All feelings are valid, but not all behaviours?

[Polyestered]

Hopefully others will have heard this phrase before, often with parenting advice or in therapy. My therapist often says this, and I disagree with her.

Essentially, I have interpreted it as it’s ok to feel whatever you feel, but you have to control your reaction to it.

eg child is allowed to be sad she can’t have an ice cream, not allowed to throw a tantrum about it.

however, I don’t agree with this in principle AT ALL. Some feelings are absolutely not valid! And we shouldn’t be teaching children that it’s appropriate to have any kind of feelings they want - we should be teaching them that NOT all feelings are valid and how to recognise which ones are and aren’t. Otherwise how do you recognise that your feeings or opinions may be wrong?

for example, a partner might feel jealous of their spouse and say they can’t speak to other women. No the behaviour is obviously not ok, but (in a normal healthy relationship with no context) feeling that jealous is also not ok!

or someone might have the feeling to hurt someone for no reason. Men might have the feeling or desire of wanting to rape someone. We wouldn’t say “that’s ok to feel like that because you haven’t done it”

If opinions are somewhat based on feelings, and some opinions are blatantly wrong (eg misogyny, racism) how can we say every feeing is valid?

But you feel whatever you feel, regardless of whether it’s ‘wrong’.

If I have prejudiced thoughts, or imagine myself being violent towards someone else, suppressing them because they’re ‘wrong’ isn’t going to do anything to change my mindset. If I take them seriously, examine them and try to understand what’s causing them and what benefit they’re bringing me, then there’s the possibility of change.

Either way, acting on these thoughts are wrong, obviously.

I think you're wrong and the therapist is right. I'd imagine that trying to force someone to suppress the feelings they didn't even choose to have, would cause all sorts of mental health issues.

I think it would be very bad for everyone's mental health if we were told that it's wrong to have the feelings we do.

Only our reactions to them can be within our control.

Oh, yes, I've got very similar thoughts to @SpaceRaccoon

I agree. Take "I don't like him because he's black". Is that supposed to be a valid feeling? I don't think so.

Jealously/anger etc are normal human emotions it’s how you react to that emotion. We have to control our emotions it’s when they control us (and people act out on them, using your example of saying you can’t speak to other men etc) is when it’s a problem, but feeling them is fine, and normal.

That’s not an emotion/feeling that’s a bias/ prejudice

Your therapist is right. You don't control your thoughts - it's how you act on them (or not) that shapes your personality.
Please don't tell people like my DD that her intrusive thoughts are somehow her fault and she shouldn't have them.
Valid doesn't in this context means all thoughts are correct or worthy - but shaming someone for random thoughts would be harmful.

Okay, Big Brother.

How is dislike not an emotion?

I think your mixing up emotions (feelings) with urges / desires / wants. They aren't the same thing.

You can't FEEL to hurt someone. That's an urge or a desire for an action not an emotive feeling.

A feeling can be valid... as in you FEEL how you FEEL. But it can still be wrong / immoral. But it is still a valid feeling because it is how you feel.

So yes, all feelings are valid. Not all urges, wants, desires are valid. And not all feelings are right or moral.

But the ability to judge that a feeling is immoral and therefore not act on it, is a skill.

But what do you mean by valid? You seem to be interpreting it as meaning that the feelings are in some sense justifiable. But that isn't the usual interpretation. What it generally means is that it is ok to acknowledge that these feelings are real and powerful , to explore them without shame, and to realise that we all have feelings that are capable of driving us towards unacceptable ways of behaving.

Naturally we need to unpick and resolve certain feelings, for example to understand when they are just echoes of an earlier difficult situation or event. Therapy doesn't aim to hold them in concrete; it's just that in order to begin to approach them you need to have the confidence to recognise them -- which means that you and the therapist need to begin by saying that we all have difficult feelings and your primary responsibility to others lies in managing your behaviour towards them.

Even Jesus was supposed to have been tempted to follow the devil when in the desert.

Feelings are personal and not everybody vocalises them, I know I often don’t. The minute you start trying to control and shame people for how they feel internally is the moment we might as well let the robots take over!! We are human, and with that comes a vast array of feelings.

Do you think that it’s the term ‘valid’ that you disagree with rather than the whole sentiment?

Feeling hatred towards someone is not necessarily ‘valid’ - as in I don’t think it should be celebrated or encouraged.

However our feelings are often fleeting, complex and sometimes reactionary - they’re often not rational.

Maybe they were just trying to say that whatever feelings come up, to accept that for whatever reason you feel this way, but they don’t have to dictate how you then behave.

