A Holistic Approach to Regulating Negative Emotions

Unregulated negative emotions like fear and anger, especially when repressed by trauma sufferers, can cause dissociation by disrupting the link between body and mind. Mindfulness practice, combined with other holistic approaches, can help trauma sufferers regulate these emotions and build emotional resilience. The argument draws on the mind-body problem as a philosophical foundation, and examines the relationship between mind/consciousness and body/the unconscious in relation to selfhood through psychoanalysis, Buddhist psychology, and mind-body medicine. The text uses the Buddhist concept of dukkha to frame suffering and emphasizes the importance of working with negative emotions for healing.

Study at a glance

Abstract

If emotions are the link between the body and the mind, it makes sense why unregulated negative emotions (e.g., fear and anger), particularly when repressed by those who are suffering from trauma, understood as dukkha, can make them feel dissociated. The practice of mindfulness can serve as a bridge between the body and the mind; in combination with other holistic approaches, mindfulness can help trauma sufferers regulate their negative emotions, hence, allowing them to experience higher degrees of emotional resilience. To explicate the importance of working with negative emotions references will be made to the mind-body problem since it lies at the philosophical foundation of all the social sciences. Also, the relationship between the mind/consciousness and the body/the unconscious vis-à-vis selfhood will be discussed in relation to psychoanalysis, Buddhist psychology, and mind-body medicine.