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Thursday, July 29, 2010
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When your anger makes you boil; when you're flooded by tears of joy; when you're so embarrassed it leaves you speechless, you've experienced the power of your emotions.
Whether it's questions about depression or perfectionism, marriage or parenting, addictions or procrastination, work relationships, or loss, your emotions can cloud or illuminate the answers.
The many newspaper columns archived here are grounded in my 17 years experience as a therapist, and 9 years answering readers' questions. In these columns, you'll learn about the range of your emotions—fear, anger, distress, shame, joy, interest, surprise, and disgust—among others. You'll find answers to your questions. It's my hope that you also find a new language for your emotions and a sense of the possibilities presented in life's challenges.
My best to you,
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“Despite our view of ourselves as thinking beings, cognition is but a frail craft floating on a sea of emotion. ”
-Donald L. Nathanson, M.D.
What is your reaction to these words? It’s hard for most of us to believe that we spend much of our lives under the sway of our mercurial emotions.
Nathanson, a Philadelphia psychiatrist, wrote the words above in his book ''Shame and Pride: Affect, Sex and The Birth of the Self.'' He went on to say:
''Many of us treat emotion as merely something that interferes with thinking...We even pretend we are talking about thinking rather than feeling...''
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