Identifying Emotions

[Google Monster]

I've had trouble identifying my emotions all my life. I would need someone to explain in detail about how they feel and thoughts going through their mind before I could identify with them.

For instance I had no clue until last year that the tremors I get during a fight or the pain going away after hitting the heavy bag a several times with scabbed up knuckles was adrenaline.

Also I had no clue I had this thing called depression until reading about it's symptoms earlier today. I knew something was up, I just thought it was typical INTP behavior. But I the line has been crossed when stupid movies became tear jerkers and the drive for the stuff I have been passionate about has left.

Yup this INTP/Depression thing is bugging me and I am determined to find the cure.

Any of you have trouble identifying your emotions? Discuss.

[monolith]

depression is not typical for me. 'emotion' is a made up word to describe your mood. Why go through trouble of identifying your emotions? its like naming clouds in the sky. thats my opinion. you should feel you want to feel.

[ptide]

Luckily I find it very easy to identify my mood. If I'm in a crabby mood I can tell, if it's food or sleep i need, I'll just let those around me know so they don't think im being a jerk on purpose.

when i'm depressed, it's because i feel trapped by my circumstances
when i'm frustrated, it's because my efforts are not producing results
when i'm stressed, it's because i have more demands on me than i can deal with
when i'm angry, it's because someone or something broke one of my rules
when i'm sad, it's because i lost something that was important to me
when i'm happy, it's because things are going the way i like
when i'm relaxed, it's because i'm comfortable in my surroundings
when i'm excited, i got something good to look forward to.

[Red_Goat]

Naming my emotions as they surface helps me to identify and structure them. I've also found that the practice has made it easier for me to analyze and overcome emotions that I consider irrational or deconstructive.

I get into these depressed moods every now and then, typically after having to interact and not liking how it resulted. Doesn't usually last more than a day or so, but some have lasted weeks. I'll just go uber-isolationist, smoke excessively and repeat catchy slogans like "fuck the world and everyone in it". These days I break out of such moods pretty quick, usually by identifying whatever set me off and re-evaluating it.

IMO being able to identify emotions is just one of many mental muscles, and with exercise it can be made more effective. It took me years to really accept the correlation between staying up to four am and feeling like shit the next morning, but I've now learned my lesson and sleep in to compensate

[venerationOFrabbits]

For someone with inferior feeling the first thing to do is to become aware of when you are engaged in that function. Believe it or not, there are many times when your feeling function is working in the background, things get tricky when you are not aware of it and what it's doing to you.

you have to catch them and become concious of them first before you can even begin to hope to use them to derive useful information

From what I've read it's a real trick to learn, you have to not let your superior functions take over and dismiss them, and just have faith in whatever your feeling, no matter how inappropriate you've been conditioned to believe those feeling are. Just go with it, don't think about it, let them happen and don't be afraid of mistakes, because the next feeling will correct the last one if it turned out to be a truely inappropriate situation.

[Google Monster]

Originally Posted by venerationOFrabbits

For someone with inferior feeling the first thing to do is to become aware of when you are engaged in that function. Believe it or not, there are many times when your feeling function is working in the background, things get tricky when you are not aware of it and what it's doing to you.

you have to catch them and become concious of them first before you can even begin to hope to use them to derive useful information

From what I've read it's a real trick to learn, you have to not let your superior functions take over and dismiss them, and just have faith in whatever your feeling, no matter how inappropriate you've been conditioned to believe those feeling are. Just go with it, don't think about it, let them happen and don't be afraid of mistakes, because the next feeling will correct the last one if it turns out to be a truely inappropriate emotion.

Well the main feeling that is itching my mittens right now is grief. I know you say go with it, I am afriad to do just that.

[venerationOFrabbits]

Originally Posted by Google Monster

Well the main feeling that is itching my mittens right now is grief. I know you say go with it, I am afriad to do just that.

I've recently discovered the Jungian author James Hillman and ordered a mess of his paperbacks from Amazon. Here are a few excerpts from his chapter Education of the Feeling function from his book Lectures on Jung's Typology:

A first step in the education of feeling is lifting the repression of fear. The feelings must first be caught and held in consciousness and recognized as feelings. Since it is the feeling function which feels feelings, it must be allowed to feel what it actually does feel as it happens, admitting and accepting, without the intervention of superior functions. Not only the superior functions interfere. Feeling itself judges the psyche's contents with narrow evaluations. Our own stale moralisms, cheap tastes and intolerances work against us. It is as if feeling develops through suspension of itself, holding in abeyance so that we can newly reflect rather than habitually judge what we feel.

below is the opener to that particular chapter, it resonated with me so thought I'd share it also:

Schooling tends mainly to develop the functions of thinking and sensation, although intelligence tests with their emphasis on quickness and guessing favor intuition. Feeling education, in the sense of taste, values, relationships, is not the core of schooling. Music, art, sports, social clubs, religion, politics, drama, reading for pleasure---these are elective and extracurricular. Where can the heart go to school? Perhaps it was not so preposterous to claim that the profession of psychotherapy owes its existence to the inadequate and undeveloped state of the feeling function in general.

