Good Lifestyle

It is almost impossible to go on facebook or Instagram without seeing quotes or comments accompanied by motivation words such as ", look at the good side", "" "Concentrate on good things" or "Be positive".

If something, the pandemic has exacerbated the phenomenon of "toxic positivity". In Quebec, the famous punishment, "It's going to be OK, "Is without a doubt one of the best known examples.

Although well, these sentences can end up creating more distress instead of helping. Why? Because they are examples oftoxic positivityA school of thought that works on the principle that one must always have a positive attitude, even when things become difficult.

As a doctoral student in psychology, I am interested in internalized symptoms (depression, anxiety and social withdrawal) and external symptoms (delinquency, violent, oppositional / defenders, disruptive and impulsive). I think it's important to focus on the negative consequences of "emotional invalidation" and understand why we have to live with our negative emotions.

Emotional invalidation

When a person talks about what they feel, their main goal is generally to validate their emotions, to understand and accept the emotional experience. On the other hand, the emotional invalidation involves ignoring, denying, criticizing or rejecting the feelings of another person.

Several studies have examined the effects of the emotional invalidation. The conclusions are clear: it is very harmful to mental health.People who live an emotional invalidation are more likely to have depressive symptoms.

The emotional invalidation has many negative effects. A person who is regularly invalidated may have difficultiesAccept, control and understand their emotions.

In addition, people who expect their emotions to be invalidated are less likely to expose psychological flexibility, which is the ability to tolerate difficult thoughts and emotions and to defend themselves unnecessarily.

The more psychological flexibility is a person, the more they are able to live with their emotions and pass through difficult situations. For example, as a result of a break, a young man feels anger, sadness and confusion. His friend listens and validate. The man normalizes his contradictory feelings and understands that feelings will not last forever.

On the other hand, another man crossing the same type of break does not understand his feelings, feels shame and fears of losing control of his emotions. His friend invalidates him and will not listen to him. The man then tries to suppress his emotions, which creates anxiety and can even lead to depression.

These two examples, drawn from the study "Process underlying depression: risk aversion, emotional schemes and psychological flexibility" by American psychologists and researchers Robert L. Leahy, Dennis Tirch and Poonam S. Melwani, are not Neither rare nor harmless. The avoidance reaction, which implied everything to avoid living negative emotions, is often amplified by people around us.

Some people are so affected by the misfortune of others than to see this sadness makes them unhappy. That's why they react by making positive comments. However, the ability to live with our emotions is essential. The deletion or avoid it does not solve anything. In fact, trying to avoid negative emotions at all costs does not cause the desired effect - on the contrary, emotions tend to come back more often and more intensely.

Being negative: a state of mind with ancient origins

Unfortunately, humans are not designed to be positive all the time. On the contrary, we are more likely to recall bad memories. It probably comes back at once, long ago, when our survival depended on our reflex to avoid danger. A person who ignored signs of danger, even once, could end up in a catastrophic or even fatal situation.

In this article, "The evil is stronger than the good, "The authors, the authors, the two psychologists, explain how in the evolutionary history of the organizations that aimed better to identify the danger were more likely to survive the threats. Most alerts among human beings had a higher probability of Transmitting their genes. The result is that we are in some respects scheduled to pay attention to potential sources of danger.

How the negativity bias manifests itself

This phenomenon is known as negativity bias.Research has identified four events in this bias This allows us to better understand that. One of these demonstrations is linked to the vocabulary we use to describe negative events.

In a phenomenon called negative differentiation, it turns out that the vocabulary we need to describe negative events is much richer and more varied than the vocabulary used to describe positive events. In addition, negative stimuli are generally interpreted as more elaborate and differentiated than those positive.

The vocabulary used to describe physical pain is also much more complex than that used to describe physical pleasure. Another example: parentsfind easier to judge the negative emotions of their babies as their positive emotions.

No more prefabricated sentences

Negative emotions are a product of human complexity and are as important as positive.

The next time someone confides with you from their emotions, if you do not know what to say, opt for listening and emotional validation. Use expressions like ", it looks like you had a hard day" or "it was difficult, is not it?"

It should be noted that being positive is not always synonymous with toxic positivity - whose objective is to reject and avoid negative and to see only the positive side of things. An example of positive and validating language is: "It is normal to feel the way you do after such a serious event, let's make it meaning." Toxic positivity, on the other hand, seems more similar, "stop seeing the negative side, think about positive things."

Finally, if you are unable to validate and listen, refer the person to a mental health professional who will know how to help them.

Andrée-Ann Labranche, Doctoral candidate in psychology,University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM)

This article is republished byThe conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read itoriginal article.