I'm not a robot

CAPTCHA

Privacy - Terms

reCAPTCHA v4
Link



















Original text

The way we experience our feelings and emotions greatly depends on how much we have developed the skill of emotional regulation. Initially, we do not have such a skill; as babies we are completely dependent on our adults and until we have learned to calm (regulate) ourselves, our adults calm us down - this is called co-regulation. If our adults respond well enough to our need for reassurance, then gradually we internalize, that is, we absorb this ability, appropriate it to ourselves and become able to regulate our emotions in the same ways that our adults did with us. The simplest example of co-regulation of a child by an adult is from the well-known rhyme: “Our Tanya is crying loudly, She dropped a ball into the river. (And her adult Tanya answers) Hush, Tanya, don’t cry, the ball won’t drown in the river.” But if the parent shows indifference (oh , leave me alone, something happened to you again) or, on the contrary, he will intensify his affect and start swearing (he lost his toy again, what a stupid girl, everyone’s children are like children, but you...!), then co-regulation will not happen, and we there will be nowhere to learn self-regulation. And a lot depends on what happened more in interactions with our adults - situations when we received a response and consolation or when we were left without a response and consolation. If you find it difficult to cope with your feelings as an adult, it means that while you were a child you did not gain sufficient experience with co-regulation. How difficult it can sometimes be to regulate your emotions can be seen in films such as Sharp Objects, in which the main character uses a pathological method of self-soothing, self-soothing, literally carving the names of feelings on her body with a blade. Also pathological methods of self-soothing in adulthood use of alcohol, illicit substances and dissociation. A less destructive way is to chronically suppress your feelings. But in any case, any of the pathological methods is aimed at drowning out what cannot be dealt with, at stopping feeling what cannot be processed and lived. If you understand that feelings are a big problem for you, that feelings or too strong, where it is not needed, or they are not there, where they would be very useful, or they arise in waves, when a good mood and elation alternate with depressive states, then this means that you have not gained sufficient experience of co-regulation in your in childhood, you can gain such experience and develop the skill of emotional self-regulation in therapy.