The Importance of Emotions to Mental Health

Lesson 3

The Importance of Emotions

To Mental Health

The Importance of Emotions to Mental Health

Emotions are feelings of love, excitement, anger and frustration. When you respond to a negative or positive situation, you are experiencing emotions. There are five basic emotions: love, happiness, anger, fear and sorrow. When you are exposed to a situation you, assess it as either helpful or harmful, good or bad. Your assessment and response is called emotion.

There are certain requirements for mental health in the form of interrelated emotional needs. These are security, independence, achievement, success or recognition, acceptance by others, love and affection, self-respect, variety of experiences, guidance, time for contemplation and faith.

Sometimes you are confronted with certain situations or problems and you respond to them in order to prevent, avoid or control emotional distress. There are many ways of attempting to resolve problems of living, which are called coping strategies or skills. Here are some ways of coping with emotional problems: 1) you can try to change the situation that is causing the emotional distress, 2) you can try to change the interpretation of the situation so that it has less importance and is not so distressing, or 3) you can try to change the negative feeling without changing the situation or how you think about it. There are also some intelligent ways of handling your emotions. Here are some of them.

1.  Accept and understand fears, anxieties and worries.

2.  Keep your emotions within the context of the situation.

3.  Do not allow emotions to affect your general behavior.

4.  Mistakes happen; you can learn some lessons from them.

5.  Take positive actions to control and direct your emotions.

6.  Learn from friends who know how to deal with stress or pressure calmly.

Negative Feelings and Attitude

When social and emotional needs are met, some negative feelings and attitude are developed. These are loneliness, alienation and emptiness, mild depression and mild anxiety.

Loneliness

It is feeling that is recognized because of the absence of a desired relationship. When you cannot live up to the expectations of others, you may feel lonely. When you lack contact of people you love, you feel lonely. You may also feel lonely when you miss a distant friend or loved one. The feeling of loneliness is normal and should not last long. Chronic loneliness is due to lack of initiative, thus resulting to unsatisfactory personal and social relationships. Have you been lonely lately? Why?

Alienation

This is due to lack of social ties and friendships. You experience alienation when you feel that nothing makes sense and yet, you do not know exactly what you want. You may feel powerless to control what happens. The causes of alienation may be goals and desires that are unrealistic and unattainable. If you have feelings of alienation, which continue to occur, there might be a need for counseling to set realistic and attainable goals. Start with goals, which can be achieved in short period of time. Achieving those goals will give you a sense of power and a feeling of confidence.

Mild Depression

It is the continuing and overwhelming feeling of sadness and lack of motivation. The feelings of sadness, lack of energy, loss of appetite or caring are normal when there is a good reason. They only become abnormal when the reasons are trivial and the depressed feeling lasts for a long time. Sometimes you see this feeling in people who are grieving for the death of a loved one. This feeling is normal for some time. It becomes abnormal when the feeling and behavior lasts for months or years.

Psychiatrists recommend that you should learn to see the realities of life. Learn to laugh because it is a good therapy. Do things you really enjoy. Physical activities are helpful. Talking and relating to others, as well as doing things for others, are also helpful. Selflessness and willingness to serve others help prevent mild depression.

Mild Anxiety

Anxiety arises because of a definite event, such as a test, a date or an athletic game. There is a fear and apprehension concerning the outcome of the event. This feeling is very common in every day life. When anxiety is not related to any specific event and its consequences, the feeling is called free-floating anxiety. In this situation there is a general feeling of insecurity and inner struggle with conflicting demands. Anxiety, which arises from fears in achieving the goals, is a warning that you should slow down and ponder on your goals. Perhaps, they should be realigned. Get rid of your anxiety by making conscious effort to relax and take it easy. Physical activities are good ways to release tensions.

Anxiety is reported to be related to caffeine, alcohol or nicotine. Stop or reduce the intake of these substances. Avoid the use of any drugs to deal with anxieties because they may have side effects.

Indications that you need help and counseling because of negative emotions are as follows:

1.  Very strong reaction to simple problems or disappointments;

2.  Inability to get along with people at home, school, church or at work;

3.  Mistrust of family and friends; and

4.  Preoccupation with fears and anxieties.

Counselors and educators believe in preventive approaches to problems by developing in you the following:

1.A strong and secure sense of self-worth to help you say “No” to drugs, alcohol, smoking, irresponsible sex and other destructive behavior;

2.Communication skills to help you interact better with others and handle anger and conflict safely;

3.Ability to cope with disappointment, rejection and loss;

4.The understanding that violence is never acceptable, it never solves problems, it simply makes them worse; and

5.A clear and realistic expectation about your roles in relationships, such as friendship, love, career, marriage and parenting.

Lesson 4

Coping with Emotional and Mental Health Problems

Ideally, the best way to handle frustrations and conflicts would be to understand the objective of the situation. Are alternatives offered? Can you act on the basis of what will bring the most satisfaction? Will it lead to the realization of your potentials? This is easier said than done because certain undesirable feelings, such as envy, jealousy and anger can rise. These feelings come in conflict with how you are brought up by your parents and taught by your teachers. Sometimes, you use defense mechanisms to dent feelings that you will gain disapproval. Defense mechanisms are ways of deceiving yourself and others about your real and conscious desires, reactions and emotions. Defense mechanisms are constructive ways of dealing with some situations and their uses are considered normal. They are not signs of emotional disorder; however, an excessive use of your defense mechanism might indicate a problem. Here are examples of defense mechanism might indicate a problem. Here are examples of defense mechanisms. Can you give of specific situations where a defense mechanism is used?

