Opposite Action: A DBT Tool For Big Emotions

With every emotion that we feel, there is an urge that tends to be associated with it.

When we're fearful or anxious, we often may want to pull back or hide or avoid.

If we are feeling sad or down, we tend to have the urge to isolate. It's not so easy to just snap your fingers and change that emotion. Right? But then we can think about, is this emotion and the behavior connected to it serving me, do the things I want to do, or is it hurting me? Welcome back to the Parenting Pair Podcast.

I'm Dr. Suzanne Allen.

And I'm Dr. Annalise Caron.

And if you've listened to our podcast or heard us

on Instagram, you've probably heard both of us say a number of times that there are no quick fixes. And it can be really frustrating, or I acknowledge getting very frustrated when I see things online that are like, here's the three ways to solve this problem. Or, you know, five things to do as a parent that will change your life right

now. Fix everything. Yeah. Yeah. That's not a thing No.

To

We are more complicated than that. Our team

is very complicated. And it's a little bit

of a setup. It makes you feel like a failure when you can't just fix your life in five easy steps. Right. With that being said, there are sometimes really simple tools, Not always easy to enact in real life with real people, but simple tools that we can hang on to in tough moments so that we don't have to think about complicated ways and five step plans to solve something we can just hang on to like, wait, here's one thing. And one of those that's my favorite that I talk about all of the time in therapy and I use personally is opposite action.

I agree. This comes up in therapy with my clients every week, every single week.

And it's a skill from dialectical behavior therapy created by Marsha Linehan, so I want to give her credit for this wonderful And skill in naming as I was driving here today, I was thinking about a time in my life when I didn't use opposite action. And I was in a graduate school course. I, in particular, selected this course because the professor was engaged himself in primate research. And it was something I desperately wanted to do, and to be honest, still to this day.

And you loved Jane Goodall, who just passed. I mean, you had access to our Parenting Pair Instagram page, know, lots of dogs show up and lots of Jane Goodall videos show up on our Instagram because you love primates so much and the research. And there's such wonderful research about attachment and

Yes.

And yeah. Parenting. Yes. In action.

And so I particularly selected this class with the goal in mind of I was going to perform really well, and I was going to ask this professor if there was any way that I could be engaged in this research with him. And I took this course, and I sat there for an entire semester, and I worked hard, and I believe I I'll say I got an A. Who knows? That's my story. And I never approached him or asked that question because I felt nervous, afraid, I guess, of what the answer might be, a little bit anxious, like maybe I, you know, wasn't good enough or wasn't ready for it.

Right. And as a result of those emotions, it led me to avoid asking the question or bringing that up. And so I never got

That to do opportunity. That opportunity. It really got in the way not with your wish. You wanted to do the thing, but it's not that your wish was to do it, but your emotions got in the way. And so this tool of opposite action is something that you can call on when your emotions might be getting in the way.

And that doesn't just have to be fear or anxiety.

Mhmm. Mhmm. That's the great thing about opposite action. That's why I love this tool. You can use it with a variety of emotions.

So maybe So let's talk

about the tool. Let's talk about what opposite action is.

Yep. Okay. So with every emotion that we feel, there is an urge that tends to be associated with it. They vary a little bit, but

they're fairly universal. So you just identified one. When we're fearful or anxious, we often may want to pull back or hide or avoid. Mhmm.

Right? If we are feeling sad or down, we tend to

have the urge to isolate and pull away. Right. If we're feeling really guilty about something, right, we might have this strong urge to apologize. Right? Avoid a person or the overly fix the situation.

But there's this urge. Right?

Yep. Mhmm. It's not so easy to just snap your fingers and change that emotion, right? But what we know from the CBT model, which is the connection between how we think, how we feel, and what we do, that we don't necessarily have to attack that emotion and tell ourselves like, oh, don't be afraid or don't feel sad about that. We can acknowledge that that emotion exists, but then we can think about is this emotion and the behavior connected to it serving me?

Is it helping me live the life I want, do the things I want to do, or is it hurting me? And if it's hurting us in some way, then we can try to do action. So an action opposite to what our emotion is telling us.

So in your example, your, you know, maybe a bit of anxiety or, you know, concern about whether the professor would think you were ready inhibited you from doing what you really wanted, what was in line with your values, to potentially do research, you know, on primates. Right? So that was there. What would be the opposite action, right? Like, I think what you're saying is that feeling of fear could be there, but you don't have to act in line with what your feeling tells you.

So if you change your behavior, you're acting opposite to what that you went along with what your fear told you to do.

Yep. I went to class. I sat there quietly. You did really well. Answered questions and was a good student, but didn't send an email, go to his office hours, stay after class one day, and just express interest in it.

Like, oh, I really love this topic. I took this class on purpose. And so that's the lovely thing about opposite action as well is it can look really different. And so sometimes I could have done opposite action all the way and approached him after class or set up a meeting time and told him, this is my dream. How can I get there?

