Psychology Mythbusting Series #1 - The Myth of the "Teapot Brain"
Chapter 1: Worse Than Useless
For many people there are two approaches to the regulation of strong emotions. I call these: Bottle Brain and Teapot Brain
Bottle Brain is when you can’t handle an emotion so you repress it, pretend it doesn’t exist or otherwise ‘bottle it up.” We will talk about that another time, right now we want to deal with it’s counterpart.
Teapot Brain is when you can’t handle an emotion so you act like a little teapot-short and stout-and let all of it out at once. You might punch a wall, yell at your spouse, slam doors, or engage in otherwise destructive behavior in the name of “venting” and “letting off steam.” It’s a very common and coping strategy as seen in this documentary. Note my intentional use of scare quotes about “venting” as these type of terms are psychologically meaningless and fundamentally misinformative. “Venting” does not, I repeat, does not work.
For example, Therapists used to recommend that aggressive children punch pillows in order to “let it all out.” Have them punch a pillow so they don’t punch a person and all that…Sounds like a good idea, right? Wrong! Turns out that this technique actually increases aggression. That advice was worse than useless. Whoops! On behalf of all therapists, I sincerely say: our bad. Sorry about that.
Neurons that fire together, wire together. Every time you engage in a pattern of behavior, you are making more likely that you will engage in that behavioral pattern in the future. Every time you engage in an aggressive response to a triggering situation, you become more likely to respond with aggression in the future. Every time you shout and scream to “vent emotions,” you will be more likely to shout and scream in the future the next time you need to “vent emotions.
If I can be real for a second, I’m so sick of hearing about this venting stuff. Honestly, some jackass came up with this idea and we haven’t been able to get rid of it ever since.
But wait, you might say! I feel better when I vent! What do you mean venting doesn’t work? IMPOSSIBLE!
Your observation is not entirely wrong.
Pictured Here: Some Jackass
aka Sigmund Freud
We are going to make sense of your experience in Part 2, where we will find out more about what some people call ‘venting.’ In the meantime, for some additional reading on this topic, I recommend “Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion” by Carol Tavris
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