Using the Arousal-Valence Model to Better Your Emotional Intelligence
The Arousal-Valence Model
When it comes to identifying emotions, many neurodivergent individuals often struggle, myself included. When we struggle to identify our emotions, it is harder to self-soothe and regulate them. However, several visual tools are available to help with emotional awareness and identification, such as the Arousal-Valence Matrix. The Arousal-Valence Model of emotions is a visual aid that organizes emotions based on their level of arousal (how calm or agitated you feel) and valence (whether positive or negative). By identifying where you fall on the matrix, you can better understand your emotions and enhance your emotional and bodily awareness.
In addition to being a helpful tool for emotional awareness, the Arousal-Valence Model is my favorite visual aid as it captures both the physical state (nervous system arousal), and emotional identification. By identifying your arousal level and the specific emotion you're feeling, you can develop a more nuanced understanding of how your body and mind are responding to different situations. This helps increase interoception awareness and helps with emotional identification (two things we often struggle with!). The matrix can also help you recognize patterns in your emotional experiences and identify triggers that lead to specific emotional responses. This tool can be beneficial for neurodivergent individuals struggling with interoception or alexithymia. For this reason, the Arousel-Valence Model of emotions is my go-to feelings visual aid option when working with neurodivergent clients.
This model, along with other useful visual aids such as the feelings wheel, feeling list, and feeling gauge, can be particularly beneficial for ADHDers and Autistic people. In this post, we'll explore the Arousal-Valence Model, how to use it, and why it can be a helpful tool for neurodivergent individuals. Before we get into the details of the Arousal-Valence model, let’s first talk more generally about visual aids for helping increase emotional intelligence. We’ll define what visual aids are and their importance for neurodivergent people and emotional labeling.
Visual Aids for Emotional Intelligence
Visual aids can be a powerful tool for improving emotional identification and regulation. For many neurodivergent people, processing and communicating emotions can be a challenge, and traditional verbal descriptions may not be effective. Visual aids offer an alternative way to understand and communicate emotions, making them valuable tools for mental health. By using visual aids, individuals can more easily recognize and identify emotions, making it easier to communicate with others and develop effective coping strategies. Additionally, visual aids are helpful for visual-oriented processes (hint: many ADHDers and Autistic people are highly visual in how we take in and process information). This means many of us are better able to process information through images and other visual means. So when we can apply this to emotions, it means we can increase our emotional vocabulary and awareness, which increases our emotional intelligence.
Visual Aids and Neurodivergence
Neurodivergent individuals can benefit a great deal from visual aids when it comes to identifying and processing emotions. There are several reasons why visual supports can be helpful for neurodivergent people.
For one, we have elevated levels of alexithymia, which can make it challenging to identify and label emotions, so we benefit from extra support in this area.
Additionally, the highly visual ADHD and Autistic brain can benefit from using visual aids to support emotional identification and regulation.
Visual aids can also provide a clear and consistent structure, which can be especially helpful for those who struggle with executive function. By reducing the cognitive load of processing verbal information, visual aids allow individuals to focus more on the task or conversation at hand.
Moreover, visual aids can provide a concrete, tangible representation of abstract concepts, making them easier to understand and remember.
There are many different types of visual aids available, including charts, graphs, images, and diagrams. Using these tools, we can find ways to understand our internal landscape better and increase our emotional awareness, which can lead to an increased ability to self-soothe and regulate our emotions effectively.
Emotional Labeling
Emotional labeling involves identifying and naming the emotions you're experiencing. This can be a helpful tool in regulating emotions and managing stress. When we label our emotions, we bring awareness to what we are feeling, which can help us make sense of our experiences and respond in healthier ways.
Research has shown that labeling emotions can improve emotional regulation, better decision-making, and a greater sense of well-being. The simple act of labeling our emotions (without trying to change them) has been shown to decrease anxiety and increase our tolerance for uncertainty and fear (you can read about the study here). When we label our emotions, we recruit our prefrontal cortex to come help down-regulate the limbic system and so-called “reptilian brain.” This is particularly helpful for ADHDers, who often have reduced connectivity between these brain regions.
This is likely one reason we see increased rates of anxiety among people with alexithymia. Because they cannot label their emotions, they aren’t as easily able to recruit their prefrontal cortex to help out and self-soothe when their fear system gets activated! For people who struggle with emotional regulation or alexithymia, emotional labeling can be particularly helpful in developing effective self-soothing and coping strategies.
What is the Arousal-Valence Model?
The Arousal-Valence Matrix is a visual aid that can help with identifying emotions. This tool plots emotions on a graph with arousal and valence axes. Arousal refers to the intensity of the emotion, while valence refers to whether the emotion is positive or negative.
For example, happiness, excitement, fear, and anger would be plotted high on the arousal axis, while calm or sad emotions would be lower on the arousal axis. Meanwhile, positive emotions like joy or love would be on the right side of the valence axis, while negative emotions like fear or sadness would be on the left.
