Mental(izing) Health: Managing Unmanageable Emotions?
Newsletter, #64
Keeping up with the political upheaval is challenging; it feels daunting to secure a perch, with the right amount of distance, to formulate observations about the impact of the changes that we are witnessing in our country. Everything has changed in that the current administration seems motivated to fight for its right to power over respect for the rule of law. But not so much has changed in daily life, as of now, for many of us. This is, no doubt, a matter of privilege, though it is accompanied by a gnawing discomfort in reckoning with the fact that others are suffering and suffering unjustly. Here’s the thing: rupture and continuity co-exist uneasily, and their collision generates a crescendo of cacophonous emotions.
I have been curious to sort out how I am changing, as the world has changed. I know that I am prepared to act to protect the integrity of my profession as a psychologist and to join larger protests to fight for our diminishing rights. Yet, to be honest, my state of mind is befuddled, and I am struggling to survive the emotional tumult of living in this brave new world.
An experience that I had will serve as an example of how atypical things are now. A few months ago, I read a book that I was not sure I would like but ended up liking more than I expected: Shift: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don’t Manage You by Ethan Kross, a professor of psychology and business at the University of Michigan.[i] You can tell by the title that the author (or his editor) aims to maximize the audience by adopting such a self-help-ish subtitle. But this is not a superficial book: Kross has engaging and personal writing style, makes cogent arguments, and bolsters them by citing his own and others’ research. His wish to promote the skillful use of emotions is both ambitious and worthwhile.
Yet, when I went back to look at the book recently to see if I wanted to write about it, I was surprised to see how different my reaction was—a measure, I believe, of how the current political environment has had a haunting effect, altering my understanding of the very same text. The encouragement to “manage” my emotions seemed hollow under present conditions. I will try to put words to this experience, but first, let’s give ourselves over to understanding Kross’s book.
In a nutshell, Kross argues that we can manage our emotions and that doing so is crucial for well-being. He does not provide an exact definition of what it means to manage emotions, which to my ears retains a whiff of business-speak. Managing emotions clearly overlaps with more established notions of regulating and controlling emotions. Kross also alludes to unconscious aspects of emotional experience without explicating the implications for managing emotions.
His take is well summarized in the following:
people who are good at managing their emotions
are less lonely, maintain more fulfilling social
relationships, and are more satisfied with their
lives. They experience fewer financial hardships,
commit less crimes, and perform better at school
and work. And they’re physically healthier as
well: they move faster, look more youthful in
photographs, biologically age less quickly, and
live longer. Simply put, the ability to control
your emotions isn’t just about avoiding the dark
side of life: it’s about enriching the positive,
generative, and rewarding dimensions of
existence as well (p. xxii).
The endnotes provide references to the relevant studies that support the various claims he makes here about the advantages of managing your emotions. While the virtue of appearing youthful in photographs made me laugh (hello Narcissus), the desirability of living a long life would be hard to deny (in most cases). In this passage, Kross seems to lean in the direction of positive psychology, but he is quite emphatic in acknowledging how negative emotions carry meaning and thus are too important to dismiss. Following a line of psychoanalytic thinking, without identifying it as such, Kross stresses that negative emotions are valuable to tolerate and learn from, within limits.
Kross believes that, in principle, we are designed to be able to manage our emotions. He encourages us to think of his book “as an instruction manual for the operating system you already have but might not be using to its fullest potential” (p. xxv). Yet, Kross is fully aware that it can be strenuous and difficult to control our emotions. He documents how the intensity and duration of emotional experience can be obstructive and interfere with our well-being. I would add to this that our emotions can be redirected from their origins to other sources, like when a colleague annoys you at work and you end up being impatient with a family member at home. A key point for Kross is that we cannot always control triggers of our emotions, that is, the events that set off our reactions; but we can control our responses to them. This makes sense, but triggers can be cascading and reverberate, prevailing over our effort to respond well.
The substance in Kross’ argument is found in the internal and external “shifters” that help us to manage our emotions. He elaborates upon internal forms like sensation (listening to music), attention (distraction and avoidance) and perspective (changing the filter, reframing, reappraising, distanced self-talk), and goes on to discuss external forms (like changing place). There is a pragmatic emphasis, promoting skills that we may already possess to some degree. Yet, Kross also addresses counter-intuitive findings, like that practicing time-traveling, including imagining oneself in the future, can be better than mindfully being in the present (pp. 110-111).
One of the most fascinating aspects of Kross’ book is the saga of his grandmother, which appears at the beginning and at the end as well as at various other times throughout. Indeed, Kross credits his grandmother with inspiring his interest in managing emotions. His attachment to his grandmother presents an angle and complication about her “unimaginable trauma” that deserves our close consideration. The intensity of the bond between grandmother and grandson is conveyed sweetly through the ample, delectable food she made for him when he was growing up. How does Kross’ attachment to her relate to his approach?
Kross begins the book with a dramatic story of his grandmother narrowly escaping death and then enduring great hardship and trauma as a Jew facing the Nazi genocide in her homeland of Poland, before eventually coming to the US. Kross acknowledges that he felt perplexed by how his grandmother handled her emotions—becoming tearful only at official Holocaust ceremonies, but otherwise not reacting or speaking about her experience. Over time, Kross comes to appreciate her ability to accept her responses flexibly, allowing her to follow a path toward well-being. Kross highlights a related issue here of how avoiding emotions can be a reasonable way to manage emotions, and that not everybody has to face their emotions or go to therapy, as is now widely believed. Kross attributes the source of facing your emotions to Aristotle and Freud, but he opts not to take up their views, which resist easy characterization. It’s not that they are arguing “face your emotions, or else…,” rather that there is something to be gained from an investment in understanding your emotions.