Rationalization

It is the process by which you give good reasons for an action or event by distorting the facts or by giving alibis. You often resort to rationalization to maintain self-esteem when failure is expected. Excessive use of rationalization keeps you from accepting reality.

Sublimation

It is the replacement of socially unacceptable goal with one that is accepted by society. You can channel and divert negative feelings and actions to more constructive and socially acceptable ones.

Regression

If you escape from situations, which you are anxious about, and you retreat to a less mature form of behavior, then you are regressing in your behavior.

Projection

It is the failure to admit your mistake or guilt; instead you attribute it to others. A person who directs his negative traits to others is using projection to avoid facing his own hostilities.

Repression

If you purposely deny painful feeling, event or action because of the anxiety it produces, you are using repression defense mechanism. It can be harmless such as forgetting about the exam for which you have not studied, but forgetting the date of the interview for a job because you fear competition can be disadvantageous. An extreme form of repression is called amnesia, which involves the repression of something that is painful to a person. The painful experience causes the memory to fail partially or totally.

Fantasy and Daydreaming

You may escape from painful reality or frustration by creating a make-believe situation of fantasy that is more pleasurable than the real situation. The most common fantasy is daydreaming. This is delightful but disappointing activity. Why?

Problem solving is perhaps the best method in helping you think through your problems, using the scientific approach. You should learn how to investigate and gather information, to reason and to think reflectively to differentiate facts from fiction and truth from superstition. Here are the steps, which you can use in solving your health problems:

1.  Recognition of the problem

2.  Definition of the problem

3.  Selection of methods and procedures

4.  Collection of needed information

5.  Selection, organization and interpretation of information

6.  Preparations of alternatives and tentative conclusions

7.  Application of the conclusions, solutions to the problems

8.  Evaluation of the solutions and actions

Responsible for the Prevention of Mental Illness

Philippine Mental Health Association, Inc.

The Philippine mental health Association (PMHA) is a private, nonprofit and nonsectarian organization located at 18 East Avenue, Quezon City. It is the only association of its kind at the national level in the Philippines. The association is the product of an expression of concern for the attendant of problems on mental illness.

One of the objectives of the association is to develop among the people in the Philippines the highest level of mental health. The association tries to achieve this by disseminating information and advice on mental health and stimulating interest and research. Furthermore, it has programs and services of a preventive, curative and rehabilitative nature, with a view to promoting better mental health.

The primary service of the association is education and information. This service promotes mental health activities through seminar-workshops, trainings, student mental health clubs and community outreach programs.

The PMHA has focused special attention to the youth because it believes that the best way to prevent mental illness is to start with the young people by strengthening their coping mechanism so that they could face life’s problems without breaking down. The association has organized the Youth Life Enrichment Program (YLEP), which is being implemented on the high school level. It is called Youth Mental health Clubs or Lakas-Isipan ng Kabataan (LINK). This is carried through live-in or live-out seminar-workshops. The program is designed so that a participant would move towards self-growth and improved relations. Modules used during the seminar-workshops are on Self-Awareness and Interpersonal Relationships, Value Inculcation, youth and health, and the role of youth as family Facilitator.

In the ‘70s an epidemiological survey was conducted. It was reported that the prevalent rate of mental illness was 36 persons for every 1,000 population. It was estimated that two-thirds (2/3) of this or about 24 persons for every 1,000 were suffering from mild and moderate cases of mental illness and one-third (1/3) or 12 persons for every 1,000 were suffering from severe cases of mental illness. Extrapolating these figures into the national statistics, there were about 990,000 mild and moderate cases needing outpatient care, and approximately 405,000 convalescing mentally-ill persons in need of rehabilitation care.

There are other services, which PMHA provides, including testing and evaluating, to determine the courses you may pursue in college. PMHA also evaluates mental illness referred to it. In case there is a need to confine the patient, it recommends the National Center for Mental Health, which was formerly the National Mental Hospital in Mandaluyong, Metro Manila.

Another group, which you might be interested to contact, is the Association of Filipino Psychiatrists, which undertake programs in the promotion of mental health and research studies.

If there were psychiatrists in your town or city, it would be wise to invite a psychiatrist to your class and ask him to talk about the promotion of mental health for adolescents.

Copyright by MAPEH-CAT IV

Vilma V. Perez

Lilian N. Luna

Crisanto E. Tomas

Danilo A. Clemente, Ed.D

and

St. Bernadette Publications, Inc.

Submitted to:

Mr. Emerlindo C. Matienzo

Submitted by: IV-1 Sampaguita

Gerlie O. Garrido

Diane T. Janapin

Adora Amparo A. Alcance

Glesy S. Macaraeg

Sahara Mae C. Reyes

Arlene D. Arellano

Billy Jake A. Mercurio

Mark Anthony E. Manglicmot

Julian R. Amin

Ryoji C. Yamamoto