The matrix has four quadrants: high arousal/high valence (such as excitement or joy), high arousal/low valence (such as anger or fear), low arousal/high valence (such as contentment or relaxation), and low arousal/low valence (such as boredom or sadness).
The arousal-valence matrix is helpful because it helps you identify your emotions and explains what might be causing them. For example, if you're feeling anger, you might look at the high arousal/low valence quadrant and see that other emotions include fear and frustration. This might give you insight into what's causing your anger and help you address it more effectively.
How to Use the Arousal-Valence Model
To use the Arousal-Valence Matrix, simply follow these steps:
✦ First, identify your energy level (high or low)
✦ Next, identify where you are on the pleasant to unpleasant spectrum.
✦ Once you have found the quadrant you’re in, see if you can identify the emotion more specifically (sad, bored, etc.). Keep in mind you may be feeling more than one emotion at once!
✦ After identifying the quadrant and emotion, use this as a guide for what to do next. The matrix can inform you about what you need at any given moment. For example, if you are feeling high arousal and negative valence, you might try deep breathing or other relaxation techniques intended to down-regulate and lower the intensity of the emotion. Alternatively, if you feel low arousal and low valence, you might engage in an activity that will increase your energy and positive mood, such as movement, gentle stretches or listening to upbeat music, or spending time in a special interest.
When it’s used in this way, the Arousal-Valence model can both be a tool to help you better understand your emotions and can also inform you on what you need at any given moment. In that sense, it can help you develop effective strategies for emotional regulation.
Adapting the Arousal-Valence Model for Alexithymia
If you have alexithymia, you may find it challenging to identify specific emotions. You likely have experienced frustration when therapists (or others) have asked you questions such as “how did that make you feel?” When we have alexithymia, we tend to have many more difficulties with emotional identification and regulation.
What is Alexithymia?
If this term is new to you, alexithymia is a broad term used to describe a condition where people struggle to identify and describe their emotions. People with alexithymia find it challenging to put their feelings into words or understand their emotional experiences. They might feel overwhelmed by their emotions or struggle to recognize them, leading to difficulty in expressing themselves and building relationships with others.
Alexithymia is associated with mental health conditions (depression, PTSD) and neurodivergent conditions, such as autism and ADHD (approximately 1 in 10 people have alexithymia, although about half of ADHDers and Autistic people have alexithymia).
While it can be challenging for those of us with alexithymia to understand and communicate our emotions, it's important to remember that there are resources that can help us navigate our emotional experiences. Alexithymia is also something that can be improved with practice!
Arousal-Valence Model and Alexithymia
The Arousal-Valence Matrix is particularly useful for people with alexithymia because it is a broad tool that incorporates body sensations rather than just focusing on emotions. As such, it can help you develop a more holistic understanding of your emotional experience.
However, I like to remind people with alexithymia that identifying emotions is an advanced skill, and it’s best to start with building interoception awareness, or the ability to sense and understand the body's signals, before targeting emotional identification. By developing interoception awareness, you will gain the ability to better identify and describe the physical sensations that accompany different emotional states, which is a crucial first step in emotional identification. This is why I find the arousal-valence matrix a great tool because it is both an interception builder and an emotional identification tool!
To adapt the Arousal-Valence Matrix for alexithymia:
✦ Identify the energy in your body first (low or high energy)
✦ Now see if you can identify if the overall feel is pleasant or unpleasant. Then locate which quadrant you’re in. (If you’re not able to do this step, no problem. Just stick with step one. Do this daily, and over time with enough consistent check-ins, step two will become easier for you)
✦ At this point, don’t worry about identifying the emotion, just focus on identifying the quadrant and place an “X” in the quadrant.
✦ Over time, this can help you build awareness of the general pattern of your moods and body sensations. As you become more comfortable with the matrix, you can start to work on identifying specific emotions within each quadrant.
People with alexithymia can gradually work their way up to identifying specific emotions with regular practice. Remember, emotional identification is a process, and it's important to be patient and kind to yourself as you develop these skills.
Summary
So to summarize, the Arousal-Valence Matrix or model of emotions is a visual aid that can be helpful for everyone. However, it’s particularly beneficial for visually-oriented neurodivergent brains and people with alexithymia. It is a tool that helps both build interoception awareness and helps to build emotional awareness.
By identifying your current level of arousal and valence, you can start to build awareness of your bodily sensations and the connection between those sensations and your emotions. It's important to keep in mind that this process may take time, especially for those with severe alexithymia.
Starting with the matrix as a daily mood check and identifying which quadrant you fall into is a great way to build awareness. With practice, individuals may eventually be able to identify specific emotions. Overall, the matrix is a helpful tool to add to your emotional identification toolkit.
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