Escaping the Emotional Roller Coaster by Dr. Patricia Zurita Ona draws upon acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) techniques to help “super-feelers” work with their emotions more effectively.
What is a super-feeler? It’s someone who struggles with emotional regulation, meaning they experience intense emotions and strong emotional reactions. The book focuses on emotional sensitivity; this is different from the concept of the highly sensitive person, which is more about sensitivity to external stimuli. While people with borderline personality disorders would certainly fall into the category of super-feelers, the book didn’t make any reference to diagnoses.
The book has short chapters (which I always appreciate), and it’s concise and to the point. The book isn’t theory-heavy, although it occasionally cites research findings. There are plenty of exercises for the reader to try, and short vignettes help to illustrate the concepts covered.
The author explains that emotions only last seconds, but they can last longer through rumination. Emotions don’t arise alone; they come with attached thoughts, bodily sensations, and urges to act. Emotions serve several functions: communication and connection with others, figuring out what’s happening inside of us, handling dangerous situations, and motivating us to take action.
The book presents a range of skills that are grouped into the categories of noticing/naming, defusing, checking, acceptance, awareness, body-based, and interpersonal skills.
The ACT process begins by clarifying your values and then living them, using them like a GPS or compass to guide you. In a given situation, you should be checking in with yourself what your values are, and then evaluate whether your action urges are workable in the short and long-term with those values. The author cautions that gut feelings are overrated, and they may be a form of emotional noise from an overactive amygdala.
Chapters cover a number of challenging emotions like anger, guilt, shame, and abandonment. The focus throughout is on evaluating the workability and values consistency of action-urges arising from emotions. Mindfulness is emphasized as a way to keep from getting too caught up in emotions.
The book also covers how we can get fused with sticky thoughts in relation to our emotions. These thoughts come from our inner voice, including things like: I feel it so it must be true; I feel X, which means I am X; and I feel X, therefore I must act on it. Our inner voices create rules and labels, and the author explains that it’s important to recognize that these aren’t true and examine whether they move us closer to or further away from our values. By defusing from these thoughts, we can decrease the pain we experience related to them.
The author asked whether you would choose to give up bad feelings if it also meant losing your capacity for positive feelings. My response was sign me on up for that, since the second half of that has already happened; however, I don’t imagine that was the point of the question.
Overall, to be honest, somehow the book just didn’t really grab me. It wasn’t the subject matter, because I’m actually a big fan of the principles of ACT. I also don’t think it was poorly written. It just didn’t quite click with me, yet I doubt that has any bearing on how likely others are to connect with it. It was certainly a factor that my concentration was poor while I was reading it, so take my non-clicking with a grain of salt. If you’re not familiar with acceptance and commitment therapy, I think this would make a good introduction.
Escaping the Emotional Roller Coaster is available on Amazon (affiliate link).
I received a reviewer copy of this book from Netgalley.
You can find my other reviews on the MH@H book review index or on Goodreads.
The post Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Metaphors is where you can find all things ACT-related on MH@H.
ACT, like all therapeutic approaches, jives differently with different people. Thanks for your honest and helpful review!!