‘Dimorphous expression’ helps regulate overwhelming emotions and restore the body to emotional balance.
“Hatred does not cease by hating, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.”
— Buddha
Many years ago a psychologist friend of mine who’d had many people close to him die in his life told me something intriguing.
He spoke of the time his brother, a young man at the time, had been tragically killed. My friend related how grief-stricken he had been for so long. How he had wailed and sobbed and felt unable to get over it… until.
“I started recalling all the times he’d really annoyed me. The times he’d made me angry or been mean or selfish! And do you know what Mark?”
Being slow of thought, I didn’t know what.
“It really helped. Whenever I felt overcome with grief I’d recall those times he’d angered me, and the really painful part of the grief started to subside. I still loved him of course, but I found that recalling all the times he’d been a complete jerk really stabilized me.”
A reflex response to this kind of thing might be: “Well that’s just denial! You have to feel the full force of your feelings!” … and so on.
But it worked for my friend. And these kinds of what we might call ‘compensatory’ methods of emotional self-regulation seem to be rooted in our deepest neurobiology. Haven’t we all wanted to squeeze or bite a puppy/kitten/baby because… well, they’re just so darn cute!
Prefer to watch instead?
Adorable enough to eat! Cute aggression theory
Cute aggression is the strange but harmless urge to squeeze, bite, or pinch something because it feels overwhelmingly adorable. Cultures all over the world seem to recognize this strange phenomenon.
Even though the reaction looks aggressive, it’s actually triggered by very strong positive emotions like love and joy.
Psychologists describe this as ‘dimorphous expression’, which is a fancy way of saying it’s a naturally occurring, paradoxical emotional response in which an intense positive feeling – such as extreme joy or adoration – is expressed through a mix of positive and negative behaviours at the same time.
Think:
- laughing while crying
- playfully pretending to chomp down on your baby’s tootsies
- playfighting between loving, affectionate couples
- screaming out or jumping when delighted
- laughing or wanting to giggle when given shocking news.
You feel one thing while expressing the emotions normally associated with its opposite.
These kinds of reactions help regulate overwhelming emotions and restore the body to emotional balance. Things tip one way, so we tip them the other to achieve emotional equilibrium.
It’s fascinating, because it shows that emotions aren’t just about feeling ‘good’ or ‘bad’; they’re about maintaining balance.
So what’s my point? Thank you for asking.
We can work with nature
My point is: If this is a natural and common human response, an evolutionary self-regulation mechanism meant to ‘dial down’ emotional intensity so your nervous system can regain balance, then why not use it therapeutically?
My psychologist friend was intentionally and self-therapeutically using emotion replacement – a kind of internalized dimorphous expression – to counterbalance overwhelming negative feelings.
One: Ask about opposites
If you’ve ever watched me lift a trauma or phobia using the Rewind technique, you’ll have seen me ask the client a specific question.
I want to know when they have, or have had, feelings diametrically opposed to the fear or terror or heartbreak they’ve been talking about. So I might say something like:
“Thank you for having the courage to talk about what you’ve just told me. It may seem like a strange question, but when in your life have you or do you feel completely opposite to that? Maybe safe, or more secure, or relaxed, or even lighthearted?”
I then have them access those positive feelings and use them as a protective ‘wrapper’ when deconditioning the traumatic or phobic response.
But we can start to introduce opposite feelings into troublesome emotional states more subtly too…
Two: Use the art of subtle emotional association
When a client is flooded with sadness, fear, or shame, a therapist might gently invite lightness (appropriate humour, warmth, or encouraging recall of something endearing).
The nervous system often cannot sustain two emotional extremes at once, so introducing a small positive countercurrent can reduce arousal without invalidating the original feeling.
This should be done naturalistically and congruently. It should be introduced only when the client has had the time and space to fully express themselves.
One client who was often very sad, especially when she thought and spoke of her failed marriage, was, I found, someone I could make laugh quite easily (yes, I had found someone at last who found me amusing!).
Anyway, after a time, when we’d done lots of work together and developed good rapport, whenever she’d bring up her failed marriage I’d make her laugh (about something else).
After a time I noticed she started to spontaneously joke more about what had gone wrong in that relationship.
This kind of subtle conditioning happens in therapy whether we intend it or not.
Change below the surface
If a therapist frowns or looks pained every time their client brings up a certain subject, the client may become subtly conditioned to feel more pained or concerned by that issue.
