The Quest to Feel Good

This volume describes how emotions, rather than being the result of random or disordered biochemical processes, are adaptive mechanisms that are often over relied upon as a function of basic learning processes. The contemporary view that if one is depressed or anxious (for example), then one is chemically imbalanced pervades the United States and advanced societies. This has led many people to believe that life should be lived without any unhappiness or distress and that any negative emotion is a sign of a disordered physiology; neither of which is true. This book addresses the role of emotions as adaptive components, in combination with cognitive and behavioral processes, to our overall orchestration of life.

The objective is to help the professional reader understand that negative emotions serve a critical adaptive purpose that functions in relation to our ultimate desire for a felt positive state. To this end, the therapist is directed to use a client's negative affect as a means of guiding critical therapeutic conclusions and decisions. The emphasis of the book is an integration of the basic premises of Adlerian psychology with the evolutionary-imperative model presented by Theodore Millon (1990, 1999). This integration is used to explain the primacy of emotions in the manifestation of most clinical conditions. It is argued that this is a critical integration and focus that makes the volume important, necessary and unique to mental health professionals. Case examples and illustrations are offered throughout the text.