What Feelings Do for Us
Biologically, the expression of emotion serves primarily as a vital signaling function. For example, when we are frightened, both our face and our entire posture let everyone around us know directly that we sense danger lurking out there in the forest or bushes. When the bomb went off at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the “deer in the headlights,” “get me out of here” look on swimmer Janet Evans’s face signaled to everyone (there and on TV) that we’re all in danger. Had she run from the scene, it is likely that many would have followed her nonverbal command. The look of fear is unmistakable. The eyes are wide open with raised eyebrows. The mouth is partially opened with the corners strongly retracted, and the ears drawn back.157
A herd of grazing elk being surveyed by an encroaching wolf pack employs their own method. Even knowing of their presence, the elk continue grazing—that is until one of its members first senses that the wolf has penetrated the “strike-ready” perimeter. Then in grunting and stiffening, all the others are signaled to follow its lead, dashing together toward safety.
However, fear can also stimulate panic. People are frequently hurt or die because of “deer in the headlights” freezing. Emotion here could certainly not be said to be adaptive. If we freeze walking across the street or while driving our car, catastrophe is surely at hand. Similarly, nausea and the accompanying disgust appropriately signal, both to oneself and to others, that an ingested substance should not be eaten. However, this response is counterproductive (even detrimental) when it is someone’s persistent pattern of engaging with food that is not tainted. This maladaptive response can be triggered by people also. Disgust, as a habitual reaction to an appropriate sexual touch or warm embrace, can destroy a relationship and ruin a person’s life.
A further example of emotional signaling is that of a baby crying in distress. This call for a mother’s attention is a life-or-death wail because if the baby cannot compel her ministrations, he will surely die. The baby is clearly signaling a life-preserving need, and the sound is such that the mother cannot readily ignore it. Yet, when as adults, we cry at our abandonment, this plaintive wail does little to bring back the lover who has fallen in love with someone else. In fact, habitual grief can rob us of our energy and prevent us from moving on with our lives and creating connections with someone new. In all three of these cases, life is supported by the signal function of emotion but is negated by its unabated, malapropos continuance.
We seem to be caught in an intractable contradiction here. In the case of loss, it may be that only by moving through (by feeling) grief can we transition toward a tolerance and courage that allow us to love again, while holding the haunting awareness that, inevitably, time may yet again claim our newly beloved for its own. Similarly, a certain amount of anger can help us remove obstacles in our lives, while habitual and explosive anger is almost always corrosive to relationships and the pursuit of what we truly want and need in life. It even frequently puts the pugilist or soldier in a compromised position. To help resolve this apparent paradox, we must first of all understand that emotions (which are reactive) and feelings (which are rooted in fluid internal sensations) are quite different. They are different in their respective functions and in the way they color our lives.
From a functional point of view, bodily/sensate feelings are the compass that we use to navigate through life. They permit us to estimate the value of the things to which we must incorporate or adapt. Our attraction to that which sustains us and our avoidance of that which is harmful are the essence of the feeling function. All feelings derive from the ancient precursors of approach and avoidance; they are in differing degrees positive or negative.
Sensation-based feelings guide the adaptive response to (e)valuations. Emotions, on the other hand, occur precisely when behavioral adaptations (based on these valuations) have failed! Contrary to what both Darwin and James thought, fear is not what directs escape; nor do we feel fear because we are running from a source of threat. The person who can freely run away from threat does not feel fear. He only feels danger (avoidance) and then experiences the action of running. It is solely when escape is prevented that we experience fear. Likewise, we experience anger when we are unable to strike our enemy or otherwise successfully resolve a conflict. I don’t expect you to accept this proposition as true but only ask you to keep an open inquiring mind. What has happened, you might ask, to our instinctual emotions, as described by Darwin? The answer is simply that they are still there. However, the critical intermediary steps that Darwin failed to recognize were later discovered by the carriers of his legacy, the ethologists.
A scene from an upland meadow helps to illustrate the differentiation of feelings and emotions. While you are strolling leisurely in an open meadow, a shadow suddenly moves in the periphery of your vision. Instinctively, all of your movement is arrested (with the feeling of a startle); reflexively you crouch in a somewhat flexed posture. After this momentary “arrest response,” your head automatically turns in the direction of the shadow or sound. You attempt to localize and identify the source. Your neck, back, legs and feet muscles all coordinate so that your whole body turns and then extends. Your eyes narrow, while your pelvis and head shift horizontally, giving you an optimal view of the surroundings and an ability to focus panoramically. This initial two-phase action pattern is an instinctive orientation preparing you to respond flexibly to many possible contingencies; it generates the feeling tone of “expectant curiosity.” The initial arrest-crouch flexion response minimizes detection by possible predators and possibly offers some protection from falling objects. Primarily, though, it provides a convulsive jerk that interrupts any motor patterns already in motion. Then, through scanning, it flexibly prepares you for the fine-tuned behaviors of exploration (for sources of food, shelter and mating) or for defense against predation (experienced as danger and not fear).
