Working with ACT

By Aprilia West, PsyD, MT, PCC

Emotion efficacy refers to your capacity to effectively navigate emotional experience while responding in context-sensitive, values-based ways[1]. While many people still think of emotions as a topic for distressed clients in a therapeutic setting, the reality is you are always processing emotion on some level. And how well you harness your emotions shapes the choices you make. This makes the topic of emotional efficacy important not only for therapists but for coaches and any providers who are working with people around wellbeing and performance.[2]

Here’s why people need help increasing their emotion efficacy: emotions are your primary motivational system, they inform the estimated 35,000 choices you make everyda – for better and for worse. This happens because emotions are always sending you messages to motivate you to act in a certain way. However, while some messages tell what you actually care about – your values, others might simply arise from automatic default reactions, giving you “fake news” about what matters in a given moment.[3]

In other words, emotions don’t always read the room, e.g., after a long day you choose to Netflix-binge when going to the gym is actually more important to you.  Or, you avoid doing something (advocating for work-life boundaries) that you know is key to enhancing your quality of life. Why? Because your emotions urge you towards comfort, certainty, coherence and pleasure. This is why anyone with low emotion efficacy can easily end up moving away from what they care about and how they want to show up, personally and professionally.

In contrast, when you have high emotional efficacy you can decode emotional messages and override default emotional reactions. This leads to more effective choices and meaningful moves. Increasing your emotional efficacy naturally breaks the trance of default emotional reactivity, and can improve your resilience, psychological flexibility, and emotion intelligence.[4][5][6] This skills upgrade will help you harness your emotions and better tolerate stress and distress, overcome challenges, and attain higher performance levels.

WHEN YOU HAVE HIGH EMOTIONAL EFFICACY YOU CAN DECODE EMOTION MESSAGES AND OVERRIDE DEFAULT EMOTIONAL REACTIONS, THIS LEADS  TO MAKE MORE EFFECTIVE CHOICES AND MEANINGFUL MOVES.

While most therapists tend to have some training around working with emotion, coaches are often less skilled and less comfortable addressing low emotional efficacy. In fact, some research suggests that coaches often see emotions as conflicting with rationality, needing to be contained, and/or managed only in therapy.[7][8] This is a slow-dying, outdated understanding of the role of emotion in learning, change, human motivation and behavior.[9]

Consider a few non-clinical examples where coaching for emotional efficacy led to less reactive and more contextually adaptive choices:

• A CEO in leadership coaching was seeking funding and while presenting his plan to investors when he gets offended by some of the questions asked. He interprets the queries as infantilizing, challenging of his expertise and showing ignorance of his industry. Instead of acting on the urge to shut down or get snarky, the CEO pauses, notices how the emotion trigger is showing up in his body and refocuses on what matters most to him: providing the information the investor needs to see why the company is a good fit for their portfolio.

• A project manager in her mid-30’s in executive coaching is struggling with chronic burnout needs to talk to her boss about establishing more clear work/life boundaries to resource herself. Instead of acting on the urge to avoid the conversation she is able to tolerate her feeling of dread, thoughts about disappointing her boss, tension in her chest and throat and express her need to “clock out” after 6 pm and be unavailable until the next morning at 9 am.

• An HR professional in executive coaching with performance anxiety is asked to give the annual talk at the company retreat. She has practiced and knows what she wants to say, but an hour before she begins to notice her heartrate speed up and she starts sweating profusely. Instead of acting on the urge to bow out or go home “sick,” she uses diaphragmatic breathing and the coping thought “this is scary, but not actually as dangerous as it feels” to calm herself down and is able to deliver an inspiring speech to the company.

Emotional efficacy skills have been shown to promote a more powerful and adaptive relationship with emotions and can lead to increases in wellbeing and performance[10]. Emotion efficacy training can be administered using a brief structured protocol or in a more flexible, functional way. Emotional efficacy training doesn’t just rely on insight; the learning is experiential. Clients practice in an activated state to simulate using the skills in real life scenarios to improve the client’s learning, retention and recall[11].

The 4 core emotional efficacy skills are rooted in evidence-based psychological processes:

1. Emotion Awareness: noticing and labeling emotional STUF: sensations, thoughts, urges and feelings.

A lot of clients either aren’t aware of their emotional experience, or they think of emotions simply as feelings, and don’t realize the interplay between their sensations, thoughts and urges as well. Encouraging clients to practice mindfulness of all parts of their emotional experience can help them become more aware of their needs, interests, desires and yearnings and less vulnerable less helpful automatic reactions. Learning how to notice and breakdown the essential elements of their experience is the first step to becoming more intentional with their choices.