How can you help me with this? Or I could have baby stepped that process and kind of tried to do one thing opposite from what my fear was telling me. And so maybe that would have been sending an email, even just asking if there was anything I should read because I had a particular interest. Right? Taking one step closer to approaching what I really wanted to do, which was to ask him to put me on his team to go to Costa Rica that summer.

Oh, you missed Costa Rica! Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you could, in other words, hold that anxiety and fear and yet do something different.

And that's I think what's confusing for people because oftentimes if you're feeling anxious or fearful, it's appropriate, you know, to check-in, like, am I safe? Right? And so we often just go in line with what our emotions tell us. And that makes sense because our emotions give us information, right? If you go into a dark alley at night and you feel uncomfortable, maybe you should find a friend and not go into that dark alley, right?

And that's giving you information. If that information but that's in line with my values, right? To stay safe at night. But if that information is giving, you know, if the information from your emotions are telling you something that kind of goes against your values or against what you want, which Suzanne is like what you're talking about, it's really about changing your behavior kind of in spite of, you know? Just allowing that fear to direct your behavior.

And you're saying, I'm going to act opposite to what that's saying and take a step, however small or big, like you were explaining, to get me towards my goals. You know? And we've used sort of fear and guilt, which are, you know, internalizing emotions when we've been talking about this. But opposite action also can apply to more externalizing emotions like anger, right, where you might want to lash out or yell or do something, you know, impulsive to get back at someone or something, right? Though that anger may be justified, right?

And you may be upset, it may not be in your interest or go along with your values to act in the way that anger is telling you to act. And that's where opposite action comes in.

In this moment of time in The US, we're kind of in college acceptance season over the next few months. And I've had this come up with a couple of young people who have worked so hard and are so stressed and really just waiting to hear some good news.

Yep.

And have now had a couple of experiences of seeing maybe someone in a class or a friend of theirs who used a lot of chat GPT for their classes or their college essay. Or you know, for whatever reason, when they have seen that they got in to the college that they wanted to go to, have felt a lot of mixed emotions. Anger, jealousy, hurt, sadness. And this is really hard and those emotions make sense. And we can do a lot of validating of like

And it's okay to feel that way. Yeah. Yeah.

And sometimes these are their good friends. And so they are struggling because they know that if they respond like, I can't believe you got in and I didn't, or that's so unfair, that that doesn't serve their value of wanting to be a good friend and caring for their friend. And really genuinely, for a lot of them, wanting the best for their friend, it just hurts them too at the same time. And so thinking about what are some ways that we can validate and hold and give space for that feeling because those make sense and they're understandable,

but

to not allow behaviors that go against and that could hurt their friendships and

go against their values of who they see themselves to be. Not anger take over and direct their behavior in those relationships. Right? So I just wanted to bring that up and you beautifully explained it because what might that look like for anger, right? It might look like taking a little space.

Yeah. Yeah. Right? Because anger is an energizing do something, say Yes. It's hard to inhibit that.

So almost in a protective way, like I want to value this friendship even though I'm feeling angry or frustrated or, you know, upset myself. Taking that space, trying to even just say to yourself kinder or more neutral sorts of things, right, to kind of temper what anger may be telling you to say or do.

And I think for a friend who wants to congratulate, right, a friend or reach out, that sometimes an opposite action of sending a text message, something funny or sweet versus maybe saying it in person, which might be a little bit more opposite action all the way, but maybe they're afraid that their own emotions might get the best

So of it's bringing that awareness. Bringing that awareness to what, you know, is going on internally for you and if you want to act in line with that. And just recognizing that we have an agency to not always do what our emotions are telling us to do. And opposite action is one way to live in line with your values a little more. And hopefully, thereby, you know, get more of what you want and build the relationships you want, maintain them.

Maybe for Suzanne, you know, in a redo of your college experience or graduate

Anybody knows anybody looking for a middle aged woman ready to roll into the jungle somewhere. I'm your gal. So DM us. Help Have a parenting pair. And you know what's interesting, right, it's so hard as parents, and I and I hear this a lot, like, not to bring up the college thing again, but it, you know, when parents are watching their kids, like, maybe not get the grades or something, you know, and they're like, Oh, gosh.

They don't, you know, they're setting themselves up. They're not going to be able. It's very frustrating, very difficult as a parent to watch your young person maybe not doing things that you think might serve them or help them with the dreams that they want, right? I know they really want to go to this school. Or I know that they're hoping to become an actress someday and yet they're never practicing their lives.

Right, right. And you know, listen, we all get there in a different way. And sometimes I say to parents, like put that put that thought on a low shelf. And I know that means you can still see it, right? And it will still bother you.