There are multiple layers to unpack here. Kross ultimately seems to side with the idea that it is valuable to “work through” our emotions (another example of psychoanalytic language, not acknowledged). Yet, it is impossible to know if he imagines that this pertains to his grandmother: was her resilience sufficient, so she did not need to work through her emotions, or perhaps did she do so privately? That she deployed her emotions differently in different contexts is admirable, even if Kross also reveals that, according to his mother, his grandmother was less consistent in containing her emotions than he witnessed (and keep in mind that he is remembering her from the past). He readily acknowledges that growing up, he was perplexed by how his grandmother dealt with emotions, and he observes that there would have been too much stigma for her to consult with a mental health professional. But that begs the question of whether it might have benefitted her. I say “might” as there is certainly no assurance that such help would make a difference.
Kross is not a clinical psychologist and, to be fair, has no intention to contribute to our understanding of psychopathology or clinical practice. However, in introducing a case of trauma, and subsequently, suggesting that his grandmother transcended that experience, we find ourselves amidst a wealth of clinical issues. Kross’ grandmother, without doubt, led a remarkable life. Her resilience in building a life after the Holocaust deserves our admiration. Although Kross identifies being inspired by his grandmother, he also notes the very different circumstances of their lives. He links his curiosity about emotions to his effort to make sense of how she tended to distance herself from emotions, except for the designated occasions.
A part of Kross’ motivation in writing the book is to honor his grandmother’s memory, perhaps shading into a desire to call upon her as an ancestor who guides his life. On a deeper level, we might wonder if he is attempting to make amends for the suffering she underwent, wishing to help to dispel the trauma. And how does the intergenerational transmission of trauma affect the ability to manage emotions? What can be inferred, with confidence, is that the book, informed by the grandmother-grandson relationship, implicitly affirms how fundamental relationality is to the effort of managing emotions.
A criticism of Kross’ book would be that his theory of managing emotions does not find a place for our relation to others, despite that his relation to his grandmother is a central theme that runs throughout the book. He errs on the side of affirming the “highly idiosyncratic” nature of emotion regulation. Our use, or even dependence on others, which is often the most powerful way that we manage our emotions, is not thematized. However, Kross does cite relevant “counterintuitive” research findings that might make us wonder whether managing emotions must mean self-managing them. The research study, by Liz Dunn and colleagues, handed out money on a college campus, with individuals assigned to two groups, one “personal spending,” and the other “prosocial” (p.159).[ii] The results were that the prosocial group, who spent their money on others, were made happier in comparison to the personal spending group, flying in the face assumptions that our self-interest outweighs valuing others. This study is not directly about depending upon others for managing emotions, and there are issues about the design of the experiment; however, it is worth noting for underscoring the import of the self-other relationship.
In his book, Kross’ focus understandably is on the aftermath of his grandmother’s trauma, not what was happening as she endured it. As already noted, he believes that while we cannot always control triggers, we can control our responses. Kross gives one example of how an astronaut contends with an outbreak of a fire on board, which is obviously dangerous and life-threatening (pp.93-96). But it is unclear how to interpret this, as astronauts have undergone extensive training to contend with such contingencies. Is it possible to expect this from the average person? The force of Kross’ argument is that while we can ultimately manage our emotions, when they are first aroused, we may not be able to do so. There is glory in succeeding to manage our emotions; but there is no shame in realizing that failing to manage our emotions is a universal experience.
In my second reading of Kross’ book, I felt the weight of his grandmother’s trauma, and how it affected his family, and him. Trauma endures, not just because of the original harm, but because it damages the human ability to be trusting, to rely upon and benefit from others. It is not my intention to claim that Kross’ grandmother was more traumatized than he suggests; I don’t and couldn’t know that. I can only postulate that my response to his book became unsettled by exposure to the recklessness of the current regime—the unpredictability, the cruelty, the ignorance, not to mention the headlong plunge into conflict with everyone, including our allies, and the deepening of an “us against them” mentality that has undermined globalism.
It is so disturbing it is to realize where we are and what has been lost. It is crazy making, if one dwells upon it too baldly, without reminding oneself of the signs that many of us still do not want a king. However tempting it is to use denial is to get through the day, we ought to worry about the long-term effects. And what is the alternative to denial, in such an unstable, rapidly changing world, that would not leave us overwhelmed?
At the moment, we are unmoored, wobbling, and moving perilously, under leadership that seems bound toward destructiveness.[iii] Fitting responses are a slew of tangled emotions—horror as well as fear, rage as well as anger, despair as well as sadness—in doses that might become manageable, but do not feel that way now. So, let us recognize that we need each other even more than usual, and simply conclude that the emotional consequences of authoritarianism demand ongoing attention and inquiry.[iv]
[i] E. Kross (2025). Shift: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don’t Manage You. New York: Crown.
[ii] E. Dunn et al. (2008). “Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness” in Science, 319: 5870: 1687-1688.
[iii] For an excellent interview that deals with Trump’s destructiveness with Bandi Lee by Diana Hembree in MindSiteNews, see: https://mindsitenews.org/2025/04/21/trump-and-dementia/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=31abbea5bd-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_04_24_12_19&utm_source=MindSite+News&utm_term=0_-31abbea5bd-604368488.
[iv] I would like to acknowledge a terrific podcast, The Check-In with Jared Yates Sexton and Danielle Moody, that dwells on the emotional impact of authoritarianism. They reflect on the “gleeful cruelty” that we are witnessing and the need to grieve the destruction of our nation’s ideals, analogized to saying good-bye to a terminally ill patient:
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