Well-Being
By Norman Araiza, July 7, 2006


Emotional repression

Early in my career, I noticed that many people came to me and described tragic events in their lives. I would encourage them to go into detail, as if it were happening right then, in the present. As a part of the process, as I listened, I put myself in their shoes. I became them, as they took me through their experiences. I noticed that, most times, the scenario would be told with a certain detachment. While they may have been telling me about a traumatic event, which I was reacting to with great emotion, they were comfortably distanced from the experience.

They were relating the incident or situation intellectually but had blocked the feeling associated with the event or situation. Originally, this repression played an important role, protecting the individual from the overwhelming feelings associated with the trauma of the moment. But, with repression there is always a price to pay. This emotional blockade may protect us from feelings we don’t want to feel at the time, but we could also be blocking emotions we choose to feel. So, we may not feel the overwhelming fear from an abusive situation, but we may also lose our feeling of pure joy or some other pleasurable emotion. The presenting problem that led the client to my office usually involved some area of the person’s life that had seemingly nothing to do with the repressed incident.

David was a 38-year-old, divorced engineer whose presenting problem was that he was drinking too much and just wasn’t happy with his life. He had gained a lot of weight, and he complained that he didn’t want to socialize with the few friends that he had. He said he met women easily but they would lose interest in him quickly. His speech sounded as though he was reading from a book. Most psychotherapists examine clients through good questioning techniques. They will ask questions about all areas of a person’s life looking for “orienting reflexes.” Orienting reflexes are unconscious reactions that occur when emotionally sensitive issues are discussed. The individual may not be aware of it, but the body tells the story. The eyes may dilate, breathing may change or sometimes muscles around the throat may contract. The acute observer will know there is something going on beyond what is verbalized. When there is an incongruity between what is expressed and the emotional climate surrounding the event, then the client is considered to be “out of his/her feelings.”

“Being out of feelings” is a clinical term describing a condition whereby the individual has psychologically anesthetized him- or herself from feelings. Usually, this includes positive as well as negative feelings. The result is a person who is going through the motions of life while effectively insulating him- or herself from the surrounding world. Clearly, David was blocking something.

In my second session with David, he explained that he wasn’t always like he was now. He knew that he had changed, he just didn’t know why. We explored all areas of his life in the subsequent sessions, when one day he blurted out that he was almost blown out of an aircraft in an airline acccident. Some of you may remember back to the news story about the metal skin’s being peeled back on an airliner bound for Hawaii. He told the story with great detachment of how the seats of people next to him were ripped out of the aircraft and the passengers were sucked to their deaths through the opening in the aircraft. When I asked him what he felt as this was happening, he said he remembered thinking of an engineering class he had taken that dealt with metal fatigue. 

He explained that he understood clearly what was happening and why. He described the terror of the moment, passengers in total panic screaming, watching, as if in a film, as all the loose contents of the plane, including people, being sucked out of the aircraft, while he remained perfectly calm, detached, intellectualizing the results of metal fatigue.

It took us a few sessions before he was able to connect with his real feelings from the accident. Through the process of getting in touch with his true feelings surrounding the incident and expressing them fully, David began to realize that as a result of the accident he had unconsciously decided that life was so fragile and vulnerable that there was no purpose in anything. Breaking through his repression, David was able to re-decide the truth about life and move forward. Soon, he took on a noticeably different affect. His speech pattern changed, he became more animated and less dour and lighter in every way. He returned to his former weight, and at our closing session he reported he had begun a promising new relationship with a woman. Incidentally, his settlement from the insurance company was $55,000. He felt he earned every bit of it.

Emotional repression is not always the result of a traumatic event, however. Often times it is a life pattern that is learned at an early age. Rarely does a parent tell a child not to feel a particularly feeling. More often, feelings are learned by observing our parents and other adults as they react to situations. If our parents repressed feelings, then most likely we will repress feelings. The problem with this is that through repression we probably lose, or at least dilute, the natural, spontaneous, fun part of ourselves that makes life worth living.

Alternative healers sometimes refer to chakras, which are invisible openings in the body through which energy flows into and out of the person. These chakras are about the size of a silver dollar and are located in seven specific areas of the body. Apparently, these openings become clogged or closed, which affects the individual in such a way that the person seems to lose natural joy or enthusiasm for life. Healers of this persuasion perform healing rituals designed to open these chakras and restore balance to the individual. Some psychotherapists, on the other hand, guide clients safely through the events in the past, encouraging the full expression of feelings as they arise. This is a pivotal point in therapy whereby the therapist assists the client in realizing the erroneous, usually unconscious, decision that was made in response to the distorted reality of a past time. Re-decision is the powerful and necessary process of adopting healthy, accurate attitudes regarding self and the possibilities for the future.

Many psychotherapists lead their clients to express feelings as an adjunct to healing as an important part of their therapy. Unfortunately, not all of them take the client through the final process of re-decision that paves the way to successful living in the future. If you are aware of diminished joy in your life, of not having the normal peaks and valleys in your repertoire of feelings, if your orgasms are no longer earth-shaking but just signal the end of your pleasure, then perhaps repression has happened.

Norman Araiza, M.A., is a US-trained psychotherapist and family therapist enjoying a limited practice in San Miguel. See his ad under Services in our classified section. He can be reached at 152-5449 or nearaiza@hotmail.com.