Most of us can think of someone in our

lives who despite being a good person

leaves a trail of interpersonal drama

and broken relationships. I know that

I've had people in my life like that and

I've really thought about what's going

on. Why despite being a good person do

they cause so much damage in their

relationships? I believe [music] that

I've observed a pattern that helps

explain what's going on for many of

these people. I call these emotionally

reactive traits. The ideas I'm going to

tell you about today are actually from

one of the most popular essays I've ever

written. And I still get comments from

people saying that this helped them

understand themselves better or have

better relationships with someone in

their life. One person wrote me and

said, "I ended up recognizing myself in

this concept. I couldn't see fully what

I was doing that was destroying my

relationship with my partner until I saw

your systematic and analytical

presentation of the emotionally reactive

concept." Another person commented and

said, "Thank you for this article. I

believe I do live with an emotionally

reactive person who's activated under

stressful conditions. Emotionally

reactive traits consist of two aspects

and I'm going to try to be really

precise with what exactly I mean by each

of these because they could be easily

confused for other things. Aspect one is

having intense negative emotional

reactions to innocuous situations. Now,

of course, people can differ about what

they consider an innocuous situation,

but I'm talking about situations where

neutral third party observers who are

aware of all the facts would say that

the emotional reaction was very

excessive in that situation. Of course,

everyone sometimes is going to have an

excessive emotional reaction in

innocuous situations. That's just part

of being human. What I'm talking about

here is a systematic pattern of doing so

to a very excessive degree. Aspect two

is emotional reasoning together with

blame. Emotional reasoning is when we

have a negative emotion and we assume

that that negative emotion reflects

objective reality and that it doesn't

say anything about ourselves. If you're

sad, then it means you must have truly

lost something. If you're angry, then

someone must have truly done something

harmful to you. Coupling emotional

reasoning with blame means blaming other

people for that reality that we

perceive. Now, let's work our way

through an example, and you'll also see

how delicate and tricky a subject this

can be. Suppose that you have a friend

Bob, and your friend Bob makes a joke.

That joke you find deeply offensive. It

makes you extremely angry and then you

say, "Because I'm so angry, Bob must

have done something really wrong here,

and you blame Bob for the situation."

Now, this could be indicative of

emotionally reactive traits that you

yourself have. Or it might not be. It

depends on Bob's joke. Imagine that a

large number of independent third

parties who have no axe to grind and

know all the facts and details of the

situation would agree that Bob's joke

was appropriate and not at all

offensive. Furthermore, suppose that you

misheard Bob and when Bob tried to point

out that you misheard it, you denied Bob

and said, "No, I heard it properly."

Well, in that case, we would say this is

emotionally reactive traits. You're

clearly having an excessive reaction.

you're engaging in emotional reasoning,

assuming that because you're really

angry and offended that Bob must have

done something really wrong and then

you're blaming Bob for it. On the other

hand, suppose it's a situation where Bob

made an actually really deeply

offensive, bigoted joke. In that case,

your offense and anger might be totally

warranted and appropriate. You may not

be engaging in emotional reasoning. You

may simply be reasoning about the actual

facts and your blame for Bob may be

totally appropriate. So, we have to be

very careful and nuanced here when we're

talking about emotionally reactive

traits because it really does hinge on

what the situation is and how innocuous

it was. Why do I think that this idea of

emotionally reactive traits is an

important concept? Well, first of all,

because I think it helps explain a

mystery that many people experience. Why

good people in their life seem to cause

so much damage emotionally. Second, I

think it helps us understand why some

people have this history of damaging

relationships with many different

people. Third, because I think

understanding this idea of emotionally

reactive traits can help us when we have

someone like this in our life. So, what

are some other situations where

emotionally reactive traits might be at

play? One case is where someone has a

very severe history of trauma. Let's

consider the case of a hypothetical

person named Alice. Alice had an

extremely abusive ex-boyfriend who took

advantage of her and controlled her

severely. Because of this, she's very

sensitive to any behavior that seems

controlling. Her new boyfriend, Bob, is

thankfully kind and good and does not

want to control her. However, the other

day, Alice made fun of Bob in front of

his friends, and it left him feeling

deeply hurt. Bob brings this up to her

calmly and says, "Look, I know you

didn't mean it, but it really hurt my

feelings when you made fun of me in

front of my friends." Alice has an

extremely negative emotional reaction to

this because of her deeply traumatizing

experiences with her abusive

ex-boyfriend who tried to control her.

Alice then engages in emotional

reasoning, assuming that her intense

negative reactions mean that Bob has

done something truly wrong, and she

blames him, saying that he's trying to

control her and manipulate her. This is

an example of emotionally reactive

traits. Emotionally reactive traits are

not gendered. Can happen to anyone. So

let's now use an example of emotionally

reactive traits in a man. Suppose that

Colin has a very fragile ego. He's very

sensitive to rejection and whenever he

feels rejected, he gets extremely angry

and upset. Colin asked his friend Diane

to do a small favor for him yesterday.

Diane agreed to do it, but was busy all

day, so hasn't gotten around to it yet.

Colin realizes that Diane hasn't yet

done the favor and assumes this means

she was lying to him and that she

secretly despises him. Colin gets

extremely angry, calls Diane, lambasting

her, telling her she's a horrible person

and to never talk to him again. In this

case, Colin was showing emotionally

reactive traits. He took an innocuous

situation of his friend not yet having

time to do the favor she was planning to

do. He blew it out of proportion. He

assumed that his emotions reflected the

actual reality of the situation and he

blamed it on her. Let's consider a third

case. Edgar was raised in a culture

where men are taught to be chivalous

towards women. That means paying for

their meals, opening doors for them,

picking up heavy objects for them, and

so on. Fiona, Edgar's friend, however,

believes that chivalry is deeply toxic.