But sometimes we have to let people figure things out for themselves. And while I did not do that in college, I have since learned a lot about that throughout my adult life. And, you know, I will say in this moment, you know, Anneliese laughs sometimes, if I admire someone, if I like their work, I will cold email and call people.

This woman's on fire. Yeah. She'll just be like, hello. I just want to let you know I loved your book. And she writes these long emails, which is so lovely for you as a human.

But like, she reaches out to people now, like

Yeah. Nothing else. Admire you. Will you and we have a guest coming on in in a couple of weeks. Maybe we'll air in a few months who is someone I'd never met.

I loved her book. I admired her for years. And I I just reached out to her, and then we wound up having a Zoom call and chatting. That's something I could never have imagined my 19 or 20 year old self doing. And it took some learning and some missed opportunities, I think, for me to be able to enact opposite action.

And that's really important, too, for parents to remember. Right? So this is an idea to keep in mind for yourself and how you're living your own life and which we're going to talk about sort of maybe how to share with your children and teenagers. But know that we're not I, myself, Suzanne herself, we don't engage in opposite action all the time. You may really No way.

No. Sometimes you really may not be ready, even though it might be helpful. And there may be those missed opportunities like Suzanne had. But that doesn't mean that it's stuck in stone forever. Right?

And so having this idea over time can help people make smaller steps, you know, that lead to bigger steps. And so it's not that we're encouraging, you know, do this now forever with everything. No. It's like, keep this in mind. Keep this in mind as something that's in your toolkit of ways that you can maybe challenge yourself a little bit or help yourself in a moment where you feel divided, you know, where your anxiety is telling you not to do something but you really feel like you might want to do

that. Mhmm. You know? It's really empowering to think about, right? And even when you don't do it, mean, this is what I talk to teens a lot about.

That idea that our emotions are powerful and actually really helpful and give us a lot of information. And sometimes they're not so helpful. And we can build some agency to be able to think about when they're serving us and when they're not. And if they're not, that we might have some choices. Yeah.

And that just opens a door. Whether or not they can go through that door every time, whether or not I can, question mark. Depends on a lot of things. But it's really empowering to kind of feel like you might have a little bit of agency in your life to make changes even when your emotions aren't kind of driving you towards that or helping you in some ways.

So I think it would be helpful to talk just briefly about how parents can like think about this directly with their kids. Because of course, Suzanne is a psychologist when teenagers are in our office for forty five minutes, and because we're not their parent.

Can talk about all this stuff and

they want to hear it from I know. They will not want to hear it from you. I don't want to say 100%, but

Oh, our kids don't want to hear it from us.

Right. But I think having this in mind, right, when you hear things from your kids, and not saying just do this, but just, you know, joining with them in it. Maybe acknowledging a time that you might have felt whatever they were feeling, where it was anger or not, if that's appropriate. Right? If they can hear that.

Right? But just if your child or your teen is willing, helping them see like, just be curious about it. Do you think like, is that what you really want to do? Or do you think that there might be something else going on, whether that's anger or fear or, you know just getting curious about that to start a discussion and bring up that question like or just point out that sometimes we might not have to listen to exactly how we you know, what our emotions are telling us.

And I think you can do that without minimizing the thing, right? Like, you know, when I have worked with young people who are maybe, you know, afraid of something, whether it's, you know, let's say dogs or bees or something, you know. And I can join with them in, oh my gosh, that must be so frustrating because you love playing soccer. Yet, when you get out on the field, you're kind of nervous on a warm day that there might be some bees out there and that kind of holds you back. Like, that really stinks.

I'm so sorry that happens to you. So you're not minimizing that experience. You're joining with them and like how frustrating that is. And you're also kind of highlighting along the way how frustrating it is because it's kind of stopping them or holding them back Right. In something that they want to do.

And I think sometimes when we jump so quickly to, well, but you love this, so you're going to have to get over that fear and you just have to act opposite and get out on the field, That's going to shut them down when we kind of join with them about how frustrating it is, how hard it is, how it's getting in their way, not our way. Right. Their way. Because it

is getting in their way. And that's really frustrating. And I think as we listen to you, Suzanne, talk about the primate researcher example, I can so relate to that. And our kids, when they won't get out on the soccer field when the bees are on the soccer field, they may feel really upset inside. They're not willfully not wanting to play soccer.

You know, they may really want to play soccer and they may feel really stuck. And for someone not to really validate what a bummer that is and how hard that must be. And that doesn't mean that they're going to get on the field. And it also doesn't mean that if they don't get on the field this week or this season that they'll never get on the field or that they'll never play a sport. And I think that's what we parents need to remember, too.

These are ideas, these are droplets that we can put out in the universe and attitudes we can try to have to really validate where they are even if it makes us nervous. Right? But that change happens over time. Mhmm. Right?

We can't control it. I couldn't have forced you to contact that primate researcher. No. And you still did okay. Mhmm.

