Change Triangle

Welcome to our section on the "Change Triangle," a powerful conceptual tool popularized by Hillary Jacobs Hendel in her book, It's Not Always Depression. This tool helps us understand the dynamic interplay between our emotions, defenses, and inhibitions and offers a pathway towards emotional healing and growth.

Understanding the Change Triangle

The Change Triangle is a framework designed to help people to use their emotions to access the authentic parts of ourselves. It distinguishes between core emotions, inhibitory emotions, and defenses, providing a clear model for understanding how we experience and handle our feelings.

Components of the Change Triangle

• Core Emotions: These are our most basic and raw feelings such as joy, sadness, anger, fear, excitement, and sexual excitement. They are the most universal and essential emotions we experience.
• Inhibitory Emotions: These emotions, including guilt, shame, and anxiety, act to inhibit core emotions, often as a way to cope with social expectations or internal conflicts.
• Defenses: These are the psychological strategies we unconsciously use to avoid feeling emotional pain. They include mechanisms like denial, projection, and repression.

The Role of the Change Triangle

The Change Triangle serves as a guide to help us move from a state of disconnection and emotional confusion to one of greater awareness and emotional integration. By identifying the overall change triangle dyanmic and which corner of the triangle we are operating from at a given time, we can begin to make conscious choices about how to respond to our emotions more authentically.

How to Use the Change Triangle

1. Identify: Begin by identifying what you are currently feeling. Are you experiencing a core emotion, or are you feeling something that might be an inhibitory emotion or a defense? You can use the aemote app to track your emotions and gain insights into your emotional patterns.
2. Acknowledge: Accept the presence of these emotions or defenses without judgment. Recognition is the first step towards change.
3. Explore: Look deeper into these feelings. Ask yourself what might be underlying these emotions or why you might be resorting to certain defenses.

Benefits of the Change Triangle

Using the Change Triangle can lead to several benefits, including:

• Improved Emotional Awareness: Better understanding of your emotional landscape and the forces that shape it.
• Enhanced Emotional Regulation: Skills to manage intense emotions in healthier ways.
• Accessing True Authenticity: The ability to connect with your core emotions and express them authentically in your life.

Putting the Change Triangle into Practice

Here are some tips for integrating the Change Triangle into your daily life:

• Regular Reflection: Spend a few minutes each day reflecting on your emotional state and mapping it onto the Change Triangle using the aemote app.
• Therapy: Work with a therapist who is familiar with the Change Triangle and can help you navigate and apply it effectively. AEDP therapists are particularly skilled in this area.
• Educational Resources: Read more about the Change Triangle in Hillary Jacobs Hendel's book or take an online course focused on emotional wellbeing or inspired by the ideas from AEDP. We reccommend Emotions 101 or SOS Emotions.

Conclusion

The Change Triangle is a useful tool for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of their emotional processes and work towards a more integrated and fulfilling emotional life. By becoming familiar with this tool, you can start to unravel the complex web of emotions, defenses, and inhibitions that impact your daily life and relationships.