Affect Tolerance: What Is It, And Why Does It Matter For Your Mental Health?
If there were just one idea you could latch onto when thinking about mental health, “affect tolerance” would take you a long way. I’m not saying it’s the single most important component to mental health, but it’s up there. Before explaining why this idea is so important, let’s first define some terms.
Simply put, affect is your feeling-state—or your feeling-experience in a given moment. While it may be splitting hairs to distinguish affect from emotion, we might think of affect as less personal than emotion; that is, it’s the experience of emotion. While we often use the word “mental health,” our experience of emotion isn’t located somewhere inside of our head or thoughts only. Rather, emotion also includes a bodily experience or an embodied experience. We might call this experience our affectual state.
Now that we’ve got that definition out of the way let’s talk about the idea of affect tolerance. What’s so important about tolerating our embodied emotional experience? Let me give you a concrete example. Everyone knows about the idea of anger management, but what really is the inability to manage anger? If we can not tolerate the embodied experience of being angry, we will likely need to compensate for this somehow. That is, if we can not tolerate the affect of anger, we are going to have to get rid of it somehow.
Most often, we think of people needing anger management when they have an issue with controlling outbursts of anger. They can not tolerate the affect of anger inside themselves, and therefore they express it in ways that are verbally or physically harmful to themselves or others. This is a pretty concrete example of a negative outcome of low affect tolerance.
Another option is that one could suppress or deny their anger. A seemingly good choice, for a period; however, it just so happens that suppressed feelings and feeling-states don’t just disappear into thin air. While we may think this option is “better” than outbursts of anger, both of these approaches come with the potential for severely negative outcomes from a mental health perspective. I won’t go into all the problems that suppressed feelings can cause, but let’s just say they are too many to count.
But affect tolerance does not just apply to anger. It also applies to our ability to tolerate the experience of feelings of sadness, jealousy, shame, fear, and really any emotion. If we cannot tolerate the felt sense of these feelings, then we have to try to get rid of them somehow either by transforming them into something else, acting them out, or suppressing them. Often (but not ALL the time) this difficulty in tolerating affect can then start to show up as one or more mental health symptoms. For example, if I can not tolerate my feelings of sadness, maybe I start to feel anxious whenever something reminds me of my sadness. Over time, my unexpressed sadness might build up so that more and more things remind me of it, and thus more and more, I feel anxious. Then bang, a therapist might say I have an “Anxiety Disorder.” But really, what I have is difficulty tolerating my feeling-state of sadness.
The prior example is very simplified. I’m not saying things are always that straight forward. However, I am saying that without the ability to tolerate our affect, we are more likely to experience mental health symptoms. Therefore learning to tolerate our affect can be thought of as a primary goal in therapy work. The good news is that it is a very learnable skill.
Before ending the article, I’d like to give you some tips and tools to better develop your affect tolerance. I’d also like to point out some behaviors that can negatively impact affect tolerance and contribute to issues for you now or down the road.
Activities That Support Affect Tolerance:
Mindfulness Meditation- You probably guessed this one if you read this far. Mindfulness is all the rage in mental health, and there is a good reason for that. In Mindfulness practice, we begin to learn how to observe our thoughts and feelings without reacting to them. This effectively helps us develop the skill to tolerate our feeling-states.
Journaling- When we journal we express our thoughts and feelings and can see them in front of us. Over time this process can allow us to accept our feelings as they are without acting them out or shutting them out.
Drawing- You do not have to be an artist in order for drawing to be helpful. I know I’m not. However, drawing or coloring touches into the right side of our brains which is thought to be the side connected with our emotions. Even if we just choose a color to represent our affect state and start scribbling that color, we give ourselves an opportunity to develop a tolerance for and express that affect state.
Therapy- One goal of therapy is about learning the skill to tolerate our affect. Most therapists have developed this skill through their own therapy process, or through sitting with other folks for countless hours as they express their feeling-states. When looking for a therapist, try to find one that helps you feel at ease in sharing your feeling-states, no matter what they are.
