Emotional First Aid

The emotional vocabulary most adults have was given to them in childhood, and it tends to be limited and evaluative — some feelings are "good," others are "bad," and the goal is to have more of the first and fewer of the second. This framework is not only inaccurate; it actively prevents the kind of emotional processing that leads to genuine wellbeing. Emotional First Aid offers a completely different approach: emotions as information, and emotional skill as the capacity to receive that information accurately.

The book is organised around eight core emotional experiences most commonly dysregulating for people navigating major change: grief and sadness, fear and anxiety, anger and resentment, shame and guilt, loneliness and disconnection, helplessness and hopelessness, confusion and overwhelm, and the numb flatness that often follows sustained intense emotion. For each, the book explains the adaptive function, the dysfunctional patterns that develop when it is suppressed, and a set of practices for moving through it skillfully.

The practices draw from emotion-focused therapy, dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and somatic approaches. They include emotion naming and validation, urge-surfing, emotional tracking, and values-based action in the presence of difficult emotions — all explained in plain language with concrete examples.

A final section addresses the emotional complexity specific to major life transitions: mixed emotions (grief and relief simultaneously), guilt about positive feelings, and the exhaustion of sustained emotional labour. Emotional First Aid is the emotional intelligence handbook for the journey of change.