The Psychology of Personal Growth and Better Relationships

2Emotions That Pull Us Apart and Bring Us Together

The Definition of Emotion

In Part 2, Chapter 1, “Reason and Emotion” on page 108, we learned that anger employs illogical circuits in order to bypass reason in the fulfillment of a goal. We learned that this anger has four goals (control, winning a struggle for leadership, protecting one's rights, and displaying a sense of injustice) and that, as a secondary emotion, it has as its base the primary emotions of loneliness, sadness, worry, and disappointment.

In this chapter, we'll introduce a general theory of emotion and Adler's view of the role of emotion in an individual's life. First, emotion can be broken down into three parts:

1. Sensory Feelings: A comfortable or uncomfortable state of consciousness created by your five senses
2. Mood: A relatively continuous feeling, including exhilaration or depression, that is strongly linked with physiological function
3. Emotion: A relatively more intense but shorter‐lasting feeling that arises suddenly in regard to your partner

Adler divided emotions into two categories: those that pull us apart and those that bring us together. The former causes anger, and the latter causes happiness. However, the opposite is also possible. For example, happiness is usually a feeling that brings us together, but feeling happiness at another's misfortune, like when a fellow coworker you consider a rival ...