I like your re-framing of neuroticism as negative emotionality. Is the idea of false alarms something that appears in the clinical language or elsewhere? I'm not a psychologist, but it seems like a useful perspective that could even be incorporated into the CBT method: consciously identifying when a response is to a "false alarm".
On the topic of negative emotionality, I prefer to think of emotional disposition and reactivity as being akin to habits rather than resembling a rational evidential basis. Like habits, emotional responses have triggers (or "alarms") and these largely arise from parts of the brain we don't naturally learn to have conscious control over. Deeply ingrained habits are hard to break regardless of their negative consequences. There are also different degrees of emotional reactivity from "no feeling" up to "total overwhelm".
I'm not sure my approach is very reproducible (or desirable), but I learned to quietly laugh at things going wrong and even the negative emotions themselves. Similar to CBT, I would consciously reflect on my situation and the feelings and laugh at the absurdity. Over time this overwrote and softened my emotional reactivity and I've learned to be able to take reasonable conscious control over my emotions. I can choose how long to feel the negative emotions.
This doesn't sit too well with some people I've talked to and encountered. Most people (understandably) don't want to laugh when they've experienced loss, even one that was a long time ago. Most people (understandably) don't like seeing you laugh when you've made a mistake that has a negative effect on them. Feeling bad has a time and place and sometimes serves a social purpose. And when you have control over your emotions, do they cease being as genuine?
I'm interested in any thoughts you have on this. Have you written (or have a reference you agree with) about how the machinery is supposed to function?
I actually relate a lot to the idea of laughing at your negative emotions. I've used this a lot over the years. It's a natural corollary of ACT, because truly facing and accepting your emotions brings to light their occasional absurdity. (Of course it makes sense that it could create awkward moments socially!)
The false alarm terminology is mine, and I think it helps to synthesize the CBT and ACT perspectives. CBT seems to see people as haplessly stumbling into cognitive distortions out of insufficient rationality, while ACT stresses the typically-functional nature of our thoughts and emotions, even when unpleasant. In reality, I think, we have psychological/emotional systems/heuristics that normally keep us safe, but these heuristics face ambiguities and uncertainties and tradeoffs so intractable that we must expect some malfunction rate at every turn.
The immune system faces a similar problem of needing to discriminate safe and dangerous, friend and foe under conditions of overwhelming and often adversarial complexity. So we see a similar problem there, where the system sometimes turns against itself. The problem is just too hard for the solution to be perfect and in no respect tragically broken :)
I like your re-framing of neuroticism as negative emotionality. Is the idea of false alarms something that appears in the clinical language or elsewhere? I'm not a psychologist, but it seems like a useful perspective that could even be incorporated into the CBT method: consciously identifying when a response is to a "false alarm".
On the topic of negative emotionality, I prefer to think of emotional disposition and reactivity as being akin to habits rather than resembling a rational evidential basis. Like habits, emotional responses have triggers (or "alarms") and these largely arise from parts of the brain we don't naturally learn to have conscious control over. Deeply ingrained habits are hard to break regardless of their negative consequences. There are also different degrees of emotional reactivity from "no feeling" up to "total overwhelm".
I'm not sure my approach is very reproducible (or desirable), but I learned to quietly laugh at things going wrong and even the negative emotions themselves. Similar to CBT, I would consciously reflect on my situation and the feelings and laugh at the absurdity. Over time this overwrote and softened my emotional reactivity and I've learned to be able to take reasonable conscious control over my emotions. I can choose how long to feel the negative emotions.
This doesn't sit too well with some people I've talked to and encountered. Most people (understandably) don't want to laugh when they've experienced loss, even one that was a long time ago. Most people (understandably) don't like seeing you laugh when you've made a mistake that has a negative effect on them. Feeling bad has a time and place and sometimes serves a social purpose. And when you have control over your emotions, do they cease being as genuine?
I'm interested in any thoughts you have on this. Have you written (or have a reference you agree with) about how the machinery is supposed to function?
I actually relate a lot to the idea of laughing at your negative emotions. I've used this a lot over the years. It's a natural corollary of ACT, because truly facing and accepting your emotions brings to light their occasional absurdity. (Of course it makes sense that it could create awkward moments socially!)
The false alarm terminology is mine, and I think it helps to synthesize the CBT and ACT perspectives. CBT seems to see people as haplessly stumbling into cognitive distortions out of insufficient rationality, while ACT stresses the typically-functional nature of our thoughts and emotions, even when unpleasant. In reality, I think, we have psychological/emotional systems/heuristics that normally keep us safe, but these heuristics face ambiguities and uncertainties and tradeoffs so intractable that we must expect some malfunction rate at every turn.
The immune system faces a similar problem of needing to discriminate safe and dangerous, friend and foe under conditions of overwhelming and often adversarial complexity. So we see a similar problem there, where the system sometimes turns against itself. The problem is just too hard for the solution to be perfect and in no respect tragically broken :)