I find this topic to be incredibly fascinating because much like how we define anxiety as a "disorder", depending on your school of thought, it is believed to be an universal experience. It's inherent purpose is to alert us to life-threatening danger. Yet, the degree to which this experience impedes our pursuit of happiness or functionality that makes a perfectly natural experience maladaptive, to my understanding. Utterly fascinating.
It's helpful to remember that in no sense we evolved "to be happy" (I don't mean just in the sense that we have not evolved "to" anything because evolution is not teleological). A constantly scared and largely miserable (with occasional moments of pleasure maybe) animal that survives longer and reproduces better than others = higher fitness (in evolutionary terms).
And our modern definitions of "functionality" probably have little to do with fitness too.
who calls emotions maladaptive? In my experience, psychologists are prone to call certain thoughts, interpretations, and specific behaviors maladaptive, but I've yet to encounter a psychologist to call emotions maladaptive.
"Maladaptive" is simply the latest term CBT is using to describe unproductive anything - whether emotions, thoughts, or behavior. (A previous term was "illogical.") Psychologists might not use the word "maladaptive" specifically but their logic is such. The basic idea is that the emotion doesn't make sense/isn't serving the client. This might be true for the client's specific situation or in regards to the client's stated goal, but too little awareness is given to the fact that emotions have been adaptive over evolutionary time and therefore have good reason for being around. So a therapist might say something like "Anger never serves anyone." That's wrong. Anger is part of our emotional architecture precisely because it HAS served us in the past.
Here's a different example. Someone wonders why they are experiencing so much jealousy over their partner. The typically-trained therapist looks for a history of infidelity, or some type of insecurity, in the client. Very few begin from the hypothesis that jealousy is an adaptation and, being fairly fine-tuned, might be picking up on something legitimate. (Or is even designed to be sensitive.)
This argument applies to thoughts and behaviors, too. Most of the cognitive biases that CBT tries to train clients out of, such as generalization, presumably evolved as characteristic ways of thinking because they benefitted humans in the past. The same might be said of many addictive behaviors.
Anyway, I'm open to being wrong. I know much less about psychologists in general than clinicians. But if psychologists were so hip to the adaptiveness of emotions, would Nesse have a reason to write "Good Reasons for Bad Feelings"?
Thanks Josh. These are important points in my work also and you make them well. If we are becoming biased, as western societies, against the idea that emotions are adaptive, why might that be? I cant help thinking this: the type of psychological problem that resents emotions the most - that tries to dismiss their importance and relevance - is a problem that some suggest is spreading in the west. So perhaps it is also spreading in psychology. It is narcissism. But then i guess i would say that…
Did your message get cut off or am I misreading that last sentence?
I agree that celebrating narcissism, or even just focusing too much on the individual, ends up confusing the emotional picture. But there could be many potential reasons for such confusion. The one I favor is that therapists need to justify their expertise. So the more complicated and personal they can make emotions seem, the more material they have given themselves to work with. An adaptive view of emotions, on the other hand, would often advise clients to "wait and see" or "ignore" the emotion alrogether. Not very sexy.
Ofc, these aren't exclusive, and in fact probably play off each other. Let me know if you did intend to comment more...
Yes. As you say theyre not mutually exclusive. A therapist ‘not knowing stance’ is arguably less narcissistic than an expert one. Im not thinking thats automatically a bad thing and i dont think narcissism is automatically a bad thing. Its interesting though that some of the most narcissistic figures in history have had marked ‘rescuer’ tendencies (eg Elvis Presley). I shoukd have ended my comment with a full stop. I was out of thoughts.
Thanks. The photos are on the web but you have to read the accounts of his life to know what to search for. I would never otherwise have thought to google “elvis stops to help at road accident.” 😀
I find this topic to be incredibly fascinating because much like how we define anxiety as a "disorder", depending on your school of thought, it is believed to be an universal experience. It's inherent purpose is to alert us to life-threatening danger. Yet, the degree to which this experience impedes our pursuit of happiness or functionality that makes a perfectly natural experience maladaptive, to my understanding. Utterly fascinating.
