CEWE: Chapter 7: Blocks to Emotion

Question 1

What are some ways of teaching clients who do not have words for emotion?

Answer 1

1. Drawing their attention to nonverbal expressions of emotion
2. Use empathic attunement to affect to help provide them with words for what they feel
3. Structured homework (e.g., emotion diary or log)
4. In session reflection on the last time the client felt an emotion

Question 2

How can a therapist promote emotion differentiation in an emotion log?

Answer 2

Suggesting that instead of writing basic and frequently used words (e.g., happy, frustrated), they try to find more varied/differentiated words (e.g., furious)

Ask the client too describe body sentations

Ask client to add comments on whether the emotion had a sudden onset or was a more enduring mood / How long it lasted

Question 3

What might in session reflection on the last time a client felt an emotion look like?

Answer 3

1. Ask the client to describe the last time they felt: anger, sadness, fear, or shame
2. Describe this feeling to the client
3. Ask client to describe: the situation, how they reacted, what happened in their body, how they felt, and what they did
4. Ask the client how long the feeling lasted, how intense it was (1-10), how frequently they experience this emotion, and whether it is generally helpful or a problem for them

Question 4

What are 4 steps/4 things a therapist says to help the client slow down and make space for emotional experiencing?

Answer 4

1. Stay very gently with what you are feeling
2. Make space for it in your body and just feel it, put some words to it
3. Receive and welcome the feeling
4. Feel it fully

Question 5

Describe the six components of self-interruption of emotion (SIE)

Answer 5

1. Activation of emotional experience
2. Awareness/expression of an emotionally vulnerable sense of self
3. Opposition to emotional experience in the form of
4. Secondary reactive emotions AND/OR
5. Controlling or avoidant inhbitory behaviours
6. Awareness of limited emotional experience

KT: To me it seems more logical to think of in 3 steps, so see page 171 if having trouble memorizing this card

Question 6

What are the three main processes of self-protection from emotional vulnerability?

Answer 6

1. Addressing reactive emotions
2. Controlling emotional vulnerbaility
3. Avoiding emotional vulnerability

Question 7

What is the difference between emotional control reactions and emotional avoidance reactions?

Answer 7

Emotional avoidance is characterized by flight or escape behaviours that serve to move away from and disengage with emotion

whereas emotional control is behaviours involve moving towards emotional experience with the intention of controlling it