ADHD worksheets for kids
A primary emotions worksheet can be a useful tool for helping clients increase their emotional awareness and overall mental health.
This article provides therapists with a basic emotions chart, an overview of core emotions to use with clients, and a free downloadable primary emotions worksheet to save to your electronic health record (EHR) for repeated use with clients.
How does understanding core emotions help clients?
Whether clients come to therapy to work on their emotions or to solve a problem, the therapeutic process involves gaining increased awareness of how our thoughts and feelings impact our behavior, relationships, and outlook on life.
You may use various strategies to support clients in increasing their emotional awareness, such as a feelings wheel or basic emotion faces with kids or working through a list of emotions with adults.
With a better understanding of their emotions, clients experience greater emotional regulation, stronger coping skills, enhanced self-awareness, and increased confidence and self-esteem.
What are primary emotions?
Emotional theory has been studied for over 50 years, providing insights into the biological and social functions of emotions and informing psychological treatment development.
Emotions enable us to navigate various human experiences, including the pursuit of achievement, the frustration of setbacks, the sorrow of loss, the joy of pleasure, and ultimately, our survival.
While emotional theorists differ on the exact number of emotions, psychologists Paul Ekman and Robert Plutchik proposed the core list of primary emotions that are still widely accepted.
- Ekman's basic emotions include fear, anger, happiness, sadness, disgust, and surprise. He later added embarrassment, excitement, pride, amusement, guilt, relief, satisfaction, and shame.
- Plutchik arranged eight core emotions in a color wheel diagram, including anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust, and joy.
Basic emotions chart
A basic emotion chart, also known as an emotions or feelings wheel, helps individuals identify core emotions and feelings.
The center of the wheel encompasses the primary emotions (sadness, happiness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise), and the outer layers provide more specific feelings to identify.
For example, a client may initially describe feeling sad, but when they look more closely at that group of emotions, they discover they feel grief and abandonment.
Other emotions included in a basic emotions chart are:
- Sadness: While the core emotion is sadness, closer reflection may reveal a detailed sad emotions list including feelings and emotions like grief, hurt, loneliness, vulnerability, despair, guilt, depression, disappointment, isolation, abandonment, powerlessness, shame, emptiness, inferiority, fragility, and embarrassment.
- Happiness: Other feelings and emotions related to happiness may include excitement, gratitude, interest, pride, power, peace, trust, optimism, acceptance, play, aroused, cheeky, prosperous, respected, valued, confident, creative, loving, free, joyful, thankful, intimate, and inspired.
- Anger: Other feelings and emotions related to anger may include feeling let down, humiliated, bitter, mad, aggressive, frustrated, distant, critical, hostile, infuriated, annoyed, betrayed, resentful, provoked, jealous, and indignant.
- Fear: Underneath fear, one may feel scared, anxious, insecure, weak, rejected, threatened, helpless, frightened, inadequate, overwhelmed, worried, nervous, exposed, excluded, worthless, and insignificant.
- Disgust: Feelings related to disgust include disapproval, disappointment, awful, repelled, horrified, detestable, embarrassed, and judgmental.
- Surprise: Other emotions may include feeling startled, confused, amazed, excited, dismayed, disillusioned, awe, eager, energetic, shocked, perplexed, and astonished.
How to use the primary emotions worksheet
Therapists can download and use the primary emotions worksheet in several ways.
Clinicians can use the primary emotions worksheet with younger children using the inner wheel, or they can use an emotion faces chart to help kids identify their feelings and triggers and support them in finding ways to express their feelings.
Additionally, therapists can use the worksheet as an icebreaker activity at the beginning of a session to help clients identify their feelings.
The primary emotions worksheet can also help connect emotions to a discussion around unhelpful thought patterns that may be influencing the client’s feelings and provide an opportunity for cognitive restructuring.
Finally, the basic emotions chart handout can be used as a visual aid or prompt to help clients identify emotions when they struggle, or to help clients journal about their feelings in between sessions.
Sources
- Gu, S., Wang, F., Patel, N. P., Bourgeois, J. A., & Huang, J. H. (2019). A Model for Basic Emotions Using Observations of Behavior in Drosophila.
- Šimić, G., Tkalčić, M., Vukić, V., Mulc, D., Španić, E., et al. (2021). Understanding Emotions: Origins and Roles of the Amygdala.
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