If it had been an eagle taking flight that cast the shadow, a further orientation of tracking-pursuit would likely occur. Adjustments of postural and facial muscles coordinate unconsciously. The new “attitude of interest,” when integrated with the contour of the rising eagle image, is perceived as the feeling of excitement. This aesthetically pleasing sense, recognized as the feeling of enjoyment, is affected by past experience. It may also, however, be one of the many powerful archetypal predispositions or undercurrents that each species has developed over millennia of evolutionary time. Most Native Americans, for example, have a very special, spiritual, mythic relationship with the eagle. Is this a coincidence, or is there something imprinted deeply within the structures of the brain, body and soul of the human species that responds intrinsically to the image of eagle with a correlative excitement and awe? Most organisms possess dispositions, if not specific approach/avoidance responses, to large moving contours.*
If the initial shadow had been from a raging grizzly bear (rather than from a rising eagle), a very different reaction would have been evoked: the preparation to flee. This is not, as James discovered, because we think “bear,” evaluate it as dangerous and then run. It is because the contours and features of the large, looming, approaching animal cast a particular light pattern upon the retina of the eye. This stimulates a configuration of neural firing that is registered in the phylogenetically primitive brain regions. This “pattern recognition” triggers, in turn, the preparation for defensive responding before it is registered in consciousness.† These unconscious responses derive from genetic predispositions (as well as from the outcomes of previous personal experiences with similar large animals). Primitive, nonconscious circuits are activated, triggering preset constellations or tendencies of defensive posturing. Muscles, viscera and autonomic nervous system activity cooperate in preparing for escape. This preparation is sensed kinesthetically and is internally joined, as a gestalt, to the image of the bear. Preparation for defensive movement and image are fused and registered together as the feeling of danger. Motivated by this feeling and not by fear, we continue to scan f
or more information (a grove of trees, some rocks) while at the same time drawing on our ancestral and personal memory banks. Probabilities are nonconsciously computed, based on such encounters over millions of years of species evolution, as well as on what we have learned individually does or does not work. We prepare for the next phase in this unfolding drama. Without thinking, we orient toward a large tree with low branches. An urge is experienced to flee and climb. If we run, freely oriented toward the tree, we have the feeling of directed running. The urge to run (experienced as the feeling of danger) is followed by successful running (experienced as escape rather than fear or anxiety).
On the other hand, let us consider a situation where escape is impossible—where you are trapped. This time you chance upon a starved or wounded bear standing in the path and blocking your escape (as in walking out of a steep box canyon). In this case, the defensive preparedness for flight, concomitant with the feeling of danger, is thwarted. The feeling of danger will then abruptly change into the emotional state of fear. Response is now restricted to non-directed, desperate flight, to rage-counterattack or to freeze-collapse. The latter affords the possibility of diminishing the bear’s urge to attack. If it is not cornered or hurt, and is able to clearly identify the human being as helpless and of no threat, the bear usually will not attack the intruder, going on its own way.
The Greek root for angst is descriptive, meaning to “press tight” or to strangle. As conveyed in Edward Munch’s iconic painting, The Scream, our entire physiology and psyche become precipitously constricted in anxious terror. While it may afford a last-ditch survival function, fear is the killer of life. Pi (in the book The Life of Pi) tells us about this Achilles heal:
It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease … Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons of technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread. Fear turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear. [They are constantly on the prowl for more objects of fear.]
Recall the case story of Sharon (in Chapter 8). She was the woman who had the horrific experience of working on the eightieth floor of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. During her session I guided her to the experience of being led down the staircase by a Port Authority employee and encountering a locked door on the seventieth floor. Suddenly trapped and unable to complete the escape, her body became paralyzed with fear. In working through this experience, which reestablished her running reflexes, she opened her eyes (toward the end of our session), looked at me and said, “I thought it was fear that gets you through … but it’s not … It’s something more powerful, something much bigger than fear … It’s something that transcends fear.” And what a deep biological truth she reveals here.
