1: First session: identifying emotions

In the first session, I say what the group will be about. Each week, we will pick parts in a short dialogue from Romeo and Juliet and read them as though we were the characters in the play. Then we will discuss what we just read in terms of a handout I will give them, applying the principles of dialectical behavioral therapy. The objective, besides having fun, is to help us see how the play can describes typical situations that we are all in and also how it can give us lessons for helping us to manage strong emotions. The ultimate objective is to have control over our own lives when we're in the grip of strong emotions.

For this session, group members look at pictures on the TV, from a DVD, of people in various emotions. (When I did this group earlier, I had them watch the first scene in the movie 'The Lion King.' However people tended to get too much into the movie. Doing it again, I would probably just show slides. And give them a list of emotion-words.)

First, here are some cartoon-faces with emotions.


Second, some pictures from Shakespeare's time. What emotions do you think the people are feeling? Here the choices are between happy and outgoing, sad and withdrawn, angry and aggressive, or peaceful and receptive.



During Shakespeare's time, these four emotions were considered basic, they were called the "four temperaments." They were also considered two pairs of opposite emotions: sad vs. happy, and angry vs. peaceful.

In dialectical behavioral therapy, seeing emotions in terms of opposites is called "dialectical thinking," from a Greek words "dia" meaning "two" and "lect" meaning "speak." Where this concept comes in handy is when you want to reduce a strong emotion: according to DBT, one way is by promoting the opposite emotion. We'll see how that's done in the play.