What is an Emotion?

Feelings are real, but the meaning we make from those feelings might not be.

We’re barraged with messaging about feelings, but what are they? Emotionally Focused Therapy has a specific answer.

TEMPO

George Faller, a prominent EFT therapist, conceptualized emotions as TEMPO.

Trigger. Emotion. Meaning. Protective Response. Organize.

I have some issues with how Faller uses Organize, so I will use my own terminology of Origin. With that in mind, let’s look at each component in turn.

Trigger

An emotion’s trigger is concrete and discrete. Something simple to describe, often a subcomponent of a more complicated experience. This trigger can be internal or external. The stomach drop that accompanies a memory of falling. The frown a wife makes. The specific way your boss’s legs stride when walking into the room. The important part is that this specific trigger sparks a physiological response.

Emotion

While it feels a bit like cheating to use “Emotion” as part of defining emotions, the terminology is helpful once we break it down. For TEMPO, you can imagine an “emotion” is a physiological reaction and an emotional label. Ideally, we can externalize our emotions, being able to say something like “My sadness is telling me that your frown means…”

Meaning

Technically, this is “cognitive appraisal.” It’s how we rationalize the physiological reaction that accompanies the aforementioned trigger. Our brains are designed to react to triggers first, rationalize that reaction second. If we’re not careful, we can find ourselves getting lost in this meaning making. “My wife frowned at me. That means she’s disappointed in me, like always!”

Protective Response

Well, let’s assume the trigger was dangerous. What should you do about it? Your protective response is some version of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. This reaction is designed to protect us from the threat our emotions detected and our cognition rationalized. “Since my wife frowned at me, I should lecture her on why I didn’t do anything wrong [fight]”. If the afoorementined meaning is true, the protective response is perhaps justified. More often, however, the protective response is informed by an attachment Origin.

Origin

Not everyone has the same reaction to every trigger. That’s because our bodies react differently physiologically and our cognitive minds offer different appraisals. Protective responses are almost always either adaptive or maladaptive, depending on whether the trigger is actually dangerous. When the trigger isn’t currently dangerous, our reactions are shaped based on when that trigger used to be dangerous, thereby justifying our protective response. These experiences inform a primal, extreme belief in us that can be very difficult to heal.

What does Healing Look Like?

Emotionally Focused Therapy breaks healing into two different stages. In Stage 1, both partners own how their protective response encourages the other person’s protective response, working to label the emotion behind that protective response instead of jumping right into it. In Stage 2, partners expose the vulnerable attachment fears and needs underneath their protective responses, while their partner responds in a way that differs from what their attachment Origin predicts.

Without careful guidance, negative interactions often look like this:

Partner 1 offers a Trigger for Partner 2.

Partner 2 experiences an immediate Emotion, agreeing with the Meaning rationalizing that Emotion.

Partner 2 engages the maladaptive Protective Response informed by their attachment Origin.

Partner 2’s Protective Response is a Trigger for Partner 1.

Loop until someone explodes or disengages.

In Stage 1, healing means creating safety. Instead of justifying their Protective Response, partners validate their partner’s emotion while owning the negative spiral encouraged by their own Protective Response.

In Stage 2, healing means experiencing safety. Partners take turns reflecting on their attachment Origins, sitting with the Emotion stemming from that pain. They ask for the other partner to offer a compassionate response to that emotion, rather than their own Protective Response.

We have to be safe to experience safety. We have to experience safety to reshape our attachment Origins.

If you would like help healing from your attachment Origins and calming the negative cycle that feeds them, we encourage you to reach out today.