My Emotional Experience - Essay Example

? Essay s School Going back in time sometimes, I still feel the adrenaline rush and a mix of different feeling while I remember a variety of experiences I went though. Three years from now, when my teenage was in full swing and my hormones were in their maximum flux, I was a completely different person. Prior to narrating me emotional experience, I shed light on my agitated childhood and disturbed history. Since childhood, I`ve always seen my parents struggling to coexist peacefully trying to resolve their points to do so but have always failed. I was the eldest sister of two brothers, and I`ve always been the neglected child having distant relationship with her father, and an unpleasant one with my mother. However, despite the lack of proper grooming and attention I have been a responsible person and a good student throughout. It was the beginning of my high school when I had professor A as my English teacher. His command over language and friendly attitude with students always attracted me, and it wasn’t later than three week after my classes started that I had a crush on him. In a class assignment, we were asked to write a letter addressing a person whom we want to confess something. Though I have been a shy and an under confident girl throughout, but somehow I gathered the guts to write a love letter to professor A. As a response, I was called in his office to discuss the situation where he expressed his feelings of reciprocation for me. Soon after, we developed a special relationship where I shared all my bitter experiences of life with him and he appraised my efforts, and commended my character for being very different from other girls my age. I didn’t have many friends earlier, but after this first ever love affair of my life my social life was numbed and he was the only significant person in my life. The first six months of our covert affair went great; eventually I expressed my desire to marry him as I wanted an escape from my home where my parents had created hell for me. He promised he`d marry me as soon as high school would be over. After the year ended, he left my college and eventually he even started avoiding contact with me. When the next year started, on inquiring from the faculty members I got to know that he`s married. This was the beginning of another phase for me, where I felt rejected and started hating my life more than ever. I turned into a different person where my life surrounded around drugs and alcohol. I had many rebound affairs during that time, but I could never forget him no matter what. When high school ended, I entered into another phase of my life when he came back into my life and we started dating again. This time, I had an affair with a married man and there was not even a tint of a feeling of guilt inside me. After only a few months of this complicated relationship, where he expressed bitterness for his married life and hatred for his wife, I forced him into getting a divorce with his wife. I even blackmailed him emotionally as well as by all other means possible. I even tried to commit suicide various times, even threatened his wife and used other means to get what I wanted. The result of all my efforts led me to another phase of my life. The case went into the notice of my parents, and I was thrown into a rehab. I also went through psychological consultancy, and this period of three months gave me a chance to introspect and find my inner self. When I analyzed the situation and realized what I had been through and how I had reacted, I decided that I had to get my personality back. Once I was discharged from the rehab, I started new and started acting like a mature and a responsible individual. From that time onwards I`m a composed person with a conscious and a rational mind who thinks twice before making a decision. In an effort to analyze the emotional experience I had been through, the theory of psychoanalytical theory manages to explain all the instantaneous reactions and unpredictable experiences depicting various phases of my personality at different points on time. Psychoanalytical theory was proposed by Sigmund Freud, which is also a depiction of his personal life experiences. Prior to his work in psychology, the psychological scholarship was focusing on the biological aspects studying human mind in an attempt to understand human behavior (Elliot 1994). However, Sigmund Freud focused on the unconscious activities in mind going on affecting the thinking and behavioral patterns of a human and even applied these concepts to treat psychological illnesses. The core element of Freud`s psychoanalysis theory is the unconscious mind. According to Freud, the human mind works by virtue of unconscious thought which is outside the rational sphere of thinking (Bondi 2007). However, to explain all the emotional experiences I had gone through during all that time I can apply “Freud`s drive theory and Emotion”, along with the object relations theory of emotions to illustrate how my emotions were a result of physiological processes going on inside my mind. Similarly, I will also be taking a drift away from the Freud theory, though not completely, to explain the subjective experiences attached with the physiological reactions giving birth to the emotional gushes. In order to interpret the experience in the context of the theories it is crucial to understand the theories first followed by the placing of the theories in the larger context. Firstly, in order to understand the Freud’s theory of emotion, it is important to differential between affect (which Freud uses instead of emotion) and idea. In his writings, Freud doesn’t deal emotions as a separate subject however talks about fear, anxiety, depression etc in his writing and refers to them as affect. To draw the distinction, it becomes important to analyze the topographic model proposed by Freud i.e. According to Freud, there are three levels of human psyche, i.e. the conscious, preconscious and the unconscious. Also, he stresses that what is present in our conscious portrays a very small proportion of what really makes up the entire human psyche (Izzard 1994). The conscious is what makes the most apparent part of the human personality, while the pre-conscious is that part which is not apparent but if someone tried to strain the human mind the information comes to the surface. However, unconscious is that portion where the hidden information is suppressed and ceases to come to the surface. The emotions in this context can be categorized in context to the primary processes and the secondary processes. The primary processes are the positive ones present in the unconscious which delay non-gratifying experiences, while secondary processes rooted in the pre-conscious and the conscious are responsible for accepting the unpleasant experiences. Thus, conflict arises between the two processes and both struggle to be discharged in the mental drive. However, to explain the emotional patterns with more detail Freud talks about the human conscious that is composed of three elements, i.e. the id, ego and the superego1. Id is the pleasure seeking component of the conscious which forces the human to fulfill the pleasure