true selves, become calmer, more curious, and connected to the world.
★ American Bookfest's Best Book in the Mental Health/Psychology Category ★
“How did they say goodbye to the persistent depression?”
The Psychology of Core Emotions from the Bottom of Your Heart
“A person who appears to be clearly depressed, a person who shows clinically depressive symptoms
It does not respond at all to antidepressants or psychotherapy.
How can that be?
Perhaps the source of his suffering lies elsewhere.”
_From Hilary Jacobs Handel's New York Times column, "It's Not Always Depression"
It's not always depression... sometimes it's shame.
A column in the New York Times in March 2015 begins like this:
“There are people who are obviously depressed, people who show clinically depressive symptoms.
But that person doesn't respond at all to antidepressants or psychotherapy.
How could that be? Perhaps the source of the person's suffering lies elsewhere."
The title of the column is “It’s not necessarily depression.
“It's Not Always Depression, Sometimes It's Shame” was the most clicked article in the New York Times that day and the hottest topic of the week.
Hilary Jacobs Handel, the columnist and psychotherapist who wrote this article, goes on to publish a book that offers a new and practical perspective on the perplexing and chronic "symptom" of depression.
Why do some depressions never end?
The shortcut to healing the heart is 'emotion'.
We have been taught that 'thoughts change emotions, thoughts affect emotions.'
But the truth is usually the opposite.
This is why it is useless to advise someone suffering from depression or other illnesses to “change their thinking.”
Under one-sided common sense, clients have difficulty escaping the 'symptom' of depression and become increasingly more difficult.
Handel usually refutes mainstream psychotherapy, saying, “Psychotherapy that focuses on thoughts and content is the most indirect and ineffective treatment.”
“Trying to bring about deep and rapid change through cognitive insight is like pushing a car to its destination instead of driving it,” he says, emphasizing that the shortest path to healing psychological pain is through “emotions.”
In typical counseling sessions, clients are usually encouraged to disclose past events that may have triggered their anxiety and depression.
On the other hand, in Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Therapy (AEDP), an emotion-centered and experiential psychotherapy mainly used by Handel, the therapist helps the client explore the seven 'core emotions' (anger, sadness, fear, disgust, joy, excitement, sexual arousal), the 'inhibited emotions' (shame, guilt, anxiety) that block them, and the 'defenses' that are protective devices used to avoid feeling these two types of emotions, and ultimately leads the client to meet their true self and reach comfort.
And this process happens through a simple tool called the 'ChangeTriangle'.
This book can be said to be a self-treatment manual that explains 'Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Therapy', or AEDP for short, one of the empirical approaches, so that anyone can follow it.
It's designed so that even those without prior counseling experience, not to mention psychologists, can engage in self-analysis on their own. AEDP is the most experiential approach among the various types of psychodynamic therapy, helping individuals connect with their true selves by encountering core emotions or their most vulnerable areas.
_From the 'Recommended Writings' | Jiyoung Byun, PhD in Clinical and Counseling Psychology, Author of 'Time to Read My Mind'
Both the therapist and the client sympathized
The Psychology of New Emotions
In "I Wasn't Blue This Morning," we learn the most effective techniques for reconnecting with the emotions we often deny, and they can be used by anyone, anywhere, anytime.
The author shares his own personal story of growing up, marriage and divorce, experiencing depression, and becoming a psychotherapist. He illuminates the elements of core emotions, suppressed emotions, and defenses, and shows how understanding their interactions can help us regain peace of mind.
The elements that make up the 'Triangle of Change', a core tool of AEDP, interact as follows:
First of all, humans have a ‘core emotion.’
The core emotions are the seven innate emotions necessary for survival: fear, joy, sadness, disgust, anger, excitement, and sexual arousal.
They tell us what we want, what we need, what we like or don't like.
Secondly, 'inhibitory emotions' block core emotions, preventing us from being overwhelmed by them and allowing us to maintain sociality. There are three types: anxiety, shame, and guilt.
Finally, 'defense' refers to everything we do to avoid emotions.
It is a mental safeguard that prevents us from suffering from or being overwhelmed by emotional pain.
Our brain uses "suppressed emotions" to keep us from panicking and to maintain a sense of reality.
And to relieve the emotional pain and overload that comes with that frustration, we create 'defenses'.
Defenses are originally created with good intentions, but when they are not updated or malfunction, people become alienated from their emotional experiences.
Finding the truth of my suffering
The story of the 'Triangle of Change'
The 'Triangle of Change', which is shaped like an inverted triangle, is structured to help you notice the 'defense' you are using at the upper left corner, then find the 'suppressed emotion' that the defense is avoiding at the upper right corner, and finally move to the bottom corner to properly experience the 'core emotion' that the suppressed emotion is suppressing.
And once we fully experience the core emotions, we reach the state of "openheartedness" that we feel when we are our "authentic self," a state of true immersion and a sense of self, and thus achieve true healing.
By using the ‘Triangle of Change’
When you listen to what your ‘body’ is saying and discover your ‘core emotions’,
You will meet your true self again
For a person to truly understand his or her own thoughts and whole self, he or she must 'experience' emotions, especially core emotions.
This is why, when relieving psychological pain, we must prioritize the 'emotions' themselves, rather than just cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or medication.
To this end, the author suggests various ways to experience emotions in the first part of the book (Chapter 2), such as abdominal breathing, grounding (practicing planting your feet firmly on the ground), imagining a sanctuary, observing your surroundings, and observing your inner self.
All emotions are rooted in the body, and to escape psychological symptoms such as depression and anxiety, you must be able to recognize your emotions and physical reactions.
Fortunately, with a little help and some simple practice, anyone can become more aware of the emotions arising in their body.
This is very beneficial as it provides a clue to relieving emotional disorders such as depression and social anxiety.
Awareness is ultimately the prerequisite for all healing.
When you experience core emotions in the 'here and now'
The mind changes deeply and quickly.
According to the author, who has been trying to understand the "science of emotions" by combining neuroscience and clinical psychology, we know intellectually that we have endured and survived trauma, but we do not know emotionally.
The emotional brain constantly triggers fight, flight, or freeze responses when it doesn't feel safe, which causes distress.
So, only by processing past emotions and integrating a plausible narrative into our personal history does our emotional brain learn that the danger is actually over and we are now safe.
Then trauma becomes a memory.
You can think, 'It happened to me, but it's over now.'
In that day's counseling session, Mario's body and mind remained safely with me in the present, and he returned to his past memories and escaped from danger, completing the impulse of 'wanting to run away but not being able to run away'.
He released the energy that was trapped inside him and locked the traumatic scene in time.
_ From '6. Kick Out the Defense'
When we properly experience our core emotions in the 'here and now' along the 'triangle of change', the past trauma that constantly brings back terrible pain begins to separate from ourselves, transforming into a 'memory' rather than a trauma.
That's where healing begins.
People who have been suffering re-accept their emotions, regain their true selves, become calmer, more curious, and connected to the world.
GOODS SPECIFICS
- Date of issue: October 5, 2023
- Page count, weight, size: 384 pages | 518g | 148*210*18mm
- ISBN13: 9791140706310
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