The key to human happiness lies in the mind and, in particular, in having a balanced mind. In the same way, the primary obstacles to happiness are in the mind, what unbalances us. Without a doubt, what drives us the most, the greatest obstacle to well-being and the ability to have a satisfying life in every sense, are persistent propensities toward certain emotions. Specifically, towards those that can be considered destructive or afflictive. Such emotions are the true enemies of human happiness and the source of all destructive behaviors.
In this Psychology-Online article, we tell you What are distressing emotions and we provide you with a list and examples from the same.
What are afflictive emotions?
Afflictive emotions are those mental and emotional states that short, medium and long term they reduce well-being. They are characterized by generating internal turmoil, clouding our understanding and depriving us of the freedom to think and act. Destructive emotions affect behavior and the way we feel and interpret what happens.
If you wonder what afflictive emotions are and what they cause, you should know that they cloud our ability to discern. With them we are incapable of making a rational judgment, they rob us of thinking clearly and acting constructively.
Any mental state can become afflictive and we must become aware of it when it occurs. There are emotional states that are destructive in themselves and others that become destructive only when their intensity is disproportionate to the situation in which they arise. The common or distinctive features of afflictive emotions are that generate discomfort, distort our perception and limit our thinking.
Difference between afflictive and constructive emotions
The difference between afflictive and constructive emotions lies in the effect they have on our mind. On the one hand, a constructive emotion is one that makes us feel calm and that leads us to act in beneficial ways. These emotions help us build a lasting store of personal physical, intellectual, social and psychological resources.
On the contrary, the difference between afflictive and non-afflictive emotions is that the former put us in a downward spiral and the latter strengthen our resilience. In this article, we tell you.
So, if a constructive emotion like love gets out of balance and stop contributing to well-being, can easily become an afflictive emotion like obsessive desire. Therefore, positive emotions can also be relative and changeable, not necessarily constructive in themselves.
List and examples of afflictive emotions
What are the afflictive emotions? Next, we will see a list of afflictive emotions with examples of them.
Anger
Anger is characterized by an exaggerated repulsion towards people, objects or circumstances. Specifically, group these examples of afflictive emotions:
Apego
Attachment is characterized by an exaggerated sense of attraction toward people, objects, or circumstances. Let’s see what 5 examples of afflictive emotions attachment includes:
- Avarice.
- Lust.
- obsessive desire.
- Craving.
- .
Envy, Pride and Doubt
These involve a mixture of excessive attraction on the one hand, such as excessive attachment to an exaggerated image of ourselves, as in the case of pride, and, on the other hand, excessive repulsion, such as an excessive sense of enmity toward a rival in the case of envy.
On the one hand, it contains a strong element of the afflictive emotions of attraction and repulsion. Pride or haughtiness includes destructive attitudes such as arrogance, obsessive and unrealistic shame, and also a mixture of attraction and repulsion. Finally, doubt, which encompasses destructive emotions such as anxiety or obsessive guilt.
How to modify afflictive emotions?
Buddhist psychology holds the theory that people can actively challenge and modify distressing emotions. A classic Buddhist formulation states that there are 84,000 afflictive emotions, for which there are as many antidotes. In fact, Buddhism measures well-being by the extent to which our mind is dominated by afflictive emotions. The ideal of mental health in Buddhist psychology is that all distressing emotions are replaced by healthy ones.
How to modify afflictive emotions? One of the main strategies is cultivate a state of mind opposite to afflictive emotions. The basic principle is that a positive mental state tends to stifle or suppress the corresponding afflictive emotion: where one is located, the other cannot exist at the same time. Every afflictive emotion has a positive counterpart that can replace it in a healthy way: anger, for example, can be alleviated by , arrogance by reflection on humility and equanimity is a good antidote to agitation.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- Bennet, T., Goleman, D. (2012). Emotional alchemy. Eat the mind and heal the heart. Milan: Bur.
- Chernicoff Minsberg, L., Labra, D., Rodríguez Morales, E. (2016). Work and live in balance. Transforming the workplace from internal change. How to work with emotions: Self-knowledge and Self-regulation. Mexico City: Sincerely Consultants.