The core-affect or valance-arousal model: understanding and processing feelings and emotions
The valence-arousal model or the core affect model: how we can take a simple view of our current experience
“What do you feel in your body” can seem like a fairly simple question but many of us really struggle to answer it. Many people who come to counselling or therapy have learned to disconnect from their bodily experience as a survival mechanism. Many neurodivergent people in particular struggle with interoceptive awareness or awareness of our inner experience. On the other side of the coin some of us struggle with being overwhelmed by the feelings or sensations without being able to make sense of them. You might even experience both of these things.
As a therapist who’s neurodivergent I’ve done a lot of work on my own journey to be more in touch with what’s happening internally. As someone who used to live very much in my head, rather than my body, it’s taken a lot of unlearning to get to a point where I can (mostly!) sit with what ever I’m feeling or experiencing and have tools and approaches to soothe my nervous system if needed.
The feelings wheel as an alternative to the valance arousal model of understanding feelings
In the past, when working with clients who struggle to connect with their feelings, I’ve used the feelings wheel pictured below as a reference. While this can be a useful tool, when I think about it from my own perspective I realise that it doesn’t always help me to connect with what’s going on internally because I can’t always neatly categorise my feelings in the way the wheel does.
Balancing cognitive awareness with connection to our bodily experience
Why does this matter? As I’ve shared before, I believe that a cognitive understanding of our experience can only take us so far. Many of my counselling and therapy clients have an amazing level of cognitive awareness of their experience. What they often struggle with is connecting to and processing how that experience shows up in their bodies. When we struggle to connect with our bodily experience, it can be much harder to self-soothe and to respond in a way that supports us to return to a more regulated state. It’s also important to remember that thoughts are not feelings and feelings are not thoughts.
The core-affect model, also known as the arousal-valance model, can be a great tool to explore and understand our emotions based on our level of arousal/energy and whether the feeling is pleasant or unpleasant. Unlike the feelings wheel this model allows us to understand our experience from the perspective of our nervous systems (level of arousal) and emotions (how pleasant or unpleasant it feels).
This might feel difficult or unfamiliar at first but with practice over time it’s absolutely possible to increase our interoceptive awareness or internal awareness. Regularly checking in with our current state and where we fall on the arousel-valence matrix can also support us to identify the patterns and triggers that contribute to our nervous system and emotional states.
Befriending our nervous system states and our emotional states
Before I talk more about the core-affect model, I want to say a bit more about why being able to identify our emotional and nervous system states is important.
When we are in a state of dysregulation our ‘prefrontal cortex’ or the thinking part of the brain switches off, leaving our ‘amygdala’ also known as the "lizard brain" in charge. The amygdala is great at driving action in response to danger but it doesn’t always know when the danger is real or not. There’s some more detailed information about our nervous system states here.
Even the simple act of connecting with and actively identifying our experience can decrease the anxiety we’re feeling in response to it. You can check out some research around this here. I often come back to the cliched but true statement that ‘what we resist persists’ and, research aside, I have watched client after client sit in my therapy room and express their astonishment when allowing themselves to feel the feelings they usually push away doesn’t feel nearly as overwhelming as they thought it would.
Starting simply - using the valance-arousal model to connect with your internal state
When I work with the valance arousal model with clients I like to invite them to drop all labelling of feelings/emotions to begin with. This can be really tricky for those of us who intellectualise our experience by trying to understand it through thinking, but it can be really empowering to simplify our understanding of our current state and then think about what might need attending to.
I’ll give an example of this below but, firstly, let’s check out the model and how you might work with it:
Checking in with our arousal-valance state
As you can see, the arousal-valence matrix is a simple chat with two axis. Arousal refers to the intensity of the experience, so whether you are in a high or low energy state, while valence refers to whether the experience is positive or negative.
Now that you know this, maybe you’d like to take a moment to check in with your state?
My current state is somewhere in the middle of the high arousal axis and at the lower end of feeling pleasant. I can observe that some of the things that have contributed to these states are the fact that I didn’t sleep that well last night and the fact that I am hyper-focussing on writing this blog post in the hour I have before I see my first client today.
If I ask myself what might need attending to, I could do some breathing to ground my energy before I see my first client and I might also move my body with a gentle walk outside to increase my serotonin levels. I’ll share a post soon about the role of hormones in our mental health and wellbeing.
Other examples of how you might respond to different states include:
High arousal + unpleasant: you could try some deep breathing with a focus on a slower out breath, or gentle somatic movement to soothe your system
Low arousal + unpleasant: bring some energy back into the body by shaking the body, dancing to an upbeat song or doing something you find enjoyable
If you find yourself in a low arousal + pleasant state or a high arousal + pleasant state, you might choose not to respond to them, however if the state doesn’t align with the energy you need to access in the moment you might choose to respond using the same techniques I’ve talked about above.
In summary, the valence arousal or the core process model can be a really useful tool to begin to be more connected to your bodily experience and to develop your interoceptive awereness. You could use it as a daily check in or at several points in the day to start to notice what’s happening for you and how you might respond to it.
If you’d like to explore your experience with the support of me, Laura, a counsellor, therapist and somatic practitioner, you might want to check out my counselling page and my nature therapy page.
