I facilitate a course that helps domestic abusers to change their behaviour with the charity Temper DV.
Temper’s group work is designed to produce deep and lasting change, inside a person and outside, in their behaviours and relationships.
David Eggins, Temper’s founder, and Denise Knowles, his co-facilitator for 27 years, have steadily improved the course by testing what works best.
In the video below Denise walks us through the emotions wheel (52 mins) — a simple concept I often use with my one to one clients too
The topics covered are drawn from evidence-based neuro-science and attachment literature. Attendees experience this material via exercises that give them the opportunity to feel emotions and insights as they arise.
There’s some theory along the way. Theory can put people off, so David and Denise have kept it simple and engaging.
They use what they call the ‘emotions wheel’. It’s a way of understanding eight primary human emotions, with trust at the top, occupying the ‘north star’ position, for reasons that become obvious to attendees as they move through the intensive 36-hour course.
The eight emotions are positioned as opposites, representing the range of normal and healthy human experience.
Temper takes a holistic approach to emotions, which means we view anger as healthy and essential. This is contrary to some ‘anger management’ approaches that seek to ring-fence and insulate it.
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Join Temper’s FREE webinar on Saturday 2 December 10am-12pm
Denise and David will introduce:
— the emotions wheel
— emotional regulation
— developing personal insight
and explain why this work is needed more than ever to support children after family separation
Register free here
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We believe lasting change can happen only when the whole of a person’s process and story is understood, felt and witnessed. After family separation, anger may be experienced as the top layer of other emotions like grief, fear and disgust.
It may feel unacceptable to some people — often men — to express certain emotions such as fear and sadness, so these may be masked and anger may become a familiar ‘default position’ during distressing experiences.
All of these ‘unpleasant’ emotions, however, are part of being human and alive, and so we work with the emotions wheel throughout the course.
Having a simple visual cue is a powerful way to help our attendees to recognise all of what they are feeling, and understand more about where it’s coming from.
This is deeper work than simply ‘managing’ emotions, because it opens the way for processing unacknowledged or stuck emotions that may have been hanging around for a long time and playing havoc in the person’s relationships.
