Social Roles and Emotions

This paper is a discussion of the ways in which the expectations that accompany the performance of social roles affect an individual's ability to experience and express emotions freely. Psychiatrist David Viscott, in his book, Emotionally Free: Letting Go of the Past to Live in the Moment, argues that personality types follow one of three patterns and that emotional freedom consists of understanding the traps that each presents and learning to move beyond these limitations. Unfortunately, the particular demands that society places on individuals fulfilling specific roles within the social structure sometimes makes achieving emotional freedom an especially difficult task. This paper looks at two such roles, the elementary school teacher and the actor, and examines the ways in which social norms both promote and discourage the kind of emotional freedom Viscott describes for people fulfilling these roles.

David Viscott (1992) contends that "emotional freedom is the natural feeling state of the evolved mature person" (p. 1) and that achieving this state requires the individual to understand which of three basic personality types he or she embodies and to resolve the conflicts, distortions, and patterns that particular personality is likely to be burdened with. The three types are similar to the phases of development through which many psychologists argue that the individual must pass in the course of normal development.

Viscott's personality types embody three of the m

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to be extremely empathetic, sensitive to the needs of others, and able to provide a caring, supportive environment. Such an individual could make an excellent elementary school teacher, as he or she would be especially receptive to the needs of young children and open to helping them through the difficulties of the early academic experience, as well as the traumas that often accompany the first years of school. While the role of the teacher makes use of the best aspects of the dependent personality, it also encourages some of the worst. Societal norms expect the teacher to be endlessly giving, endlessly selfless, and endlessly patient. However, to achieve emotional freedom, the dependent individual must learn to embrace his or her own needs along with the needs of others. Society often discourages teachers, especially the teachers of very young children, from worrying about their own needs. The dependent individual who becomes a teacher may find achieving emotional freedom to be a very difficult task, as norms often send the message that selflessness is admirable and desirable. Yet the teacher who sublimates his or her personal needs in the work can often end up emotionally stunted and, ultimately, unable to continue to d

Category: Psychology - S