While working with a college student recently, I learned something new and very exciting about dealing with people in extreme emotional states.But first I’m going to sketch out a little background for you.
Gordon (not his real name) is a theater major having a very difficult time with his director for the play he’s rehearsing in right now. Gordon’s perception of his director (shared by the rest of the cast), is that Ms. Thomas (not her real name) tends to be emotionally volatile and at times unpredictably explosive in a critical and shaming way.Sometimes she is complementary and affirming of her students when they take her direction and accomplish what she had intended for them.Other times, for no apparent reason, she begins screening and criticizing in a way that ultimately feels very shaming and professionally inappropriate.As Gordon was describing her, I simply referred to her as “Miss Extreme States” as a way to create an identity or possible dream figure in the hope that this might clarify our work together.
From what I’ve learned about extreme states when studying with Dr. Arnold Mindell, you really cannot argue with somebody who is apoplectic because in a very real sense, nobody is home to consider your concern.When someone is in an extreme emotional state, it’s as if they are possessed by an extreme emotion through which there is no avenue to reach them at any rational level.Gordon had already figured this out, and realized that asking her questions about what he may have done wrong or misperceived would be pointless until later on, after the fit had passed. He noticed something else that flummoxed him.Ms. Thomas seemed to get most agitated at him when he was trying to personify his character in a very emotionally intense manner.As he was playing a villain role, it seemed reasonable to him to use his considerable talents to really get inside of his character and make him his villainous as he could imagine.Yet, often the feedback from Ms. Thomas was negative, even though he was doing his very best to follow her direction.He came in to see me because he was starting to feel really stuck.On one hand, he felt it important to follow the direction of his director. Eventually however, he started feeling anxious any time she gave him the direction and he tried to follow it because invariably, she would end up screaming at him.I muscle tested him to find out if he was 100% embodied and he was not.In fact, he was only 35% embodied.This was a consequence of having lost his power in relationship to Ms. Thomas and feeling helpless to be able to remedy the situation. I asked him to demonstrate 20 or 30 seconds of his personification of his villain character and admittedly, he transformed himself into a very intense and threatening villain.As we continued to dialogue, he told me that when he auditioned for the role, he acted out a monologue that was also very emotionally intense.When he was done, he noticed that there was a hush over the room as other students seem to be uncertain about how to react, and they were all looking at Ms. Thomas for a cue for how to respond.When he turned to Ms. Thomas, she had a very hard-to-read and perplexing look on her face, as if it was all twisted up and contracted.Her response to Gordon was, “Do you feel you always have to take things over the top?” Though he perceived some disgust in her response, he did get the role that he was hoping for but remained confused about how to be in relationship (as an actor) with this woman who is his director. Suddenly I realized what the interpersonal dynamic was. As Gordon increased his emotional intensity to embody the character of his villain, Miss Extreme States was seeing the part of her that was out of control and unconsciously projected onto Gordon (as her split off and disowned part). The more extreme he personified his character, the more upset she became because of her projection process.I then muscle tested Gordon and asked if he had any energetic boundaries with Ms. Thomas.Of course the answer was no.Since he was playing a villain and had to bring to the role substantial emotional intensity, this projective process was going to be inevitable.Unless of course, Gordon figured out a way to be as villainous as he felt the role should be but somehow modified his emotional expressiveness.
It dawned on me to use the EFT framework of the SUDS scale and calibrate the degree to which Gordon could express himself that would still maintain energetic harmony with his director.I told Gordon that we were going to create a scale of emotional intensity from zero through ten, with zero being no emotional intensity at all, and ten being the most extreme emotional intensity Gordon could imagine.I then explained to Gordon that we were going to next muscle test to calibrate the highest level of intensity (subjectively determined by Gordon on the scale is zero to ten), that would enable him to stay in energetic and interpersonal rapport with Ms. Thomas.
I started off the muscle testing questions asking Gordon’s deepest wisdom if his emotional intensity level starting at number five would maintain this rapport with Ms. Thomas and the answer was yes.I then asked if this would be maintained if he went up to number six and the answer was yes. I then asked if this would be maintained if he went up to number seven and the answer was no.When we went down to 6.5, the answer was yes, and this was the highest number his inner knowing would allow him to calibrate his emotional intensity vibrationally in order to stay in proper relationship to Ms. Thomas.In a departure from the normal DEH protocol, out of curiosity, I then asked Gordon if he now had 100% energetic boundaries with Ms. Thomas and the answer was yes.I next had Gordon demonstrate to me (once again), how he had been emotionally expressing his character before.Following this, I asked Gordon to calibrate how he would act out that same part at only a 6.5 level of intensity.His first try was just past number eight on the scale (after we muscle tested him), so on his subsequent try, he got very close to the 6.5 level of intensity.After a brief discussion, he said he would practice his lines before going back into rehearsal to try to maintain a reliable feel for 6.5 level of intensity.Interestingly, Gordon was spontaneously fully back in his physical body so there was no more work left to do for that session.
At a follow-up session 2 weeks later, Gordon was 100% in his physical body and muscle testing also confirmed that he had maintained his energetic boundaries with Miss Extreme States.I asked him what he noticed as he was acting under her direction at a 6.5 level of emotional intensity.He said for the first time during his rehearsals with her, he started getting consistent positive feedback from her.Though she continued to scream and criticize and put down his other fellow student actors, he seemed to be immune to this, something he found very surprising.He also told me that his acting was very different from before we had that session.He said since bringing his emotional intensity level down to 6.5, he felt that he was containing more of his emotional energy in his torso and solar plexus and felt more in control of being able to modulate at subtle levels what he wanted to express about his villainous character. These were subtleties that he had been unaware of before.He realized retrospectively that when he was calibrating at level ten with his emotional intensity, he was not holding his energy in his body but felt like it was just escaping in a way that he had never been able to notice let alone understand.He was very appreciative for what he had learned, saying he felt it had wider applicability to other relationships in terms of being able to stay in rapport and pay greater attention to subtle interpersonal cues when he’s dealing with somebody who isn’t so extreme.
Feel free to experiment with this calibration scale as I’ve described it today, and let me know if you find any other applications for it, either personally or with your clients.
Howard Brockman, LCSW
Posted on April 25, 2009
Howard Brockman
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