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Somatic education pioneers Moshe Feldenkrais and FM Alexander both subscribed to the idea that human change involves the whole person. It’s not just a matter of attending to this muscle, that bone, or any specific posture or position. The basic lever for change from this perspective appears to be movement, but also thinking, sensing, and feeling (or emotion) are inseparable parts of the equation.

PsyBlog has started a series that offers a different lever: emotion. Emotional Truth: The Search Starts Here serves up a whopper of a question to start things rolling:

Do we really have any control over our emotions or are they things that just happen to us?

The search for an answer starts with a high level overview from the work of philopsher Robert Solomon:

Consider whether it is possible that certain habitual emotional responses that you have are perhaps, just that, habits. And, thinking prosaically, like your shopping habits, they are constrained by certain factors (e.g. your financial resources), but you still have to take control and responsibility for them.

So, rather than a mysterious force welling up from within, Solomon views emotions as choices for which we have to take responsibility. Emotions are, in fact, strategies

Although there is hopefully much more to come in this series, the answer to that first question seems to a a cautious yes, there can be some control. But I think (and feel, sense and act) it’s worth following the series to see where it goes and how it gets there.