Ok… lets be clear about something in our psychological world that seems to cause an awful lot of misunderstanding – there’s no such thing as a ‘negative’ emotion.

The language of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ emotion seems to be commonplace in our popular language about mental health. This positive/negative assessment of our emotions is one which is primarily based on perceived desirability. Happiness is highly desirable, therefore we refer to it as ‘positive’. Other emotions though such as fear or sadness are not quite as desirable, and as a result are often labelled as ‘negative’.