DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN DEEP AND SURFACE EMOTIONS

Twenty-one Differences

If you work in a culture different from the Anglo-American one or if you use a language other than English, you will have to develop your own lists of deep and surface feelings and their social concomitants. Below I present 21 ways to distinguish deep from surface feelings. With a given emotion, many (but not all) of the 21 tests will help you determine whether it is a deep emotion or a surface one.

1. The experience of deep feelings allows a person's world view to evolve and become clearer, deeper and wider. The experience of surface feelings keeps a person's world view the same: murky, shallow and narrow.

2. Deep emotion is always fresh and new. Surface emotion is repetitious.

3. Starting from the time when a given deep feeling first comes into a person's conscious attention, that deep feeling has a definite life-span from a few moments to a few weeks. On the other hand, any surface feeling is "eternal" because it is repeatable.

4. Except for aloneness and joy, one's storehouse of deep emotions is finite or limited. That is, if a person deals with his or her deep emotions properly, they can be exhausted. On the other hand, because surface feelings are repetitious, they are also inexhaustible. For example, some very angry people can vent their rage and fury indefinitely.

5. A person expressing deep emotion seems fluid, shy, tender and vulnerable. A person expressing surface feelings seems solid, blunt, hard and defended.

6. Deep feelings are expressed haltingly. Surface feelings are often expressed smoothly and they may seem rehearsed.

7. Most emotions, surface or deep, are body responses to other people. Deep emotion is one of the best ways to perceive the complex, delicate and hidden nature of events that happen between people. Surface emotion does little more than present and preserve an individual's world view.

8. Tears generally indicate the presence of a deep feeling. But be careful. The tears of deep feeling come in brief waves with "intermissions" between the peaks. If crying is intense, prolonged or steady, it may indicate tears of rage. And rage is a surface feeling.

9. A person has no control over deep feeling and must "let go" in order to experience it. A person has some control over surface feeling and may even "will" it. Many people can "work themselves up" into angry or anxious states.

10. A person who experiences a deep emotion appears genuine and fully present. His or her eyes gently scan other people. A person who experiences a surface emotion appears fake and partially present (entranced). His or her eyes stare at other people.

11. Deep emotion always "moves" other people who are present; deep emotion is inherently "contagious" because it is genuine and sincere. Surface emotion may or may not "move" other people who are present. If it "moves" them, it does so because it is "right" or "just." Robinson (1998, p 277) said this about the surface emotion of anger: "Emotion is off-putting when unshared . . . ."

12. Deep feeling includes participant-observers if they are responding to the deep feeling. Surface feeling excludes participant-observers unless they are reacting to the surface feeling.

13. Deep emotions act like smooth muscle contractions; they come in smooth waves with a gentle rise and fall. Surface emotions come in "square" waves with an abrupt rise and fall. Surface emotions act like striated muscle contractions; they can be abrupt or sustained.

14. Deep emotion functions like the autonomic nervous system. Surface emotion functions like the somatic nervous system.

15. Deep feelings cannot be analyzed away; they must be acknowledged. Surface feelings can be analyzed away unless they cloak a deep feeling. If a surface feeling cloaks a deep feeling and that deep feeling is acknowledged, then the surface feeling often disappears spontaneously because it has lost its job of cloaking that deep feeling.

16. Deep emotion seems spontaneous. Surface emotion seems learned.

17. Deep emotions are culture-independent. For example, loss of a loved one causes grief across all cultures. Surface emotions are culture-dependent. For example, social touching causes Puerto Ricans to feel secure and New Englanders to feel anxious.

18. Deep feelings have no purpose; they are simply "there." Surface feelings often have a purpose and that purpose is frequently obvious as secondary gain.

19. Deep emotion tends to be weak and easy to ignore. Surface emotion tends to be strong and hard to ignore.

20. Therapeutic acknowledgment of a deep emotion tends to dissipate that emotion. Therapeutic acknowledgment of a surface emotion tends to enhance that emotion.

21. Cloaking rituals cover up deep feelings as a whole. That is, cloaking one deep feeling cloaks all of them. ("Take away the pain and you take away the joy.") On the other hand, the cloaking of surface feelings is selective. For example, anger can be cloaked but anxiety and guilt cannot.

	Appendix 3, Surface Feelings
	References & Citations

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