A long time ago I bought Self-Therapy: Techniques for Personal Growth by Muriel Schiffman (1967). Her work obviously arises from the 'humanistic' movement spawned by Abraham Maslow and later Carl Rogers which became the 'pop' psychology of the 1960s and beyond.
Although her general humanistic philosophy is not one I subscribe to yet I find myself often coming back to this book. Her book then is a 'friend' of mine. And it's easy to see why. My own experience forces me back to it.
Just recently, I slid into a strong, down mood. When I asked myself why I could see that it had arisen out of family communications where I had got quite narked by what had been said by others but had immediately 'sat' on my anger and gradually descended into depression.
Schiffman called emotions like anger 'hidden feelings' and the depression an 'inappropriate reaction'. Often we think that the depression or anxiety has just fallen on us from nowhere but in fact it has engulfed us because we have failed to face something we don't want to face.
She outlines four helpful ways of approaching such situations with the first one being to 'talk it out'. She noted that this approach is good if the situation is in the past. She described how she had heard some dancing music going in the lounge room while she was working in the kitchen which made her eager to dance. She was in the mood but her husband was lying on a couch and was obviously not with the beat at all. In fact, he decided to go outside and garden. Muriel was furious!!
The next day a friend calls and Muriel decided to talk with her about what happened. Muriel by now has realised that she was at fault in getting angry with her husband. (How would he know she wanted to dance? She hadn't told him!)
This step then, is step 1: recognise an inappropriate reaction to something.
Step 2: feel the apparent emotion. Muriel then talked her way back into the anger she had felt the previous day.
When the feeling was strong again, she went to Step 3: what else did I feel? Interestingly, what she felt before the anger was 'feeling helpless, starved, like a child deprived by an adult' (p. 10).
Her Step 4: what does this [picture] remind me of? brought to mind a number of potent associations. Wanting to dance at dances but not being asked; the special meaning that dancing seemed to have for her; her father's account of how he had fallen in love with her mother while dancing with her.
But Muriel concluded that she couldn't find the hidden feeling so she went back to Step 3: what else did you feel? Briefly she tracked down the feeling to shame. She was ashamed of this desire to dance. The feeling was strong enough for her to cry but it lasted only a minute. The anger at her husband had left after the feeling of shame had taken over.
She felt much relieved and lighter so she moved to the final step (Step 5) Look for the pattern. The pattern is, whenever she feels the desire to dance she is secretly ashamed of it.
She didn't analyse this incident much further than this but she did discuss it with her husband. She cautioned that it's not always wise to discuss the hidden feeling with the person directly involved but she wanted him to know about it because the situation was sure to arise again. He assured her that his unwillingness to dance with her at times in the future would not be evidences that he was rejecting her.
She did report that the urge to dance did arise in her at a later date after her husband had had a very, large meal. He didn't want to dance because the dance style did not suit his stomach feelings. Although she felt the shame feeling it didn't trouble her as much.