motives of an individual. Ego is that element of the conscious which allows the individual to take rational decisions, and superego is that part which that imposes ethical or even moral considerations on an individual while carrying out various activities. Various emotions as a result of complicated arousal of drives2 are at play during various phases of our lives depending on out situations and the experiences we`ve been through all our lives, especially during the childhood. (Elliot 1994). Thus as a result of these processes along with the processes stimulated by topographic model, drives are generated which can be understood in terms of ideas or affect, and emotion (affect) is the expression exhibited by these drives, which may be positive or negative (Laplanche & Pontalis, 1988). Analyzing my personal experience in this context, at various points in my life while I was going through the emotional experience my id was the most dominant element effecting my emotional status, while during all that time my ego and superego drive was being dominated. When I started dating my professor, my inner pleasure seeking conscious forced me into doing something that was unacceptable in the society. However, eventually throughout the time that I was with my professor in a stable relationship all my social and sexual needs were being met. But as soon as all my pleasure seeking activities were ceased with the end in the relationship, I was looking for alternatives to fulfill my desire for pleasure in any way. This is the reason why I went for alcohol and drug, also the rebound affairs. Though I knew, this would affect me in a negative way but the desire for pleasure overshadowed my rational abilities, also the moral conscious. Later, when I blackmailed him and threatened his wife, I was actually countering the threat of being deprived of my pleasures again. Once I went through a treatment, I was able to think rationally and get my moral senses back to behave in a way acceptable to the society. Thus, during the conflict going on between the mental drives, the primary processes were at play, which were forcing me to carry the pleasure seeking activities all that time (NEU 1977), along with arousing defensive emotions where socio-cultural aspects come into play (Hoshschild 1983). After critically analyzing my personality in context of the drives theory, I have come to the conclusion that since I had always experienced unrest and instability all my life, there were a lot of bitter experiences being gathered inside my unconscious. I was never in the habit of sharing my experiences with my peers, which is a sign of unacceptability of all those experiences which were somehow affecting my mental drives. However, my id was still struggling somewhere inside to be discharged which was until that time suppressed by the ego and the superego. But once I saw an outlet where I could fulfill all my desires and pleasure, which was the ultimate gateway towards unveiling my hidden conscious. When my professor reciprocated his feelings for me, I finally felt wanted and loved. Once I was exposed to the pleasure which I had always sought for deep inside, it was difficult for me to resist the contentment. The professor gave an outlet to all my pleasure seeking drives to be discharged which were being expressed in the form of emotions of happiness, joy and excitement. Once I was in the relationship which was the solution to all my social and psychological weaknesses, the confidence hidden deep inside me was triggered. When the professor took away my mental and physical satisfaction, my unconscious mind was more active than ever, which now aroused the negative drives. This is the reason behind the kinds of emotions I had experienced during that time, i.e. anxiety and depression. Since I had experienced violence, disrespect and abuse between my parents in my childhood which was rooted in my secondary drives, I was exhibiting the same kind of behavior which my mind had triggered after this unpleasant behavior, however now my drive was making me exhibit defensive emotions like emotions of repression and sublimation. Further applying the object theory of emotion, this theory tends to explain emotion in terms of social interpretations of the physiological responses (Greenberg & Mitchell 1983). As the name implies this theory deems objects as important entities as they arouse the primary processes inside the human mind (Hinshelwood & Klein, 1991). In other words, individuals right from their early childhood individuals associate pleasure and pain with various objects, for instance with the objects of the mother i.e. diving the organs of the mother in good and bad one, and thus expressing emotions of love for the body parts he like. In context to my experience, since I have had an unpleasant relationship with my mother, I had associated emotions of distress and anger for other woman. Since I could not exhibit this emotion openly towards my mother, I inflicted my anger upon the wife of the professor. When I was threatening her and expressing disgust and anger towards her, I was actually exhibiting the response I`ve associated with this gender. Also, owing much to my culture, I had also associated emotions of happiness and joy with alcohol and drugs as these are considered to be objects deriving pleasure. Thus, to get back my positive, gratifying emotions of happiness and joy, I shifted towards these objects. Conclusively, the conflict between mental processes as explained by the drive`s theory can make a human do the most destructive things if the pleasure seeking primary drives aren’t controlled (Hillman 1961). Those who criticize the work of Sigmund Freud in this context ignore a lot of experiences we go though. In our daily lives, we use different phrases or demonstrate various emotional responses which we tend to ignore. However, if we analyze our emotions we can point out the unconscious and even the preconscious drives triggering what we fail to understand. In this regard, Sigmund Freud`s contribution towards explaining various aspects of emotional experiences termed as affect is commendable. In my case, the emotional conduct that I had pursued is impossible to be analyzed in the absence of the drives theory of emotions. Similarly, the object relations theory was also very useful in helping me realize my association with various objects which aroused different emotions within me. Thus, these theories are widely being used by practioners to understand the emotional patterns of their patients and even help them identify the problematic areas, so that they can deal with their emotional issues in a constructive manner. References Bondi, Liz. (200) Psychoanalytic theory. Thesis. 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Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: University of California Press Berkeley Laplanche, J., & Pontalis, J. B. (1988). The language of psycho-analysis: Karnac Books Top of Form NEU, J. (1977). Emotion, thought and therapy. Berkeley, University of California Press HILLMAN, J. (1961). Emotion; a comprehensive phenomenology of theories and their meanings for therapy. Evanston, Ill, Northwestern University Press Bottom of Form Read More