Activities That Do NOT Support Affect Tolerance
Substance Use- Any substance use that alters our mood in a significant way can negatively impact our ability to tolerate affect— especially if it is habitual use. This really deserves a longer post, but in essence, even if I don’t use alcohol or marijuana or something else because I WANT my anger or sadness to go away, the process of getting high or taking the edge off does change my feeling-state from one state to another. If this is repeated over time, I may become LESS tolerant of my feeling-states because I’ve learned that I can change my mood almost instantly with little effort. The problem is not only can I start to depend on the substance to tolerate my affect even if I don’t intend to, but if you take away the substance I haven’t practiced other skills for affect tolerance, thus I will have start from square one every time…
Raging, Blaming, or Shaming Others- Sometimes people think that the opposite of suppression is to unapologetically let their anger and hostility out onto others. This may allow them to experience some temporary relief, as they have discharged their intense feeling-state. However, this is NOT what is meant by affect tolerance… rather it indicates an inability to tolerate affect. As we do this, we may become accustomed to managing our feeling-states by placing them onto others. However, the end result is that we will experience MORE conflict in our relationships, more pain, and less peace of mind. These are the opposite outcomes of true affect tolerance.
Disavowing, Suppressing, Denying Our Feelings- Disavowing means that we say that we don’t feel some way when we actually do. Suppression is when we “stuff,” our feelings away, hide them, or deny that they exist. These are all indicative of an underdeveloped ability to tolerate affect. While these may function as a short-term coping strategy, in the long term they could contribute to mental health symptoms, unsatisfying relationships, and/or poor self-esteem.
Conclusion: This article is an introduction to the idea of affect tolerance and its importance to all of our mental health. Developing affect tolerance is a consistent practice that is very attainable for most people. It isn’t always easy, however, and it takes work. But the reward is worth it as we start to notice ourselves feeling more at ease with our feelings, ourselves, and able to talk about our emotions more readily in our relationships.
Distinguishing Two Kinds of Attachment
Attachment is an important idea in both contemporary psychology, and in the genesis of Buddhist thought. However, for folks who share an interest in each of these disciplines, it’s possible to get tripped up on the word—that is if we are trying to connect the attachment in psychology to attachment in Buddhism we may begin to scratch our heads. Despite utilizing the same word (at least in translation), these two concepts are totally different.
Attachment in psychology is based on the research of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. This research focused on the bond between infant and mother. In essence, the theory postulates that the child may develop different “styles,” of attachment bonds based on their relationship with their primary caretaker. The ideal attachment bond being a “secure” one. Developmentally speaking, this bond forms a kind of template that the child then brings into future relationships—even into adulthood.
Let’s zoom out a little to address the importance of security for a child. As humans we depend on our parents for a long time relative to many other species. Security in relationship to our parents quite literally could mean the difference in our survival nowadays and also in our evolution as a species.
Yet, when that security is absent from the side of the caregiver (and there are many ways this can happen… I won’t get it into all of them here) then the child has to develop other strategies to cope with this insecurity. This idea lends itself more to the more traditional psychoanalytic concept of defenses… however it is definitely relevant to attachment.
While I am taking a very broad brush stroke here, I am attempting to illuminate the connection of these ideas of attachment and security in relationship to our development as individual and relational human beings. In an ideal sense we need relational security as human beings in order to feel at ease. When we don’t get that, it’s possible we can have trouble regulating our own emotional realities, and relating to others.
However, the reality is that we live in a fundamentally insecure world. While developing security is essential to emotionally healthy relationships, there is also the idea that existentially speaking, nothing can ever be that secure. This is what Buddhist thought seeks to address.
There are many different strands of Buddhist thought, however they all seem to emerge from the idea that not only is our world fundamentally in flux, always changing, but our self is too. In fact, according to Buddhism, if we look closely what we call “the self,” is more of a conglomeration of constantly changing streams of consciousness than a static entity. If we look even more closely, we might discover that “the self,” is not able to be found.