Have you ever seen a more obvious AI OP?

The problem is with the word 'valid', which indicates correctness and has positive connotations. Maybe the word 'natural' would be better?

E.g. having a racist thought. It's something that may naturally happen. It's not an inherently positive (or imo 'valid') thing. It may just happen, but there's no need to hate yourself for it, especially if you use that as a prompt to act in what may be an objectively 'valid' way by eg learning about people from other cultures, thereby increasing the potential for positive interactions.

It may be a good idea to discuss this phrase with your therapist and clarify her understanding of the word before deciding if you can be in agreement or not. She might be good at therapy but not the English language... Maybe the word means something different in therapy terms...?

Everyone is jumping to suppressing feelings, OP said nothing about that, just reflecting and reframing why you might be feeling that way.

In my family, a lot of big feelings about things is actually hunger, so I do agree with OP.

All feelings are valid. If it's not impacting anyone else why does it matter? If it's impacting the individual they need to look at the thoughts that are causing the feeling and rationalise it.
So your jealousy example, I sometimes feel jealous. I don't let it impact my behaviour, I acknowledge the feeling, think about why I feel that way and rationalise so it doesn't consume me.
Sad about not having an ice cream, it's fine to be sad, acknowledge I'm sad because I wanted one, they taste nice, but I can't always have what I want or my health would suffer. Feeling is valid, it's acknowledged and the thought leading to the feeling is recognised and managed so I can move on.
Trying to tell someone how they should feel is really unhealthy.

That’s what she’s implying. How else would you deal internally with a feeling that is ‘invalid’ or ‘wrong’?

Your therapist is right, you are wrong. For example Jealousy is a normal and valid emotion, most people have felt jealous about something at some point in their lives, probably at more than just one point in their lives about a whole range of things. However it is never okay to (or attempt to) control or punish another person and that's where it is on the person who feels the feeling to have that self awareness to ensure they are not doing that. But that doesn't make someone wrong for having a negative emotion.

Dislike is a feeling though isn’t it? Would you say disliking dogs or potatoes is a prejudice or a feeling? I’m not prejudiced against carrots, I just don’t like them.

I hate the phrase "your feelings are valid" and this post nails why. I see it used as a form of reassurance so often - telling someone it's perfectly OK to think ugly, mean thoughts.

There are some thoughts that might be "natural", whatever that means, but we shouldn't accept them in ourselves nor seek reassurance about them. If a good-looking woman walks into the room and my first instinct is jealousy or my hackles going up, that's not a valid feeling on my part. It's not based on anything other than prejudice. It's my issue to sort out.

I disagree - feelings come up all the time, they are not inherently an indictment on our character. It is incumbent upon us to reflect upon and challenge our feelings when they see inappropriate or out of proportion. This is self-regulation at its core.

I might feel irrationally jealous of my husband having lunch with a work colleague. I can feel that, but the onus is on me to realise it’s not reasonable and not act upon it. In time, changes in behaviour change your thought patterns, such is the principle of CBT

OP, your therapist is right.

All.emotions are normal and just part of being human. Emotions are largely beyond our control. How we respond to those emotions (our behaviours) is entirely within our control.

for example, a partner might feel jealous of their spouse and say they can’t speak to other women. No the behaviour is obviously not ok, but (in a normal healthy relationship with no context) feeling that jealous is also not ok!

It is perfectly normal to feel pangs of jealousy in a relationship. Not everyone will and other people will read the emotion differently but its not 'wrong' to feel jealous - that just means someone fears losing someone very important to them. Expecting to be able to restrict someone else's personal freedom (eg forbidding them from talking to someone they might be attracted to) is wrong. That's the behaviour.

In that case, the responsibility is on the person feeling jealous to manage or self regulate their own feelings.

Some people feel extreme emotions that others might consider to be disproportionate to the stimulus and therefore unhelpful or unhealthy for the person feeling them. In this case, the responsibility still lies on the eg jealous person to seek support for that and self regulate.

Often extreme feelings are a result of disordered thinking patterns. Sticking with jealousy, their thoughts might be - I'm not good enough to be loved or I couldn't cope if they left me or all men/women cheat or they aren't trustworthy.

The response to this would be developing the individual's self esteem or building up a support network, developing confidence in themselves and resilience or unpicking where that belief comes from or ending the relationship.

You have also mixed up thoughts, feelings and opinions which are linked but not the same.

Addressing disordered thinking rather than telling people their feelings are wrong is actually more effective.