CONTENTS
Title Page
Praise for The Practice of Embodying Emotions
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Introduction
What This Book Is About
The Development of Emotional Embodiment Work
Outline of the Book
Part I: Overview
1: The Beginning
Petra, the Voice, and the Panic Attacks
Connie, the Electrocution, and the Migraines
2: Variations in Emotional Embodiment Work
Emotion: Level, Intensity, Depth, Width, and Duration
Case Study: Working with Borderline Emotional States
Sally, Sadness, and Asthma
Sabine, Crying, and Migraines
Affect Tolerance, Symptom Threshold, Level of Body Expansion, and Formation of Psychophysiological Symptoms
Emotional Embodiment Work in Long-Term Treatment
Steven and His Flying Phobia: A Long-Term Treatment
3: The Contribution of Emotional Embodiment to Working with Individual, Collective, and Intergenerational Traumas
Trauma and Emotional Embodiment Work
Anita: A Woman Who Could Not Sleep without the Lights on at Night
Intergenerational Traumas
Intergenerational Collective Traumas
4: Diverse Benefits of Emotional Embodiment in Various Clinical Settings
Improvement in Diverse Outcomes from Emotional Embodiment Work in Different Therapy Modalities
Emotional Outcomes
Cognitive and Behavioral Outcomes
Examples of Improved Cognitive, Emotional, and Behavioral Outcomes from Emotional Embodiment Work
Physical Outcomes
Relationship Outcomes
Spiritual Outcomes
Summary of Cases Presented in Part I
When Does Emotional Embodiment Not Work?
Part II: Theory
5: The Physiology of Emotion
Why Emotions Are Not Commonly Experienced throughout the Brain and Body Physiology
Emotions Are Complex
The James-Lange Theory: The Body Is Necessary for the Generation of Emotion
The Cannon-Bard Theory: The Body Is Not Needed for the Generation of Emotion
How Modern Neuroscience Put the Body Back at the Center of Emotional Experience
How the Brain Gathers Information from the Body
How the Brain Generates Emotions from Body Experience
How Emotions Are Constructed from Present as Well as Past Body Experience
How Language Is Involved in the Construction of Emotional Experiences
How Emotional Experiences Can Vary across Individuals, Families, and Cultures
How We Communicate Our Emotional States to Each Other
How We Might Also Learn about Emotions from Each Other Directly through “Resonance”
The Hard Science That Reestablished the Role of the Body in Emotional Experience
Can the Brain Generate Emotion on Its Own?
Conclusion
6: Cognition, Emotion, and Behavior
The New Science of Embodied Cognition, Emotion, and Behavior
The Role of the Body and the Environment in Cognition
How the Body Plays a Role in Learning
Learning the Alphabet and the Law of Inertia
Learning through Psychomotor Movement
Let’s Go Shopping in the Netherlands!
Hindered Body Implies Hindered Cognition
How Lack of Emotional Capacity Can Compromise the Body’s Cognition and Behavior
How Embodying Emotion Affects Cognition
Emotion and Behavior
The Simultaneity and Sequentiality of Cognition, Emotion, and Behavior
Summary
7: Physiological Dynamics Involved in Generating and Defending against Emotional Experiences
The Concept of Physiological Defenses against Emotions and Other Psychological Experiences
Defense Mechanisms as a Coping Strategy
Physiological Dynamics Involved in Generating or Defending against Emotional Experiences
8: Emotional Embodiment and Affect Tolerance
The Basic Physiology of Pleasant and Unpleasant Emotional Experiences
A Simple Model of the Physiology of Regulation and Dysregulation
The Effects of Physiological Defenses against Emotions on the Physiology of Regulation
How Undoing of Physiological Defenses against Emotions and Expanding the Emotional Experience in the Physiology Make It Easier to Process Unresolved Emotional Experiences
Energy Psychology’s Take on Why Expanding Emotional Experiences in the Physiology Makes It Easier to Tolerate Them
Why Unresolved Childhood Experiences Are Harder to Tolerate
Other Factors That Contribute to Affect Tolerance
Affect Tolerance, Symptom Threshold, Level of Body Expansion, and Formation of Psychophysiological Symptoms
9: Different Types of Emotions
Finding Emotion
A Broader Definition of Emotions
The Basic Emotions Approach
The Dimensional Approach to Emotions
The Constructionist Approach to Emotions
Contrast between the Basic Emotions Approach and Constructionist Models of Emotion
A More Expansive View of Basic Emotions
The Missing Emotions: Simple and Complex Sensorimotor Emotions
Facial Affect System
Bringing It All Together
Part III: Practice: The Four Steps of Emotional Embodiment
10: The Situation
11: The Emotion
Providing Support for Emotions
Sympathy and Empathy
Other Ways of Supporting Emotions
Working with Innate Defenses against Unpleasant Emotions
Psychological Defenses against Emotions
Working with Psychological Defenses against Emotions
Simple Self-Inquiry for Self-Help
Conclusion
12: The Expansion
General Strategies for Expansion
The Body in Parts and Layers
Simple Tools for Expansion
Simple Strategies for Local Expansion
Simple Strategies for Area-to-Area Expansion
Area-Specific Self-Touch Strategies
Expansion across Layers of the Brain and Body Physiology
Some Considerations regarding Expansion
13: The Integration
What Is Integration?
Uses of Integration
Positive Developments from Embodying Emotion
Integration in Different Stages of Emotional Embodiment
A Seven-Step Protocol for Embodying Emotion That Includes Integration
Ordering of the Four Steps
14: Interpersonal Resonance
Interpersonal Resonance: An Alternative Method of Information Exchange
The Scientific Basis of Interpersonal Resonance
Interpersonal Resonance over Longer Distances
Countertransference and Resonance
Resonance in Mutually Regulating Systems
The Practice of Interpersonal Resonance in Three Steps
Issues in Working in Resonance
The Archetypal Basis of Resonance?
Conclusion: The Future
Generation versus Experience of Emotion
The Projection Hypothesis and the Information Transfer Hypothesis
Quantum Physics, Quantum Psychology, and Energy Psychology in the West
Eastern Psychology
Appendix A: Two Lists of Emotions
Endnotes
1. The Beginning
2. Variations in Emotional Embodiment Work
3. The Contribution of Emotional Embodiment to Working with Individual, Collective, and Intergenerational Traumas
4. Diverse Benefits of Emotional Embodiment in Various Clinical Settings
5. The Physiology of Emotion
6. Cognition, Emotion, and Behavior
7. Physiological Dynamics Involved in Generating and Defending against Emotional Experiences
8. Emotional Embodiment and Affect Tolerance
9. Different Types of Emotions
10. The Situation
11. The Emotion
12. The Expansion
14. Interpersonal Resonance
Conclusion: The Future
Appendix A: Two Lists of Emotions
Index
About the Author
About North Atlantic Books
Guide
Cover
Title Page
Front Matter
Introduction
Start Reading
Index
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