Why are emotions important in CBT? - Chapter 13

This chapter will discuss the importance of emotions in CBT.

A major goals of treatment is helping clients to feel better by decreasing negative emotion and increasing positive emotion. Intensive negative emotion can interfere with the capacity of the client to think clearly, solve problems, act effectively or gain satisfaction. This can all be obstacles to achieving their goals.

Positive emotions are important during treatment too, because they promote a sense of well-being and resilience. Positive emotions can broaden their attentio, cognitions and behavioral tendencies and decrease the arousal. 

The therapist should at timea ask the client to not only identify their emotion but also quantify the degree of emotion they are experiencing. This can help the therapist decide whether to use additional interventions, so he/she can avoid either prematurely moving on the another issue or avoid spending too much time on the same issue.

How can emotions be classified?

Clients with a psychiatric disorder often experience an intensity of emotion that can seem excessive or inappropriate to the situation. The reactions of these clients will start to make sense when you recognize the power their automatic thoughts and beliefs have. Many clients do not clearly understand the difference between their thoughts and their emotions. It is the therapist’s task to organize the client’s problems into categories of the cognitive model: situation--> automatic thought--> reaction. An emotion can be classified as a reaction. Some clients report an emotion that does not seem to match the content of their automatic thoughts. If the therapist fails to mention it, they will work with a peripheral thought. Working with central/key automatic thoughts will speed up the process of therapy.

Why use an emotion chart?

Some clients experience difficulties in labeling emotions and display an impoverished vocabulary for emotions or understand the labels intellectually, but have difficulty labeling their own specific emotions. Devising an “Emotion Chart” can help clients learn to label their emotions more effectively. Clients can list current or previous situations in which they felt a particular emotion and refer back to it whenever they are having difficulty naming how they felt. It is sometimes important for clients not only to identify their emotions, but also to quantify the degree of emotion they are experiencing. Some have dysfunctional beliefs about experiencing emotion for example, believing that if they feel a small amount of distress, it will increase and become intolerable. Learning to rate the intensity of emotions aids clients in testing this belief. A client can determine the influence an emotion has on a scale from 0-100 percent and if the client is not good with numbers he can state if he was little, medium or very sad. If the client is still not able to determine the amount of sadness, the therapist can draw a scale on paper to make it imaginable. If a situation is not that distressing anymore, it is usually not important enough to discuss it during the session. Therefore the therapist needs to have a clear picture of situations that are distressing to a client and will help the client differentiate between emotions and thoughts. In this way clients will learn more about how their dysfunctional thoughts influence their mood.

When is it important to heighten negative emotions?

Heighten negative emotions is important when clients need one or more of the following:

• To gain better access to their thoughts.
• To change their cognitions at the emotional level.
• To learn that emotions are not dangerous, uncontrollable or intolearble.
• To examine the disadvantages or consequences of some of their maladaptive behavior.