Owning negative emotions

skullchin

Counseling psychology emphasizes the need to own negative emotions *before* overcoming them. I.e., I must own intense anger/hate toward a parental figure before I can feel compassion for them. This process sometimes takes years. It entails feeling the emotion and "spending time" with it.

Is there a Buddhist concept for owning emotions like this? Whenever I read a thread about strong emotions, all the responses jump straight to overcoming the emotion.

fivebells

No, Buddhist practice really leads to disowning emotional content. "This is not mine. This is not myself." Who is the owner? However, why does psychotherapy recommend "owning" negative emotions in the first place? It is because they are considered unacceptable, and end up ignored, operating outside of conscious awareness. Buddhist practice leads to awareness of these emotions as they arise. At the same time, it leads to release of them.

skullchin

Ah gotcha, while Buddhist practice promotes awareness of negative emotions there is no-self to "own" the emotion. So, from a Western perspective "owning" something is a perfectly normal way to talk about something, in Buddhist practice it is not. I might change the way I talk about this then - to promote awareness, instead of ownership.