Fable

I was working with someone. After speaking a little too long, he interrupted, “Emotional hygiene, what is emotional hygiene.”

“Images of pain,” I said. He wasn’t someone who wanted to hear about Furies. “Part of it is self-regulation. When you have a lot of painful thoughts, your brain is try to make you deal. To clean up.”

“Hygiene is pain?”

“You’re funny!” I said. “Write it down. Don’t think too hard. It can be kind of easy. Everyone thinks coping with pain hard. We avoid hard. With a little practice, it’s pretty routine to tidy up.”

“But I’m a messy guy,” he said. “Can I hire a maid?”

Joseph LeDoux¹ spoke better than I did:

When fear becomes anxiety, desire gives way to greed, or annoyance turns to anger, anger to hatred, friendship to envy, love to obsession, or pleasure to addiction, our emotions start working against us. Mental health is maintained by emotional hygiene, and mental problems to a large extent, reflect a breakdown of emotional order. Emotions can have both useful and pathological consequences.