Hi, everyone. So today I want to talk to you about emotions and the function of emotions. We all experience unhelpful emotions at times or strong negative emotions, or emotions which somehow feel unwanted or that we don't feel that we have control over. So what do we experience them for? Why do we have them? So I thought it might be useful for us to discuss that for a bit.

People often come in the therapy room, and they'll say to me, look, Steve, I just want you to get rid of my anxiety. And I always say the same thing. What on earth would you want me to do that for? They often look at me in surprise. And I go on to explore that a bit further with them. And typically, we come to a similar conclusion each time. And that is, well, if we completely removed anxiety, we wouldn't be able to keep ourselves safe. You'd be in danger crossing the road, you'd be offending people, left, right, and centre. So actually, some anxiety is very useful indeed, especially around problem-solving, and decision-making.

Too much, or overthinking is where it starts to spill into the realms of unhelpful. And I guess it's that that we want to try and shut down. What people all will say is Steve I just want to be happy. And again, I'll say, well, look, you know, don't beat yourself up too much we aren't meant to be just happy. So try not to sort of hold these unrealistic expectations for yourself. I guess the trick is to try and hold on to moments of happiness and enjoy them as long as we can. But essentially, emotions lead and guide us and motivate us towards survival.

We have different types of emotions, there are primary emotions, and those will be the main ones we'll talk about today. Those are the ones that we tend to feel first as a response to a situation. There are secondary emotions, which are emotional reactions we have to other emotions. And then there are tertiary emotions. Love, for example, consists of secondary emotions such as affection and longing. These secondary emotions might then be broken down still further into what are known as tertiary emotions. The secondary emotion of affection includes tertiary emotions, such as liking, caring, compassion, and tenderness.

So what do they actually do for us, you know? Well, it's widely understood in the world of psychology that they are critical to our rational decision making and they help us to understand the world around us. Emotions and moods serve a number of functions. Darwin argued that they help in survival problem-solving. In evolutionary psychology, we understand that people must experience emotions, as there is a purpose behind them, and they seek to drive and motivate us towards survival.

So, you know we talked a little bit about how anxiety can seek to protect us, that's probably one of the more obvious ones, and without it, we would be extremely vulnerable really, we wouldn't be taking care of ourselves at all. Disgust might seek to repel toxins to get us to step away from something which might be bad for us. Anger might cause people to back down or step away. Sadness may be a way of me saying to somebody, I feel sad. That's enough. Stop saying what you're saying that's hurting me or I've had enough right now, can you just back off a little bit.

They all do different things for us in different ways. Shame is a topic I'm extremely interested in, especially in its relationship with people who have ADHD diagnosis, it's a very powerful and strong negative emotion. I'd invite you just for a moment to just look within for a second and maybe think of something that you feel ashamed of, something that nobody knows or you wouldn't want people to know. And then just imagine yourself, telling somebody that thing that's on the tip of your tongue and notice how you feel inside your body. And you'll probably notice that it mimics anxiety symptoms. The anxiety, of course, is "what would people think of me if I told them that thing?"

And so, what shame does for us is it drives us to keep things a secret in order to go up in the estimations of others. One of the things that links all human beings is the need for acceptance. So, if we said something which led to judgement, we, you know, we might feel vulnerable in our position in the group, you know. So shame drives us towards acceptance, we want to be accepted so that we get the better cuts of meat and the drier place in the cave, etc. The harder the group would fight to keep us alive, maybe.

And if we are judged, banished, we, you know, we might be wandering vulnerable and alone in the wilderness, we're one step away from injury, illness, or death. So these emotions drive us to protect ourselves to survive. And over the coming weeks, we're going to look at different ways in which we can learn techniques to reduce those emotions so that they stay helpful and don't enter into the realm of unhelpful.