Daniel A. Bochner, Ph.D.

Did you know that emotions take up space as well as time and energy? Have you ever noticed that emotions can crowd a room, or that when one person is very emotional others tend to tone their emotions down (except in mass hysteria where a competition for emotional prominence ensues). When one person is having great difficulty, others tend to come to their aid. Others get out of the way when another person is being especially aggressive or obnoxious. When the parents in a family tend to fight, the first reaction of young children is to be as good as possible with hope that their parents will fight less. When someone is expressing intense emotion, that expression is generally dealt with immediately. Intense emotion tends to take precedence over everything else that is currently happening.

The concept of "emotional space" is little known, but it helps explain why even some healthy people can find themselves in difficult situations with emotionally unhealthy people. It is important to realize, of course, that there are appropriate times for emotions to be expressed. If a mentally healthy person really gets upset, they typically should express the feeling to someone at some time. Also, the less controlled expression of emotions is expected from children. The younger a child is, the more desperately they perceive their emotions, and thus the more desperately, immediately, and dramatically they will express those emotions. A serious problem often develops, however, when people take up too much "emotional space" even though it is not developmentally appropriate.

This problem is most difficult to understand when the person who is emoting too intensely is engaging with someone who really has no problem handling their own emotions. Believe it or not, there is such a thing as being too emotionally controlled. What I mean by this, however, is not that the emotionally controlled person has reached a perfect balance in life. Quite to the contrary, the problem here is that such a person has not learned to balance the overwhelming amount of love, luck, and good discipline they have experienced in their lives with the idea that others should not be allowed to take advantage of them or treat them badly...

For the complete article, please buy The Emotional Toolbox book.