Regulating Emotions

Abstract

Affective neuroscience is a new science, specializing in understanding emotion and the brain. It combines the findings from multiple disciplines, including psychological and cognitive models along with brain research. Chapter 16 introduces affective neuroscience. It describes the neuroscience of emotions with the structures and functions of the brain areas and processes involved. Emotional pathways in the brain, known as the limbic system, engage a number of structures that work together, from the lower brain stem areas, up through the center of the brain and extending into the cortex. The limbic system is linked to mind and body, and so therapy can intervene at any level: sensory experiencing, motor movement, and cognitive processing. Two types of therapeutic interventions are presented for changing emotions. One method brings about a spontaneous change by altering a short neural path of emotion, which shifts the nervous system balance nonverbally and experientially. A second method brings emotional change through deliberate cognitive interventions that travel the long neural path of emotions. Therapists will understand how emotions are embodied and find useful techniques to work with the mind, body, and brain together.