I’d like to propose to you that our minds have certain pumps these pumps pour specific kinds of thoughts into our consciousness. But before I do, first let’s characterize a few more players. But we haven’t addressed obsessions, compulsions, and all that good stuff. See where I’m going with this? So far so good. Our mind communicates with us conversationally with words, with images, with emotions, with urges, with intuitions. Our mind is not a unitary virtual person, but instead a variety of characters. We talk to our mind and our mind talks back. Do you know that feeling? So urges have this dual action of uneasiness with the present combined with a sense of fulfillment when the desired action is taken. I could visualize it and it looked so gorgeous and I could feel that cold rush that would happen as I tipped the glass and felt the water gloriously run through my body. My mouth was parched and I felt this uneasy dry mouth feeling - I’d also get images of being at the Canyon lodge cafeteria drinking a tall tumbler of water filled with ice. I once was hiking on a trial in the Grand Canyon and ran out of water. An urge is almost like an unpleasant feeling about being inactive coupled with a “promise” that some goodness will arrive if I engage in a specific action. When partnered with emotions, urges are strong propellers of action. Closely aligned with intuitions is another type of mental experience: urges. Here are some examples of types of intuitions: “I just know that this is the right thing for me to do” “I have a feeling that something bad is going to happen”. An intuition can be thought of as emotion-laden sense of “knowing”. Our mind also communicates with us via intuitions and urges. So besides verbal interchanges, our mind can communicate with us with emotions, and with emotions about emotions. or “I’m nervous that I might get scared”. “I’m angry that I feel scared” or “I’m ashamed that I feel so panicked”. These “meta” emotions are emotions about an emotion. Sorry to make things even more complicated, but in OCD, people can feel considerable anxiety, panic, or fear about experiencing anxiety, panic, or fear. My take home message from this is that emotional experience can be simple at times, but a considerable amount of times it is complex. “There’s always other stuff going on!” He told me that people might be anxious but also irritated or a little sad. He told me he was having trouble with his study because it was extremely difficult to devise aa procedure that cleanly and consistently produced a single emotion. One day I ran into him in our office hallway and he looked really frustrated. Back when I was in academia, I had a conversation with a friend of mine who was trying to do a research study on emotions and the kinds of thinking that arises with specific emotions. In OCD, the dominant emotions are anxiety, fear, panic, shame and disgust. They also have a social, communicative quality in that I might feel the urge to share or “let out” something or often others can guess or relate to what I am feeling.Įmotions are like colors - there are some primary ones and then there are an incredible assortment of blends. They can be brief or longer lasting, they have a “motivational” quality - in that they propel us to certain actions. Let’s say emotions are subjective, perceptual “states” of being that feel pleasant or unpleasant, with varying intensity. I will take a stab at a generic description for now (for more on this, Paul Ekman and Richard Davidson have a thoughtful book called The Nature of Emotions). So what exactly is an emotion? We can slide down a slippery slope easily on this one. In addition to verbal interactions, my mind can communicate to me in other ways - with emotions. It can communicate with me verbally (eg “Remember to mail that letter”). Talking to myself involves speaking, internally to myself. Here’s something I’d like for you to play with: the user interface of the mind is built to simulate social interaction between two people. But we can agree that there are types of mental experiences. Similarly, you can’t tell what is going on in my head. I can’t tell what’s going on in your head - but you can. Obsessions exist in the realm of mental experiences. Let’s examine things with an open, inquisitive mind. To understand dark thoughts we need to wipe away our existing notions of the words and approach things with a fresh set of eyes.
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