Let’s just consider emotions. A really simple model of emotions is that they’re useful bec they provide info and bec they have motivational power. Neurotic emotions are useful when they provide valuable info or motivate valuable actions.
If you’re wondering whether a negative emotion is useful, check whether it’s providing valuable info or motivating useful action. I think internal family systems might be especially useful for this.
Of course, sometimes you can get the valuable info or motivation w/o experiencing a negative emotion (see replacing guilt).
Many negative emotions are hypersensitive, which is why we see the trend towards limiting them. Ie. most often anxiety is not providing useful information or motivating useful action. The hypersensitivity would be justified if the costs of being wrong were super high, but for many of the things we experience anxiety about, this is no longer the case. That being so, I imagine for some people, negative emotions can play a useful role in some contexts, but one needs to be concrete here.
Re Neuroticism.
Let’s just consider emotions. A really simple model of emotions is that they’re useful bec they provide info and bec they have motivational power. Neurotic emotions are useful when they provide valuable info or motivate valuable actions.
If you’re wondering whether a negative emotion is useful, check whether it’s providing valuable info or motivating useful action. I think internal family systems might be especially useful for this.
Of course, sometimes you can get the valuable info or motivation w/o experiencing a negative emotion (see replacing guilt).
Many negative emotions are hypersensitive, which is why we see the trend towards limiting them. Ie. most often anxiety is not providing useful information or motivating useful action. The hypersensitivity would be justified if the costs of being wrong were super high, but for many of the things we experience anxiety about, this is no longer the case. That being so, I imagine for some people, negative emotions can play a useful role in some contexts, but one needs to be concrete here.