Of course, we need to be subtle and not laugh like a hyena or make jokes immediately when a client brings up something painful. But this aspect of what we might call ‘subtle feedback conditioning’ is important to understand.
When a client, for example, expresses self-deprecating or even self-hating sentiments, I am careful not to nod my head as they tell me these things. I may even take on a slightly quizzical or doubting expression.
In moments of distress, intentionally evoking connection, maybe through eye contact; using a warm, comforting tone; or having your client recall a loving relationship, can trigger bonding neurochemistry that counterbalances threat responses. Think verbal ‘comfort animals’.
Even accessing memories of tenderness can create a stabilizing ‘opposite-valence’ effect.
But we can go even further and make our effects deeper by the use of hypnotic anchoring.
Three: Use hypnotic anchoring
If you’ve done our online Uncommon Hypnotherapy course, you’ll have learned the skill of anchoring.
Therapeutically, the process of anchoring can be done in numerous ways. Here is one way of anchoring a state of relaxation, although any other state, such as confidence or humour, could be used.
Step one
Progressively relax the client, perhaps by counting them down to some peaceful, relaxing inner place. Be aware of the usual feedback to let you know that they are relaxed, such as slow breathing, facial glow, or slackening facial muscles. It is easier to access resourceful states from this state of relaxation.
Step two
Begin to use language that evokes resourceful states. You might say something like:
“Now there may have been a time when you felt particularly strong or independent, or connected or humorous or appreciated… and when you notice some of these resourceful feelings beginning to drift through you very powerfully… perhaps associated with a particular memory… then I would like you to bring that thumb and forefinger together and notice those resourceful feelings even more strongly…”
A person doesn’t have to remember a particular good time, just access the resourceful feelings. Watch their facial musculature carefully until you see evidence of the resources you are going for (perhaps a slight smile, a determined set to the jaw, an upward tilt of the chin).
Step three
Suggest that as they part the thumb and finger, they can just go back into deep rest and relaxation. By doing this, they are starting to bring the accessing of these resources under their control.
Step four
Repeat the above process three or four times, suggesting that each time they bring the finger and thumb together they can go deeper into the resourceful feelings and feel them even more powerfully.
Step five
Request that their unconscious mind select a time in the future (this could be from an ongoing situation) where these resources would be very beneficial. Perhaps it’s a time in which they expect to feel afraid, or shameful, or underconfident).
Let them indicate to you when they have selected such a time. This could be through hand levitation or a simple nod of the head.
Step six
Suggest that on the count of three they can drift into the situation where those resources would come in useful, at the same time as bringing the thumb and finger together.
So they are bringing opposite feelings into a troublesome situation in order to change the way they feel in that type of time.
Ask them to notice the differences in that situation with all those resources.
I might say at this point: “… because when you’re different in a situation, it becomes a totally new and different kind of situation…”
Give them time to do this. You have successfully used resources that the person has or did have and ‘bridged the gap’ by bringing them into an area where they weren’t being used before.
Step seven
Suggest that they part the finger and thumb and drift back into the relaxing place, and give them some time in silence to integrate their learnings. Suggest that in future their finger and thumb may just drift together unconsciously when they need to, that they can bring them together consciously, or that maybe they won’t even need to.
Count them out of hypnosis and back into the room.
This uses exactly the same principle as my friend described all those years ago when seeking to begin to lift his stuck-in-grief state of mind.
An art more than a science
So just as people might unconsciously and naturally dilute emotionally overwhelming feelings, whether good or bad, so too can we use this natural human mechanism of dimorphous expression in our work with clients.
Indeed, we really must do that if we are going to help them change their responses. But the method should be gentle and regulating, not dismissive or forced.
Used skilfully, contrary state therapy helps the nervous system regain equilibrium rather than suppress emotion. After all, too much of anything is destabilizing.
As the monk and writer Thomas Merton wrote:
“[Even] happiness is not a matter just of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm, and harmony.”
Work directly, and kindly, with your clients’ emotions
Do you work with clients overwhelmed by grief, trauma, or fear who struggle to access any positive emotional state? The Uncommon Hypnotherapy Course teaches you anchoring and indirect hypnotic techniques that can reach even the most resistant clients and help them access the emotional states they need. Explore the Uncommon Hypnotherapy Course.
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About Mark Tyrrell
Psychology is my passion. I've been a psychotherapist trainer since 1998, specializing in brief, solution focused approaches. I now teach practitioners all over the world via our online courses.
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