The development of the feeling function through psychotherapy would not be so necessary had our usual education included feeling more in its aims. Rouseau said: "He among us who can best carry the joys and sorrows of life in my opinion is the best educated." The education of the rational mind, much as we have been led to believe by the indoctrination of schooling, little makes us capable of coping with joys and sorrows. Rather the contrary is true: the education of the rational mind makes us less able with feeling, since feeling and thinking would seem, for the most part, to develop at the expense of each other. The Romantics knew this and said: "Feeling may err but it can only be corrected by feeling" (Herder). This statement denies the superiority of the reason of the mind over the reason of the heart and presents the romantic threat to Classical order. Inferior feeling cannot be corrected from above by superior thinking. The beginning of feeling education is turning a deaf ear to one's superior functions, whose disapproval---even if tolerantly educative---of whatever is less acts mainly repressively. Feeling requires an education through faith; it begins to function only when we can trust it to function and allow it its errors.

[Google Monster]

Originally Posted by venerationOFrabbits

I've recently discovered the Jungian author James Hillman and ordered a mess of his paperbacks from Amazon. Here are a few excerpts from his chapter Education of the Feeling function from his book Lectures on Jung's Typology:

A first step in the education of feeling is lifting the repression of fear. The feelings must first be caught and held in consciousness and recognized as feelings. Since it is the feeling function which feels feelings, it must be allowed to feel what it actually does feel as it happens, admitting and accepting, without the intervention of superior functions. Not only the superior functions interfere. Feeling itself judges the psyche's contents with narrow evaluations. Our own stale moralisms, cheap tastes and intolerances work against us. It is as if feeling develops through suspension of itself, holding in abeyance so that we can newly reflect rather than habitually judge what we feel.

below is the opener to that particular chapter, it resonated with me so thought I'd share it also:

Schooling tends mainly to develop the functions of thinking and sensation, although intelligence tests with their emphasis on quickness and guessing favor intuition. Feeling education, in the sense of taste, values, relationships, is not the core of schooling. Music, art, sports, social clubs, religion, politics, drama, reading for pleasure---these are elective and extracurricular. Where can the heart go to school? Perhaps it was not so preposterous to claim that the profession of psychotherapy owes its existence to the inadequate and undeveloped state of the feeling function in general.

The development of the feeling function through psychotherapy would not be so necessary had our usual education included feeling more in its aims. Rouseau said: "He among us who can best carry the joys and sorrows of life in my opinion is the best educated." The education of the rational mind, much as we have been led to believe by the indoctrination of schooling, little makes us capable of coping with joys and sorrows. Rather the contrary is true: the education of the rational mind makes us less able with feeling, since feeling and thinking would seem, for the most part, to develop at the expense of each other. The Romantics knew this and said: "Feeling may err but it can only be corrected by feeling" (Herder). This statement denies the superiority of the reason of the mind over the reason of the heart and presents the romantic threat to Classical order. Inferior feeling cannot be corrected from above by superior thinking. The beginning of feeling education is turning a deaf ear to one's superior functions, whose disapproval---even if tolerantly educative---of whatever is less acts mainly repressively. Feeling requires an education through faith; it begins to function only when we can trust it to function and allow it its errors.

Shit, I was afraid of that and totally makes sense. I tried to approach this several times with my thinking cap on and to no avail I have failed each time. I thought some structure might help but that only helped for about a week. I guess the emotional approach may just be the best.

Oh darn, I just realized I feel victim to something I identified as Emo Paradox. Trying to find a logical solution to an emotional problem.

[Toonia]

Originally Posted by venerationOFrabbits

The development of the feeling function through psychotherapy would not be so necessary had our usual education included feeling more in its aims. Rouseau said: "He among us who can best carry the joys and sorrows of life in my opinion is the best educated." The education of the rational mind, much as we have been led to believe by the indoctrination of schooling, little makes us capable of coping with joys and sorrows. Rather the contrary is true: the education of the rational mind makes us less able with feeling, since feeling and thinking would seem, for the most part, to develop at the expense of each other. The Romantics knew this and said: "Feeling may err but it can only be corrected by feeling" (Herder). This statement denies the superiority of the reason of the mind over the reason of the heart and presents the romantic threat to Classical order. Inferior feeling cannot be corrected from above by superior thinking. The beginning of feeling education is turning a deaf ear to one's superior functions, whose disapproval---even if tolerantly educative---of whatever is less acts mainly repressively. Feeling requires an education through faith; it begins to function only when we can trust it to function and allow it its errors.[/INDENT]

I found the boldface sections interesting, although i'm not certain i agree 100%. (Maybe that's because i'm guilty of trying to use reason to manage feeling in part.) My thinking and feeling developed very much in relationship to each other. I agree in part, though. I would say you could compare the degree to which thinking can fix emotion to the same degree it can fix a physical ailment. Understanding an illness doesn't fix it, but it can help you diagnose correctly, and then use physical means (medicine, therapy, surgery) to fix the problem. Thinking can also help keep it in perspective. Sometimes the mysterious can seem more oppressive and larger than something that can be defined.

I have some depression now, and have had more in the past. One really good book i read suggested keeping track of all the sensations that give a good feeling: smells, sights, sounds, touch. When you want to regain that good feeling, engulf the senses in those activities that recreate it. Playing thinking tricks on emotions is usually a failed approach, but some objectivity is a good thing i would think. It is scary when you have a really deep pain that needs to pass through you and get out. It does help if there is someone in the vicinity who can be trusted with your deepest part. Experiencing the suffering of emotion in a context where no one actually cares makes it much worse (at least for me) If there is a way to connect with someone to help you through grief, then that is probably a good example of what vOr is describing in those texts. If not i'm sure there are people here who would care. Me for one.

[luzian]

Yup this INTP/Depression thing is bugging me and I am determined to find the cure.

Moderation of drugs. I think INTPs are good with moderation as their value for focus and general usage of their mind balances addiction.