2. Emotion Surfing: leaning into unwanted or distressing emotions without reacting

Because humans are wired to avoid discomfort, distress, challenge, it’s a whole new level to tolerate distress instead of acting on the urge to move away from it. It’s often a new and even weird idea not to act on intense emotions but to instead get curious about them. Encouraging clients to recognize and be intentional in moments of choice will help them connect the impact of their emotions on their decisions and behaviors. They can learn to harness their emotions to override automatic reactions and more effectively face challenge, stress and pain.

3. Values-Based Action: understanding and aligning behavior with what matters most

Engaging meaningfully—especially when clients get triggered—takes knowing what matters most and being able to imagine how to align your behavior with it. This often means becoming more skillful interpreting emotion signals and being agile, intentional and creative enough to act on what matters most.  Knowing how to pivot to values-based moves opens up a whole new world of possibilities for clients, personally and professionally.

4. Mindful Coping: regulating emotions to take values-based action

Knowing how to dial down emotional intensity can not only give clients the ability to refrain from escalating difficult situations, but also give them recovery time to focus on what matters and how they want to show up. Clients can benefit from coping strategies that disrupt emotional activation on a somatic, cognitive and affective level and find their way back to values-based action.

Dr. Aprilia West is a psychologist, coach, trainer and author of What You Feel Is Not All There Is, ACT For Your Best Life and coauthor of the clinician’s guide to Emotion Efficacy Therapy (EET) and Acceptance and Commitment Coaching in the Workplace.

For more information on emotional efficacy go to: www.emotionefficacy.com.

For information on trainings in using emotional efficacy with clients go to: www.drapriliawest.com/training.

[1] West, 2021. What You Feel Is Not All There Is.  En Masse Media, Los Angeles.

[2] Gross, J. J., & Thompson, R. A. (2007). Emotion Regulation: Conceptual Foundations. In J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation (pp. 3–24). The Guilford Press.

[3] Greenberg, L.S.. (2004). Emotion–focused therapy. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy. 11. 3 – 16. 10.1002/cpp.388.

[4] Tugade, M. M., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2007). Regulation of positive emotions: Emotion regulation strategies that promote resilience. Journal of Happiness Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum on Subjective Well-Being, 8(3), 311–333. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-006-9015-4

[5] Gross, J. J., Richards, J. M., & John, O. P. (2006). Emotion Regulation in Everyday Life. In D. K. Snyder, J. Simpson, & J. N. Hughes (Eds.), Emotion regulation in couples and families: Pathways to dysfunction and health (pp. 13–35). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/11468-001

[6] Kashdan, T. B., Disabato, D. J., Goodman, F. R., Doorley, J. D., & McKnight, P. E. (2020). Understanding psychological flexibility: A multimethod exploration of pursuing valued goals despite the presence of distress. Psychological Assessment, 32(9), 829–850. https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000834

[7] Fineman, S. (2010). Emotion in Organizations — A Critical Turn. In: Sieben, B., Wettergren, Å. (eds) Emotionalizing Organizations and Organizing Emotions. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230289895_2

[8] Pizarro, D. (2000). Nothing more than feelings? The role of emotions in moral judgment. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 30(4), 355–375. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5914.00135

[9] Cox, E., & Patrick, C. (2012). Managing emotions at work: How coaching affects retail support workers’ performance and motivation. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 10(2), 34–51.

[10] http://www.emotionefficacytherapy.com/what-people-are-saying

[11] McKay & West (2016). Emotion Efficacy Therapy (EET). Context Press, Oakland, CA.

by Aprilia West, PsyD, MT, PCC

One of the biggest challenges I see when coaching teams is the gap between understanding what they should do to be effective together and how to do it.
 
The “what” has been widely disseminated through findings from the 2012 Google study, Project Aristotle. One factor stood out as being most important for effective teaming: psychological safety– the feeling and belief that you belong, can learn, contribute and challenge the status quo without fear of marginalization or punishment from your team ^[1]. And this makes sense. We need to feel safe in order to show up fully and take the risks that maintain relationships and outcomes without (too much) fear of negative consequences.
 
