I sometimes refer to PTSD as a fear-based economy. So much
of what we do, how we act and react is motivated primarily
by our fears. And one of our biggest fears is our fear of
affect. The term affect refers to ones emotions and to all
the physiological and behavioral changes that accompany them.
It is how one feels emotionally and/or physically and what
one does behaviorally when one is reacting to something whether
one is conscious of his/her reactions or not. When you consider
the fact that everything we do is driven by some emotion,
then in a sense everything we experience is affect. And, I
suppose at times we are afraid of all our experiences. But
for the most part it is only certain specific affects that
make us fearful enough to be avoidant.
We are afraid of both our own affects and of those of the
people around us. When we were children dealing with trauma,
affects were overwhelming to us, theirs and ours. We didn't
know what to do with them. We felt powerless (another unwanted
affect). We tried to effect changes and were unsuccessful.
We felt frustrated. We tried to get them to stop. We felt
angry and scared. We tried to get ourselves to stop feeling
what we were feeling. And eventually, one way or another,
we more or less succeeded at this. We discovered that we could
get ourselves to stop feeling what we were feeling. Or at
least we could stop experiencing it consciously. It was the
one thing, the only thing, that we could do, with which we
could have some success.
When we were experiencing overwhelming affect, we couldn't
stand to be in our own skin. So one way or another we tried
to stop those troubling feelings. We learned various ways
to avoid our affect. At first, we used primitive forms of
avoidance such as dissociation, denial, rationalization, distractions,
etc. Over time, we learned new ways. We discovered chemical/behavioral
means of avoidance. We learned about such things as alcohol,
inhalants, drugs, and tobacco. We encountered the adrenaline-inducing
excitement brought on by such things as extreme sports, picking
fights, gambling and self-injury. And we discovered the distracting
effects of the release of brain chemicals caused by sexual
stimulation.
So here we are today, and our problem now is not overwhelming
affect. Our problem is that we are habituated to affect avoidance.
Today, most of our affects are within bounds. They are at
a level that we can tolerate and the situations that produce
them are all things that we can handle. But our automatic
response to stressors that cause affects similar to the ones
that overwhelmed us as children is to go into some sort of
affect avoidance mode.
The challenge is to retrain ourselves to face and deal with
our affects. The more we can get ourselves to do this, the
easier it becomes. There are many ways to direct our attention
toward rather than away from our affects. We have discussed
many of these ways over and over again. And yet we still don't
apply them consistently. They all come under the general heading
of processing. By now you can probably recite the list of
tools in your sleep. And at the top of the list is, yup, you
guessed it, JOURNALING. Other tools we know and love are:
reading, discussing, meditating, talking to ourselves, talking
to a tape recorder, listening to the messages from our bodies,
dialoguing with our bodies, etc.
We need to recognize that we fear our own affect and that
this fear is out of date. It is a holdover from the past and
no longer valid. We need to start our processing with this
fear, which stands in the way of our fully embracing all the
experiences that make up our lives.
Desired Outcome: To face, process and set goals to overcome
our fear of affect.
Discussion Starters:
Do I understand what is meant by affect? How much of my affect
am I conscious of? When did I first start shutting down my
affect? What ways did I use as a child to do this? What ways
do I use now to do it? What tools have I used successfully
to reconnect with my affect? What other tools do I see as
potentially helpful to me in this endeavor?
Footnote:
In their Psychiatric Dictionary Hinsie and Campbell define
affect thusly, "Affect is the feeling-tone accompaniment
of an idea or mental representation. The affects are the most
direct psychic derivatives of the instincts and are psychic
representatives of the various bodily changes by means of
which the drives manifest themselves. The affects regularly
attach themselves to ideas and other psychic formations to
which they did not originally belong, and as a result their
origin and meaning remain hidden from consciousness. If an
affect is completely suppressed, it may appear not as an emotion
but rather as physical changes of innervations, such as perspiration,
tachycardia, paresthesia, etc."
John C Flanagan, LCSW
818 NW 17th Avenue, Suite 7
Portland, OR 97209-2327
503-228-7574
www.johncflanaganlcsw.com
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