Vol. 7 No. 1 (2025): January - March 2025
Affective neuroscience

Changing emotion with emotion

Leslie Greenberg
Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Canada
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Published 2025-03-14

Keywords

  • Emotion,
  • Transformation,
  • Pain,
  • Emotion schemes,
  • Emotion assessment

How to Cite

Greenberg, L. (2025). Changing emotion with emotion. Phenomena Journal - International Journal of Psychopathology, Neuroscience and Psychotherapy, 7(1), 10–19. https://doi.org/10.32069/PJ.2021.2.239

Abstract

In this paper, an Emotion-focused theoretical framework of human functioning and therapy based on the primacy of affect is presented. Most clients seek therapy for emotional difficulties. They are feeling bad about themselves or are in emotional distress in relationships. They have difficulties dealing with painful core emotions such as fear, shame, and sadness or regulating symptomatic emotions like panic and rage. Emotion-focused therapy is a way to work directly with emotions by accessing them in therapy and by changing emotion with emotion.

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