But what this research didn’t address as clearly is how team members can pivot from behavior as usual to increase their psychological safety.
 
To get to the “how,” it’s helpful to highlight why we humans feel psychologically unsafe in groups. In general, and especially in high-stakes social situations (like a team), people want to stay in good standing with their peers. At our core this makes us feel safe. As social creatures we are wired for belonging and affinity.
 
When we depend on others to maintain our good standing, it’s not hard for the threat level to get high (e.g., someone gives us the side eye or disagrees with our brilliant idea). Even more so when our team member’s opinions contribute to performance evaluation, influence our reputation, and potentially affect our financial stability and opportunities for professional advancement.
 
When this happens, our default tendency will be to see others as potential adversaries and to play safe and small to prevent any feared or unwanted outcomes. We become transactional in relationships, defensive, intolerant of ambiguity, unimaginative, reactive, anxious and exhausted.
 
In fact, the more psychologically rigid we become, the less we respond to stress, challenge and uncertainty in effective, context-sensitive ways^[2]. Your group can end up where all good teams go to die- the slog of fear-driven tedium and lackluster performance.
 
Unless we learn to practice psychological flexibility, we become preoccupied with what we don’t want, instead of what we do. Ironically, this doesn’t leave anyone feeler safer.
 
…UNLESS WE LEARN TO PRACTICE PSYCHOLOGICAL FLEXIBILITY, WE BECOME PREOCCUPIED WITH WHAT WE DON’T WANT, INSTEAD OF WHAT WE DO. IRONICALLY, THIS DOESN’T LEAVE ANYONE FEELING SAFER.
 
When team members are preoccupied with what they don’t want, the team will become dysfunctional: they lack trust, fear conflict, lack commitment, avoid accountability and fail to track their results ^[3]. A team without psychological safety is known to increase communication breakdowns, employee attrition and decreases team performance^[4][5].
 
Here’s how you can increase team psychological safety using 3 types of psychological flexibility skills:
 
Mindfulness
When you are present and allow difficult emotional experiences instead of reacting to them, you immediately disrupt your default reactions to stress, such as becoming autocratic, perfectionistic, critical, passive, submissive or distant. On a team, learning to tune in and hang out with discomfort creates the “pause” and presence people need to stay focused on their relationships and the tasks at hand.
 
More specifically, a team member who is aware of their emotional experience and can tolerate difficult moments will add stability, predictability, resilience, and trust to the team.
 
Mindset
Our minds are wired to make snap judgments – about people, problems and projects – that are often unhelpful.  Buying into your thoughts and being fused with one way of seeing something can really muck up the chemistry and flow of a team. When you are able to expand your perspective and see problems, situations and people as complex and nuanced you create new possibilities.
 
A team member who can 1) hold their thoughts and biases lightly and 2) entertain multiple perspectives will add creativity, productivity, harmony and affinity to the team. 
 
Meaningful Moves
Without clear agreements about how to work together and what is to be accomplished, teams can easily lose their way. Navigating teamwork powerfully means staying clear about what matters and being willing to pivot to flexibly aligning your behavior with it in any moment. This agility allows everyone to move in the same direction, even when you come upon new challenges, hit dead ends, and explore new paths.
 
When team members consistently focus on what matters most, they are more likely to nurture their relationships and achieve meaningful results.
 
For more information on team coaching and psychological flexibility contact aprilia@drapriliawest.com.
 
More on psychological flexibility training in the workplace
 

[1] Kim, S., Lee, H., & Connerton, T. P. (2020). How Psychological Safety Affects Team Performance: Mediating Role of Efficacy and Learning Behavior. Frontiers in psychology, 11, 1581. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01581
[2] Hayes SC, Luoma JB, Bond FW, Masuda A, Lillis J. Acceptance and commitment therapy: model, processes and outcomes. Behav Res Ther. 2006;44:1–25. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2005.06.006.
[3] Lencioni, P. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team. New York: Jossey-Bass.
[4] Kim, S., Lee, H., & Connerton, T. P. (2020). How Psychological Safety Affects Team Performance: Mediating Role of Efficacy and Learning Behavior. Frontiers in psychology, 11, 1581. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01581
[5] Escell Institute. (July 12, 2022). 4 Ways For Managers To Increase Psychological Safety
https://ecsellinstitute.com/4-ways-for-managers-to-increase-psych-safety/