Emotion Exposure

Changing emotional responsesEmotion exposureEmotion tolerance training

When a feeling not only needs to be understood, but also consciously endured in a safe form.

Consciously seek out or hold stressful feelings in a measured and safe form so that avoidance decreases and emotional tolerance increases.

When does this fit?

When a feeling not only has to be understood, but also endured within a protected framework so that its power over behavior decreases.

Priority in the path

This node fits early in the path when fear or panic or strong emotional activation are in the foreground.

What this is about

Emotion Exposure is the DBT protocol for systematically approaching feared emotional experiences rather than avoiding them. Avoidance of painful emotions — through distraction, suppression, or escape — is the primary mechanism by which emotional pain is sustained and intensified over time.

Exposure works by allowing the emotional experience to occur fully, without the avoidant behaviors that would normally interrupt it, so that the nervous system learns that the emotion can be tolerated and that it passes on its own. In DBT, emotion exposure is closely related to mindfulness of current emotions and to opposite action: both involve staying with emotional experience rather than acting on the urge to escape it. It is distinct from trauma exposure in that it targets the emotion itself rather than specific traumatic memories.

Further reading Linehan Manual — Ch. 9

Step by step

Work through the steps at your own pace. For written exercises, you can use paper or a notebook.

First observe triggering events, emotions and your usual avoidance or coping responses over several days.
Use your observations to choose an emotion you often avoid. When it arises in everyday life, begin a brief observation exercise with calm breathing and notice your bodily sensations.
Name the emotion and observe changes in its intensity and quality.
Notice urges to avoid or act immediately without automatically following them. Let judgments about the emotion pass.
End with mindful breathing. This is not an instruction to deliberately trigger traumatic memories alone; such treatment requires an appropriate professional setting.

Understanding and influencing emotions

Recognising emotions clarifies which feeling is being experienced. Emotion exposure concerns allowing feelings that have been avoided; opposite action addresses the action urge when it does not fit the facts or the goal.

SkillEmotion Regulation