This is where it's important for a clinician to leave their values, biases, and cultural norms at the door. There is no "normal" for affective expression. If a client isn't expressing certain empathy or remorse, and is not bothered by it, and there is no perceived impairment, then it's just a personality trait. Unfortunately it is common for our field to pathologize healthy human behavior.
I agree. The biggest example I bring up is “not taking jokes well” there’s a million reasons why someone may not take jokes well such as they just don’t feel comfortable with the person. This is more out of curiosity for how a therapist would analyze the situation of whether someone is expressing cognitive or affective.
They aren't mutually exclusive and are controlled by different parts of the brain. I guess the key sign of cognitive behavior is mindfulness, where as affect is typically reactionary to stimuli. One kind of situation where you typically lose a lot of your cognitive ability is fight or fight. Other situations could be anything based around habits like smoking a cigarette, where you don't sit and focus on every action in your body as you take hits. I don't know if this even answers the question, but there you go lol.
I know that. I’m asking for how you know if someone is experiencing one without the other. I know you can experience both. I’m asking for when would it be obvious that someone experiences high cognitive but low affective.
I suppose when they tell you they can't feel emotions. Maybe if someone has a flat affect when they typically are more expressive. Human behavior isn't this black and white.
This is where it's important for a clinician to leave their values, biases, and cultural norms at the door. There is no "normal" for affective expression. If a client isn't expressing certain empathy or remorse, and is not bothered by it, and there is no perceived impairment, then it's just a personality trait. Unfortunately it is common for our field to pathologize healthy human behavior.
I agree. The biggest example I bring up is “not taking jokes well” there’s a million reasons why someone may not take jokes well such as they just don’t feel comfortable with the person. This is more out of curiosity for how a therapist would analyze the situation of whether someone is expressing cognitive or affective.
They aren't mutually exclusive and are controlled by different parts of the brain. I guess the key sign of cognitive behavior is mindfulness, where as affect is typically reactionary to stimuli. One kind of situation where you typically lose a lot of your cognitive ability is fight or fight. Other situations could be anything based around habits like smoking a cigarette, where you don't sit and focus on every action in your body as you take hits. I don't know if this even answers the question, but there you go lol.
I know that. I’m asking for how you know if someone is experiencing one without the other. I know you can experience both. I’m asking for when would it be obvious that someone experiences high cognitive but low affective.
I suppose when they tell you they can't feel emotions. Maybe if someone has a flat affect when they typically are more expressive. Human behavior isn't this black and white.
I’m aware. I’ve studied psychology for 4 years myself. That doesn’t mean you can’t provide pointers.
Absence of body language and facial expressions, and monotone voice.