Feelings “healthy” and “unhealthy”

In transactional analysis, the term “racket feelings” is used to describe unhealthy feelings.
Racket is a term that describes a situation where something is taken away from us, isn't it?

How are they different from negative feelings? We call negative those feelings that are unpleasant to us - anxiety, guilt, boredom, etc.  What a person does is determined by the feelings that we want to experience or that we avoid.

In the same situation, one person experiences fear, another one experiences anger, and the third one experiences despair. For example, if your boss yelled at you.
As a rule, we react as we were taught in childhood. We can say that every family has its own “favorite” emotions, and there are those that are forbidden to show or are simply ignored.

In practice, it happens like this: If a child is scared of something - and shares it with his parents - he may be judged and told “This is nonsense, don’t be afraid.” For example, if he is offended by a stronger child.  As a result, the child learns to hide his fear. And when he is beaten or, on the contrary, comes home after a fight, he hears “Man! Stay strong!" In this way, the reaction of anger to aggression is reinforced. In our example with the boss, the grown boy will be angry with him in response to aggression.

And if a girl, for example, was prohibited from anger, then in a situation where another child takes away her doll, the girl cannot defend herself. Since her parents tell her “you can’t hit others - you’re a girl!” Crying and helplessness consoled, and thus reinforced the reaction of helplessness in a situation of aggression.

In transactional analysis, such feelings instilled from childhood are called racketeering, in contrast to authentic, that is, natural for this situation. In our example, the boy hides his fear behind anger, and having trained, it is very difficult for him to see his fear behind the already familiar reaction of anger.

Without such vaccination in childhood, we would naturally react to the situation - authentically. That is, feelings that are the most appropriate response and help you cope with the situation in a healthy way.
For example, the reaction of authentic sadness helps to survive the loss. This gives us the opportunity to release feelings and move through grief more quickly. Otherwise, a person gets stuck in the past and cannot move forward.

An authentic (healthy) feeling of fear allows you to mobilize the body for an instant reaction to save a life. (For example, it produces adrenaline when you need to jump away from a car that might hit you).
Authentic (healthy) feelings of anger arise when our rights are violated. Someone, for example, climbs out of turn ahead of you. If adequate anger appears, there is a chance to resolve the conflict in a fair manner and protect your rights.

Racket feelings are simply a reflex with which a person reacts when under stress, and, therefore, such feelings do not help organically move towards a resolution of the situation, but inadequately keep a person from reacting in a healthy way.
Someone who has anger as a racket feeling will experience anger after a breakup, never moving towards a feeling of sadness, and thus remain stuck in the loss, in the past.
Moving into life with an unresolved loss, he will not be able to build new relationships, painfully holding on to the past, he will not be able to let in the new.  A person with racketeering anger will die in a fight without balancing his strength with fear (to which he no longer has access) or will be fired by responding inadequately to his boss.

If the racketeering feeling is helplessness, then the person may die, will not survive the fear in time, which will help him jump aside from a speeding car, or will constantly suppress his interests in communicating with his superiors.

There can be many such racket feelings. It is helpful to explore in therapy the feelings you typically express when stressed and understand how you could respond differently to resolve the situation in a non-traumatic, optimal way. You can sign up for a consultation by clicking the button below.
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