Attachment here is when we try to concretize or fixate something that is by nature always changing. We try to hold on to that sensation of joy as long as we can only to find out that it’s replaced by a loss. Inversely, we might try to get rid of the feeling of loss by eating a whole bunch of ice cream. We might feel better momentarily, but then we might feel sick. This is sort of a game our minds play to try and somehow keep us from pain, but according to Buddhism the end result is always that we end up feeling quite sick. That is because we try to dictate to “reality,” the terms that are acceptable to us, but this is not really possible because everything is always in flux.
So attachment in Buddhism, the literal translation of which is “thirst,” is really considered to be the primary cause of dis-satisfaction in life—which is sometimes translated as suffering.
Why am I making this distinction? Well, terminology is difficult. In the US, Buddhist thought is often lumped into the psychology category and for better or worse these two traditions are associated here. The two kinds of attachment are about entirely different topics: relational development and existential malaise. Sure they may intersect, but their contexts are different.
I believe both are relevant to our understanding of psychology and mental health as a whole. We should just be careful about defining our terms clearly, understanding their appropriate contexts, and discussing how they are functionally relevant to us as human beings.
5 Tips For Cultivating a Meditation Practice During COVID
Despite the challenges that it presents, living in the time of COVID also offers us a unique opportunity to look at how we practice self-care. Of all the forms of self-care practice, perhaps the most commonly recommended is meditation, or mindfulness. In this post, I am going to discuss some tips for developing a regular meditation practice. I have practiced meditation in fits and starts since I was 20 years old, with extended periods of daily meditation. It changed my life, and it could very well change yours. So here it goes:
1. Consistency is the best way to practice. In almost all cases, is better to practice a little (5-10 mins) regularly than a lot rarely. Meditation is a form of workout for your mind. When we work out, we start small and build up. Other ways to help stay consistent is to develop a routine. Try choosing the same time every day, or meditate after you do something else that you do everyday (e.g. brushing your teeth). Try meditating in the same place. Find what works for you, and do your best to commit to that daily.
2. Don’t judge your practice. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard, “I’m not sure meditation works for me… I was so distracted while trying to meditate!” People often think they are supposed to be laser focused from the get go during meditation. While some advanced meditators may get to that stage (so I have heard) for most of us this is NOT realistic as we start out… In fact, distraction is a normal part of meditation! What is important is that you are paying attention. It is best to not place such high expectations on our meditation practice, and to see it as a process of learning about our minds.
3. Try some different meditations, but then stick to one practice that you connect to. I am all for people trying different meditations. There are apps that may guide you through several different kinds of meditations. However, at a certain point if we are trying so many different meditations we might end up getting confused. We might not be able to develop a rhythm or relationship with that practice. In meditation the idea is that we are not giving ourselves MORE to think about. Therefore, I suggest that once you find a practice you connect to that you give it some time to go deeper with. That is not to say you have to be locked in forever, just try being consistent with one practice for a month or two. If you feel inclined to try something else after that, then go for it. If you are comfortable in your practice at that time, then keep it up!
4. Be kind to yourself. If you miss a session, don’t beat yourself up. If you are so distracted during a session that you lose hope, don’t worry. You are human, and meditation is not about being perfect. There is no benefit to shaming or putting undue pressure on yourself. Rather, try to remember what motivates you to meditate. What is good about it. Meditation is a privilege, not an obligation. It is something to do for your health and well-being out of self-love, not self-hatred.
5. Enjoy it. This one might seem difficult if you are new to meditation, and just learning how much your thoughts run the show. Yet, I am very confident that if you stick with it, you will find pockets deep enjoyment that come with giving our minds the opportunity to rest. No need to chase the experience, but when it shows up its okay to appreciate it and gently remind yourself that this is one of the greatest gifts you can offer to you!