ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses emotion as a rapidly unfolding process, which needs to be carefully unpacked and explored, so as to access the underlying (unspoken) softer emotions and attachment fears that are fuelling a distressed couple’s negative interaction cycle. The problem is framed in terms of the way the couple interacts and the emotional responses that organize such interactions. When the couple acknowledges and accepts this expanded frame of their problem as the pattern of interaction and the overlooked emotions driving this pattern, the first change event de-escalation is complete. Emotion is more than feelings or affective experience. It is an unfolding interpersonal process that motivates behaviour and influences interaction. Emotions, like an internal GPS orientate individuals to their world and tell them what they need and want to survive and to thrive. Implicitly embedded in core emotions are messages of a person’s needs and adaptive action tendencies of what to do to meet these needs.