You're now acting opposite to that urge. You probably don't even have that urge anymore.

Mhmm. And yet I wish at the same time think if I had shared this with someone and a friend or someone had said, well, why don't you? Or gosh, that really stinks because you've always loved that or dreamed of that. I wonder if you I might have been open to that conversation, particularly if they joined in with how upsetting was. Think about if someone at the time had said to me, well, you just need to.

You have to learn to advocate for yourself.

Right. It's very invalidating. It's like, I'm struggling here. Yeah. I've been trying hard.

You were trying hard. You were raising your hand. You were being a good student. Like, you wanted it. Magically, I

just wanted someone to be like, Wow, she looks like she could be a great primate researcher.

She's going to come to Costa Rica.

Why did no one see that?

Could have You know your passport? Know,

t shirt for goodness sake. I could have communicated something a little bit better. But listen, you know, and here's the thing. The great news is, opposite action, people are engaging in it all the time. This isn't, you know, some wild thing that people have never done.

Most of the time, can think of examples in your own life without ever knowing that this was a skill, that you've done this or your teen or child has done this. And so

And they may do it five times in a row and then they may not do it the next 10. But, you know, so we're not expecting, oh, we'll just go do this. This is opposite action. You just have to act opposite to the emotion. It's just something to highlight, you know?

And your child or teen is struggling with something that, you know, or with big emotions, right? This is just an idea that you can bring up to them and also may be able to notice times. I can think right now, though they're my kids so I won't share them, where both of my children have used opposite action and really benefited from it and then at other times, after that, really struggled and haven't been able to use it or access it, maybe because it wasn't the right time or maybe because it was too hard. But I do know that we can pull from those experiences and gently bring them up if your child's open to it, know, in a future time. I see this as really hard.

I wonder if there's anything in this situation that's like that other time, you know, when you really struggled to, you know, text that friend. I wonder if, you know, you really kind of acted opposite to that emotion. I wonder, is there anything like

that this time? And it doesn't have to be these huge things, you know, where they've gone on the 60 foot water slide or whatever it is. It could be that every day they get up and go to school.

Know? Sure. Which by way is an act of bravery for a lot

of kids.

Just to get out of the house when they're struggling and anxious or overwhelmed or possibly you know, having significant social struggle. That right there can be so much opposite action.

And amazing. If they've ever, you know, tried a bite or two of dinner that they didn't think they were going to like. Even if then they didn't finish it, right? Like, there's a lot of like, approaching something. It can be

small steps, big steps. Approaching something when it's, you know, fear, but also Or something maybe disgusting. It seems disgusting. Or scared. But also maybe pulling back, pausing, you know, working on, you know, having a more neutral thought about something purposely when it's anger.

Right? Just using that Just empowering yourself and your teen to know that your emotions don't have to be in charge all the time when it feels like they can, or they should. So what now, Suzanne?

That's what I was just I was like, oh, should that be our what now? Just all of us thinking about our emotions don't have to be in charge. They give us good information. Right. We want to check-in with them.

But sometimes even just as parents asking for ourselves, right? Is this emotion working for me? Right.

And if it's not, even though it's still there, is there some behavior that I could do to act a little differently that might shift things? Right? Is there a neighbor? This is an example from my own life that I just acted opposite to. But is there a neighbor that you'd like to be friendlier with?

And you don't know how to put maybe you text them. I literally did that this weekend. I've had like a girl crush on a neighbor for like a couple of years. I was like, she seems like a really nice person, but you know, our lives are busy and I'm a little too and she texted me about something else just neighborhood wise And I just sent her a voice memo back. Know.

It was really I was just like That's very personal. And just but just, you know, give her a compliment and said like, I really think that we should, you know, grab lunch sometime. You know, I just and I literally said this. This is gonna make me sound like a lunatic. In my fantasy, I think we're great friends.

But my life is crazy and I never see you. So I just wanted to say that. And here's the issue in the neighborhood and what I think. And so let's get lunch. And she wrote back the nicest text.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. What a nice compliment. I would feel so flattered if

someone But asked me I didn't know how and I don't know what came over me this weekend. Yeah. I think I was sick of it. Listen.

This is where emotions can help. That sometimes when you are just sick of something or get

a little impulsive. That adds opposite to Annalise Karen. And I did. So anyway.

All

right. All right. With that, have a great week.

Yeah. We'll see you next week. Oh, and if any, you know, questions, thoughts, things you'd like us to discuss, send us a message at hellotheparentingpair or DM us on Instagram. And as always, rate and review if you have a moment or send this episode to a friend.

We'd appreciate it. Have a great week. And now a quick word from our lawyers. The Parenting Pair Podcast is designed for informational and educational purposes only. Do not rely on the information presented in this podcast as a substitute or replacement for professional psychological or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

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