Finally, the feeling of danger is the awareness of a defensive attitude. It prepares us to defend ourselves through escape or camouflage. Similarly, when our aggression is not thwarted, but is clearly directed, we don’t feel anger but instead experience the offensive attitude of protection, combativeness and assertiveness. Anger is thwarted aggression, while (uninhibited) aggression embodies self-protection. Healthy aggression is about getting what you need and protecting what you have. One sees this in the behaviors of neighborhood dogs. Dog 1 is at home in his yard, and then dog 2 comes along. Both dogs lift their legs and inscribe with their pee a territorial border. If they each stay on their own side, there will be no further problems. However, if the interloper (dog 2) breaches this boundary, the dog 1 will probably kick up dirt with its hind legs as a warning salvo. If dog 2 heeds this display, then again the situation calms. However, if dog 2 does not comply, then dog 1 will likely begin to growl and snarl. Finally, if dog 2 does not move on, there will be a vicious biting attack.
To summarize: it is only when the normal orientation and defensive resources have failed to resolve a situation that non-directed flight, paralysis or collapse come into play. Rage and terror-panic are the secondary emotional anxiety states that are evoked when the orientation processes, and the preparedness to flee or attack (felt originally as danger), are not successful. This only occurs when primary aggression does not resolve the situation, is blocked or is inhibited.
Changing How We Feel
One dreary rainy January afternoon, in the warm, musty stacks of the Berkeley graduate library, I was sorting through the innumerable books on theories of emotion. This was well before the advent of computers and Google, and my search strategy was to find a relevant area in stacks, the literary catacombs, and spend the day browsing for related material. It seemed to me that there were nearly as many theories of emotion as there were authors. With my heuristic “search engine,” I came across a treasure trove—the visionary work of a woman named Nina Bull. This book, called The Attitude Theory of Emotion,158 clarified what I was observing with my early clients. It gave me a clear conceptual understanding for the process of emotional change.
Working at Columbia University in the 1940s and 1950s, Bull conducted remarkable research in the experiential tradition of William James. In her studies subjects were induced into a light hypnotic trance, and various emotions were suggested in this state. These included disgust, fear, anger, depression, joy and triumph. Self-reports from the subjects were noted. In addition, a standardized procedure was devised whereby the subjects were observed by other experimenters. These observers were trained to accurately view and record changes in the subject’s postures. The postural patterns, both self-reported and observed by experimenters, were remarkably consistent across multiple subjects. The pattern of disgust, for example, involved the internal sensations of nausea—as if in preparation to vomit along with the observed behavior of turning away. The pattern as a whole was labeled “revulsion” and could vary in intensity from the milder form of dislike to an almost violent urge to turn away and vomit. This latter response could be recognized as an effort to eject something toxic, or as a means of preventing being fed something that one doesn’t like. This type of reaction is seen when children are abused or forced to do something against their will—something that they cannot “stomach.” This could be anything from forced bottle feeding to forced fellatio or, often, something they cannot stomach metaphorically.‡
Bull analyzed the fear response and found it consisted of a similar compulsion to avoid or escape and was associated with a generalized tensing up or freezing of the whole body. It was also noted that subjects frequently reported the desire to get away, which was opposed by an inability to move. This opposition led to paralysis of the entire body (though somewhat less in the head and neck). However, the turning away in fear was different from that of disgust. Associated with fear was the additional component of turning toward potential resources of security and safety.
Bull discovered that the emotion of anger involves a fundamental split. There was, on the one hand, a primary compulsion to attack, as observed in a tensing of the back, arms and fists (as if preparing to hit). However, there was also a strong secondary component of tensing the jaw, forearm and hand. This was self-reported by the subjects, and observed by the experimenters, as a way of controlling and inhibiting the primary impulse to strike.
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addition, these experiments explored the bodily aspects of sadness and depression. Depression was characterized, in the subject’s consciousness, as a chronically interrupted drive. It was as though there was something they wanted but were unable to attain. These states of depression were frequently associated with a sense of “tired heaviness,” dizziness, headache and an inability to think clearly. The researchers observed a weakened impulse to cry (as though it were stifled), along with a collapsed posture, conveying defeat and apparent lethargy.
We all recognize that there is a fundamental difference between negative and positive emotions. When Bull studied the patterns of elation, triumph and joy, she observed that these positive affects (in contrast to the negative ones of depression, anger and disgust) did not have an inhibitory component; they were experienced as pure action. Subjects feeling joy reported an expanded sensation in their chests, which they experienced as buoyant, and which was associated with free deep breathing. The observation of postural changes included a lifting of the head and an extension of the spine. These closely meshed behaviors and sensations facilitated the freer breathing. Most subjects feeling joy reported feeling “ready for action.” This readiness was accompanied with energy and the abundant sense of purpose and optimism that they would be able to achieve their goals.
In an Unspoken Voice Page 36