It's helpful to remember that in no sense we evolved "to be happy" (I don't mean just in the sense that we have not evolved "to" anything because evolution is not teleological). A constantly scared and largely miserable (with occasional moments of pleasure maybe) animal that survives longer and reproduces better than others = higher fitness (in evolutionary terms).
And our modern definitions of "functionality" probably have little to do with fitness too.
who calls emotions maladaptive? In my experience, psychologists are prone to call certain thoughts, interpretations, and specific behaviors maladaptive, but I've yet to encounter a psychologist to call emotions maladaptive.
"Maladaptive" is simply the latest term CBT is using to describe unproductive anything - whether emotions, thoughts, or behavior. (A previous term was "illogical.") Psychologists might not use the word "maladaptive" specifically but their logic is such. The basic idea is that the emotion doesn't make sense/isn't serving the client. This might be true for the client's specific situation or in regards to the client's stated goal, but too little awareness is given to the fact that emotions have been adaptive over evolutionary time and therefore have good reason for being around. So a therapist might say something like "Anger never serves anyone." That's wrong. Anger is part of our emotional architecture precisely because it HAS served us in the past.
Here's a different example. Someone wonders why they are experiencing so much jealousy over their partner. The typically-trained therapist looks for a history of infidelity, or some type of insecurity, in the client. Very few begin from the hypothesis that jealousy is an adaptation and, being fairly fine-tuned, might be picking up on something legitimate. (Or is even designed to be sensitive.)
This argument applies to thoughts and behaviors, too. Most of the cognitive biases that CBT tries to train clients out of, such as generalization, presumably evolved as characteristic ways of thinking because they benefitted humans in the past. The same might be said of many addictive behaviors.
Anyway, I'm open to being wrong. I know much less about psychologists in general than clinicians. But if psychologists were so hip to the adaptiveness of emotions, would Nesse have a reason to write "Good Reasons for Bad Feelings"?
Thanks Josh. These are important points in my work also and you make them well. If we are becoming biased, as western societies, against the idea that emotions are adaptive, why might that be? I cant help thinking this: the type of psychological problem that resents emotions the most - that tries to dismiss their importance and relevance - is a problem that some suggest is spreading in the west. So perhaps it is also spreading in psychology. It is narcissism. But then i guess i would say that…
Hi Simon,
Did your message get cut off or am I misreading that last sentence?
I agree that celebrating narcissism, or even just focusing too much on the individual, ends up confusing the emotional picture. But there could be many potential reasons for such confusion. The one I favor is that therapists need to justify their expertise. So the more complicated and personal they can make emotions seem, the more material they have given themselves to work with. An adaptive view of emotions, on the other hand, would often advise clients to "wait and see" or "ignore" the emotion alrogether. Not very sexy.
Ofc, these aren't exclusive, and in fact probably play off each other. Let me know if you did intend to comment more...
Yes. As you say theyre not mutually exclusive. A therapist ‘not knowing stance’ is arguably less narcissistic than an expert one. Im not thinking thats automatically a bad thing and i dont think narcissism is automatically a bad thing. Its interesting though that some of the most narcissistic figures in history have had marked ‘rescuer’ tendencies (eg Elvis Presley). I shoukd have ended my comment with a full stop. I was out of thoughts.
Ok, I see what you mean. I'll mull on that rescuer bit too...interesting.
Now I am out of ideas as well, so talk later :)
Here’s my rescuer face of narcissism article:
https://open.substack.com/pub/simonrogoff/p/nine-iconic-lives-the-rescuer-face?r=27zldx&utm_medium=ios
Thank you for sending. I enjoyed the argument. And the photos were incredible...how'd you get them?
Thanks. The photos are on the web but you have to read the accounts of his life to know what to search for. I would never otherwise have thought to google “elvis stops to help at road accident.” 😀