Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) has much to offer because it emphasizes precision in language and thought. In REBT, we encourage you to become emotionally literate and understand the eight basic negative emotions. Each of the eight has a healthy and unhealthy version. REBT teaches that when you face a negative state of affairs, you can feel a healthy or unhealthy negative emotion but not indifference. Indifference is not possible when you have a desire that may go unfulfilled. That is, we come to the circumstances of our lives with implicit desires. A state of desirousness is unavoidable in most cases. According to REBT theory, when circumstances thwart our desires, and we hold flexible and non-extreme, scientific attitudes towards not getting what we want, we will feel a healthy negative emotion. This negative emotion is good because it acknowledges the threat to our desires and goals. Furthermore, this healthy negative emotion motivates us to change what we can. Healthy negative emotions allow for optimal performance. More often than not, however, when we have a strong desire, and circumstances thwart the attainment of this strong desire, we are prone to transforming our strong desire into a rigid antiscientific, self-harming attitude. These attitudes lead us to feel unhealthy negative emotions. These negative emotions likely lead to self-defeating behaviors, which compound our problems.
REBT advocates that you become aware of the characteristics of the eight basic negative emotions. Doing so will help you more skillfully use REBT. By knowing the different themes of the eight emotions, we have a context for putting into words the inference we are making about the adversity we face. For example, we often will respond with anxiety when we face a threat to our comfort, safety, or ego. Awareness of the subject matter of anxiety helps us to do self-therapy. We can more readily specify the critical inference linked to our anxiety when we are aware we perceive a threat of some sort. We also can examine our behavior to identify the self-defeating qualities we are displaying in the context of the threat we perceive. An accurate understanding of unhealthy negative emotions and their healthy alternatives largely rests on knowing the subject matter of each pair of the eight basic negative emotions. Armed with awareness, we can identify and then strive to experience the healthy negative emotion appropriate and helpful for our particular challenge. Knowing the themes of the eight pairs of negative emotions helps us identify the direction we wish to go in our struggle to establish a plan for changing what we can in the situation we face.
In my other writings, I have discussed the importance of the reflective process known as disputing. Effective disputing of your rigid and extreme attitudes is more likely to occur when you have identified the adversity and the unhealthy emotional reaction you are experiencing. You initiate an effective disputing process by understanding the characteristics of the eight pairs of negative emotions and how they differ. This awareness enables you to identify the healthy negative emotion that will fuel your effort to change what you can and accept what you cannot. Becoming well-informed about the different characteristics of the eight basic emotions will allow you to use REBT most effectively. Keep the below list at hand and refer to it before you attempt to do self-therapy the next time you disturb yourself.
Unhealthy Anxiety & Healthy Concern
Your comfort, safety, or ego faces a threat. Alternatively, the comfort, safety, or ego of a person important to you faces a threat.
Unhealthy Depression & Healthy Sadness
You or a significant other experienced a loss, failure, or undeserved burden.
Unhealthy Guilt & Healthy Remorse
You have broken a moral code, failed to live up to a moral code, or hurt someone.
Unhealthy Shame & Healthy Disappointment
You have fallen short of an ideal, or something highly negative has been revealed about you or a significant other. You infer that others look down on you or someone close to you.
Unhealthy Hurt & Healthy Sorrow
Someone important to you is not as invested in the relationship as you are. You believe that a person significant to you treats you undeservingly.
Dysfunctional Anger & Functional Anger
A person or situation obstructs you. Someone (including ourselves) transgresses your rules, or someone threatens your self-esteem.
Dysfunctional Jealousy & Functional Jealousy
Someone poses a threat to a meaningful relationship that you have.
Dysfunctional Envy & Functional Envy
Someone possesses something you prize but do not have.
Note: The English language does not provide the necessary words to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy versions of anger, jealousy, and envy. Therefore, we need to differentiate between the functional and dysfunctional versions of these three emotions by explicitly stating whether we are experiencing the healthy or unhealthy version of the emotion.
For those who wish to be well-versed in the different characteristics of the eight primary healthy and unhealthy negative emotions, I encourage you to read Dr. Dryden’s book referenced above. Whether you are a mental health practitioner or a consumer of psychological services, this book will enhance your literacy in healthy and unhealthy negative emotions.