Counselling Articles

Turn Negative Emotions into Something Positive

Negative emotions can take a number of forms including anger, anxiety and jealousy, and are linked with behaviours such as eating disorders, substance abuse, obsessions, self-harm and violent outbursts. Although negative emotions might be surprising and unwelcome, they occur for a good reason – usually one of our fundamental needs is unmet. These can include physical needs, for example adequate diet, quality sleep, and emotional ones such as social interaction, privacy, self-determination and sense of achievement. Neglect of emotional needs is likely to result in negative feelings.

Understanding why the negative emotion has arisen, by identifying which of our needs are not met, is important to help manage it and restore balance. Suppressing emotions is unhelpful and if our needs remain unattended, they will find another way of expressing their demands, often through physical illness or emotional flooding. Negative emotions are inevitable and in fact useful because they signal to us that something is lacking. (more…)

What is Violence?

Recently, it seems as if some members in our communities have lost their sense of reason. As the riots, which started in London, spread to other cities in the UK, the general public seemed to get the impression that the random and uncontrolled violence was due to something in the air, when the causes of violence may have been due to other factors such as boredom and poverty. The Encyclopaedia of Psychology defines violence as “an extreme form of aggression, such as assault, rape or murder.”

There are many causes of violence including “frustration, exposure to violent media, violence in the home or neighbourhood and a tendency to see other people’s actions as hostile even when they’re not. Certain situations also increase the risk of aggression, such as drinking, insults and other provocations and environmental factors like heat and overcrowding” (American Psychological Association’s website).

Intentionally causing harm to other individuals or property is a serious problem today. For example, the recent video of the Malaysian man whose jaw was broken and then robbed when someone was trying to help him comes to mind. These recent violent events give rise to the question, just what are the causes of violence and what should be done when you are faced with violence? (more…)

At some point in our lives  most of us will have experienced anger. Rush hour travel, computer crashes and problematic relationships are all aspects of modern day living that can tip us over the edge. Yet, this powerful emotion is perfectly normal, just like feelings of happiness, fear and sadness and in most cases it stays within a natural and controlled range. In fact, anger is an integral aspect of our evolutionary make-up helping us to instinctively detect and respond to threatening situations, as well as acting as a powerful motivating force to change aspects of our lives that we are dissatisfied with. Given its part in keeping both body and mind ready for action, a number of physiological changes characterise anger, including faster heart beat, breathing rate and increases in temperature and perspiration. (more…)

Conflict and disagreement are inevitable in relationships. Anger is a natural emotion, and disagreements can be healthy sign of difference. Conflict usually occurs because certain needs are not being met – either within the relationship or outside or it. The object of conflict management is to ask for those needs to be met in a way that does not damage your relationship.

Here are some tips that may be useful to manage anger and reduce conflict in relationships. (more…)