to begin with...

The purpose of this site is to serve as sort of a “watering hole” for ideas I’ve been putting together about emotional development, specifically in terms of object relations, NLP, and attachment theory. I must first, however, make a few disclaimers right up front:

1. I am synthesizing, twisting, and boiling down a multitude of theoretical orientations and will not necessarily adhere to strict object relational theory and/or terminology.
2. My focus will be almost exclusively emotional development (as opposed to thought) and imprinting and how that framework affects our ability to function.
3. At this point, due to the conceptually primitive state of my ideas, I may or may not cite references. If, however, during the course of your reading you see uncited material you are familiar with please feel free to point out the source and I will gladly add that citation. My goal is not to take credit for the work of others, but to mull over in an informal manner the integration of several emotional/developmental theories and the patterns I have observed working with clients.

To begin with, I believe we experience emotion before thought. In this vein, I support a modified version of the Cannon-Bard theory of motivation and emotion. The Cannon-Bard theory:

I propose some modification:

Ok… maybe a LOT of modification.

The original Cannon-Bard theory suggests that first we perceive an event, then we experience an arousal and emotional response simultaneously. Arousal is the reaction of the autonomic nervous system and the physiological changes that take place. One example is the fight or flight response, during which our respiration, heart rate, and certain cellular functions change in response to a perceived threat. Emotion simply refers to fear, joy, anger, love, etc. (later I will differentiate between primary and secondary emotions but for now that is not a necessary distinction). The key feature of the Cannon-Bard model is that arousal and emotion happen simultaneously and precede thought.

While the model I propose is similar to the Cannon-Bard model in that emotion and arousal occur simultaneously (in fact I will later suggest they are part of the same system and differentiating between them may be artificial), I propose a relationship that incorporates timing and influence. Recent neurological studies (the source of which I cannot remember) have confirmed that emotional signals not only travel through the brain faster, but do not have to travel as far in order to register or “impact”. So the “arrival” of thought occurs AFTER emotion simply because the transmission of thought takes longer, neurologically. However, emotion does not causally precede thought in a linear manner because the two are discrete processes. Instead, because it is experienced first, emotion INFLUENCES thought. I use the blue arrow as well as the graphical position of the word “thought” to illustrated this relationship.

To draw upon an example: if you are walking through the woods and happen upon an angry bear, you will experience fear as well as the urge to poop all over yourself (i.e. a fight or flight response) SIMULTANEOUSLY. Only after half a nanosecond or so will you be able to think about what you should do – a decision that will obviously be colored by the emotional state of fear. It is for this reason the arrow points from emotion to thought – because emotional transmissions travel faster than thought and affect whatever thought comes next. As stated previously, this does not mean that emotions control or cause thought, but simply influence it. Additionally, it has long been established and accepted that thoughts can, and do, exercise a powerful influence upon emotional states. Thought and emotion participate in a reciprocal dance of influence, but in the face of any new situation emotion always takes the first step.

Put simply: thoughts and feelings influence each other, but we experience feelings first. The implications of this distinction are critical, particularly in regard to emotional object relations, attachment theory, impulsivity, and mental stability in general.