Is it possible a “scientific” improvement of our feelings, of our affective quality of life? The reading ofEmotional freedom, the new book by the psychologist Ferran Salmurri, published by Paidós, suggests that yes, it is possible to progress in self-control of our emotions through rigorous and proven methods in the clinical field. The goal could not be more ambitious: to be happy.
-Are we slaves of our passions?
-When I speak of acquiring “emotional freedom” it is because throughout the history of humanity we have been dominated by jealousy, envy, hatred and, above all, by fear. We can learn to feel better, and to the extent that we succeed, we will be less dependent on emotions that overwhelm us.
-What exactly does it mean to feel better?
-Happiness is feeling good.
-What prevents us?
-An excessive anger, rage, anxiety or sadness. That is, we are excessive in our emotional expression. And it would be enough to improve, to be happier, if we educate our emotions by expressing them in a proportionate way. It is not necessary to feel with the intensity with which we do it. I do not mean to fall into insensitivity or to stop crying, which is good and necessary on many occasions. Emotion is natural but as long as it does not dominate us. A case of disproportionate feeling is that of parents who suffer when their children leave home. They wonder: “What if something bad happens to them? What if they have an accident?” The probability of that happening is one in a million, so they are suffering unnecessarily. By magnifying risk, they anticipate events that may not happen, causing them avoidable pain.
-Do you mean that we are some kind of emotional masochists? Since ever?
-Although there is a certain genetic transmission of our cognitions -the way we perceive reality- and a biology that generates adrenaline, endorphins, etc., lhe most important influence on our way of thinking is the learning we have received. So many ideas are passed down from generation to generation without question. Of all of them, the most persistent is that our personality cannot change, that “we are as we are.” But there are studies that show that the brain changes every day based on what we do. And psychological treatments modify the brain. Biology does not determine behavior; It is the other way around, behavior can modify biology. I had a patient sitting here, 40 years old, who stated with conviction: “I am shy.” I asked him how he knew, and he replied: “my father told me when I was little.” So his father “diagnosed” him with shyness and he has spent forty years verifying it! It is not like that, we have a very broad capacity for change.
-What you are proposing is a kind of applied psychology?
-Exactly. In my case, this interest started when I realized that when we applied psychological treatment in the clinic to adult, young or child patients, I thought: if the patients had known these strategies before, they might not have gotten sick. Is it necessary to suffer from depression to take life with less catastrophism? Consequently, I considered extending the knowledge of these clinically proven psychological strategies to a broader population than the one undergoing treatment. For this I carried out an emotional education experiment in a public school in Barcelona. I worked with the teachers, who suffer considerable work stress and low self-esteem, in acquiring emotional skills so that they could then pass them on to the students.
-So you propose a preventive psychology in the same way that there is a preventive medicine?
-There is a lack of prevention of psychological health, which, on the other hand, we do observe much more closely with our physical health. It consists of applying a series of easy-to-learn strategies, already from childhood.
-Apúntenos what they are.
-They can be summarized in three: cognitive, behavioral and feeling control techniques. The first are those that influence the way we think, and there we would talk about learning to think positive, “stop” negative thoughts and identify irrational beliefs to replace them with more rational ones. Behavioral techniques seek to modify our behavior, and some of them have begun to develop, although only in the workplace, such astime management, goal prioritization, or interaction skills with others. Finally, it is about controlling the excessive expression of feelings by applying relaxation techniques, the main of which is deep breathing.
-Where do we start?
-Self-observation is the basic skill in any serious self-help program, although it is not usually considered. Many times we think we know our feelings but this is not the case, because we have not learned to do so. Alexithymia, or the inability of some people to recognize and / or express their own feelings and emotions, is often related to numerous mental disorders and is recognized by specialists as a difficult factor in psychotherapeutic treatments.
-And where should our egoism be?
– Selfishness is spoken of in a pejorative way, but it is a fundamental impulse for the survival of the species, in the same way that aggressiveness is also. Before, the selfishness of children was controlled with stick syrup, which was obviously not the appropriate therapy. The most suitable method has not yet been found and that is why we are seeing more cases of intolerance among children that they do not fulfill what they want. The brake on our selfishness begins when we consider the feelings of others.
-Have you also worked on the psychological health of children?
-In 1996 I was coordinator of the Eixample Center for Child and Youth Mental Health in Barcelona and, as a neighborhood psychologist, I found it interesting to think about how to do prevention in mental health, I wanted to put the preventive theories I was developing to the test. I got in touch with a public school in Barcelona to see if we could start a scientific emotional education experiment to help me empirically check its effectiveness. I approached the teachers because they have a certain rate of work stress and I considered that they could be the first interested in improving their strategies and, once they had improved theirs, as teachers they would know how to teach it to their students. Therefore, I spent a year applying my program with the teachers, not with the students. It consisted of self-control, cognitive and behavioral skills. I did the experiment with the teachers in 97-98 and since then they have been teaching it at school.
Jose Angel Martos
