I assume that emotion provides information (Clore, 1994) that is essential to understanding what is going on in any interpersonal situation.

When I wrote my OODA article, I was thinking in general of describing the need to evaluate what is going on in a situation. In quick review, OODA stands for: observe; orient; decide; act. Observe is essentially to gather information. Orient is to make sense of information. Decide is to make a choice. Act is to go live with the choice we have made.

The “situations” I deal with in counseling are usually between people. One party is my client, the other party or parties are people my client is having a problem with. But what specifically do I look for in these situations? That is, what do I want my clients to observe?

Many therapists use “emotional review” or fully “experiencing” the emotion as an intervention. A common counseling question is to ask: How did that feel? Being a guy I sometimes wondered how that helped. It felt bad… what else would it feel like? I felt like crap… so what’s new about that? Of course it does help, and I ask the same question with my clients. However, a new dimension was added when I began to think of emotion as information.

With emotion as information, it seems that the shift is toward action. If I like the emotion I am experiencing then I can do more of the same. If I don’t like the emotion I am experiencing then I would be advised to do something different. The emotion tells us that we have made an appraisal of a situation, even if we were not directly aware of the appraisal itself. If I am angry I can ask: What am I angry about? If I am anxious I can begin to ask myself: What am I anxious about? The answers are not always obvious.

Many times we operate on “auto pilot” and jump right to an emotion based on prior experience. We “react”… without observing, orienting and deciding… and may respond in ways that we regret. The react pattern can be broken with the help of emotion as information. Emotion tells us that we have a situation. A conscious review of our appraisal may tell us what the situation is actually about. With the new and “conscious” appraisal we can better orient, decide, and then act. Maybe we will actually accomplish what we intended and build a relationship instead of damaging or neglecting one.

Clore, G. L. (1994). Why emotions are felt. In Ekman, P. & Davidson, R. (eds.) The Nature of Emotion: Fundamental Questions. Oxford University Press: New York