Emotion in the Change Process

Abstract

Emotion is involved in change in a variety of ways. Greenberg and Safran (1989) have delineated a number of ways in which emotions are involved in the therapeutic change process. These are: 1. Acknowledging previously unacknowledged emotion provides information that enhances orientation and problem solving. 2. Evoking emotion to motivate action. Thus anger organizes us for fight, fear, or flight. 3. Emotional restructuring. This involves accessing and changing affective-cognitive schematic structures that are involved in the construction of the emotional meaning in our lives. 4. Evoking emotion in order to access state-dependent core beliefs or “hot cognitions.” 5. The modification of expressive-motor and physiological aspects of maladaptive emotional responses as in phobias.