When Edgar and Fiona hang out, Edgar

naturally engages in chivalous

behaviors. These make Fiona very mad,

but she doesn't say anything. And in

fact, she hides the emotion so that

Edgar's not aware that she's angry about

it. Then one day when Edgar goes to pick

up her bag without asking her, Fiona

gets extremely angry and calls him a

misogynist. She ends their friendship

and tells their mutual friends they

shouldn't spend time with Edgar anymore

because he's a terrible person. This is

yet another example of emotionally

reactive traits. Now, there's nothing

wrong per se with thinking chivalry is

bad or even feeling annoyed when someone

tries to pick up your bag. It's the

whole pattern of behavior here that

reflects emotional reactive traits.

having an intense negative reaction to

an innocuous situation, engaging in

emotional reasoning, and then slowly

putting the blame on another person. So,

what causes emotional reactive traits? I

think there can actually be a lot of

causes. One of them we've talked about

already, which is trauma. If you've had

severe trauma of a particular type, it's

very likely that situations that

resemble that situation may make you

feel upset. And that is not in and of

itself emotionally reactive traits. For

example, maybe your partner does

something that reminds you of a

traumatic situation and that makes you

feel upset. Well, that's not yet

engaging in emotionally reactive traits.

If you feel bad in a situation because

of trauma in your past and then you say,

you know what, these kinds of situations

make me feel really bad. Would you mind

behaving differently in the future?

Well, that's not being emotionally

reactive. Or if you feel really upset in

a situation because it reminds you of a

past trauma, but then later you say, you

know what, I realize that my reaction

was due to my past trauma and the other

person isn't to blame for it. That's

also not emotionally reactive. It only

becomes emotionally reactive if you then

not only have a negative reaction in an

innocuous situation, but you engage in

emotional reasoning and put the blame

fully on the other person. But for some

people, emotionally reactive traits

could be caused by something completely

different. For example, suppose someone

has difficulty reading social cues and

they also tend to distrust people

because of their past experiences. They

might read negatively into very benign

social signals, assuming that they're a

sign that someone's manipulating them or

trying to harm them. that can lead to

emotionally reactive traits. A third

distinct cause of emotionally reactive

traits can be beliefs that people hold

about the world. Suppose, for instance,

that someone believes that anyone who

identifies as a feminist is a man-hater

who wants to take men down. This could

cause them to totally misinterpret the

behavior of people who identify as

feminists, assume negative intent,

become very upset, and blame it on the

other person, even though it all stems

from their own strange belief about the

world. Hence, emotionally reactive

traits can come about from weird beliefs

we have about the world. So, how can you

tell if someone in your life has

emotionally reactive traits? Well, the

way it looks from the outside is that

they get extremely upset about things

that are very innocuous. They then

assume that their emotions reflect an

objective fact about the world and then

they blame it all on you or in other

people. Their emotional reasoning may be

so strong that they actually warp

reality. They'll assume, for example,

that they're so angry that you must have

said something truly deeply harmful, and

they'll actually distort the words that

you said to make them more harmful than

they really were. People with

emotionally reactive traits typically

have a long history of drama and failed

relationships. Whenever two people have

conflict, they usually have trouble

seeing the other person's side as well

as they see their own side. That means

that if you have conflict with another

person and you assume that they're fully

to blame, that they're having a negative

reaction to an innocuous situation, it

could be that you're actually in the

wrong and the situation is not

innocuous. You're just struggling to see

their point of view. So, I would

strongly encourage you in these

situations to bring the information to

one or more neutral third parties. Give

them the full set of unbiased facts and

explain to them that you're struggling

to see the perspective of the other

person. ask if they can help you do it

and to see if they can help you see any

reason why the situation may actually

not be innocuous or why this person's

reaction may not be an overreaction to

the situation. It's very easy to

demonize or dismiss people with

emotionally reactive traits. But I think

that's a huge mistake and to understand

why it helps to think about what it

feels like when you have emotionally

reactive traits. It feels like you have

these situations where again and again

people do things unexpectedly that are

extremely upsetting and harmful. When

you call them out on it, they then blame

you or gaslight you, telling you you're

totally wrong and misperceiving the

situation. And this happens to you

frequently, meaning that you end up with

all of these upsetting experiences,

fractured relationships, and broken

friendships. Now, of course, there's no

guarantee that someone with these traits

is fundamentally a good person. But the

reason that I say that someone could be

a really good person and still have

emotionally reactive traits is that

these traits are not fundamentally about

being evil or sadistic or narcissistic

or anything like that. They're about

misperceiving situations, having intense

negative emotional reactions, engaging

emotional reasoning, and blaming them on

other people. So, it's not about being a

bad person. It's just a pattern that can

be very harmful and can cause damage to

a lot of people. I also want to address

something that may be on some people's

minds. When I talk about emotionally

reactive traits, they may think of

borderline personality disorder.

Borderline personality disorder is

characterized by intense emotionality as

well as deep focused attachment to a

single person where that person becomes

the most important thing in the world to

you. Now, while I do think that people

with borderline personality disorder

tend to be more likely to have

emotionally reactive traits, I want to

point out that there are people with

borderline personality disorder that

don't have these characteristics and

that many people with emotionally

reactive traits don't have borderline

personality disorder. So, at best, we

can think of these as things that are

correlated, but they're definitely not

the same thing. So, what should you do

if there's someone in your life who you

know has emotionally reactive traits?

Well, the first question is, do you want

this person in your life? And to what

extent? That's an important question to

ask yourself. But suppose that you

decide that you do want this person in

your life or you have no choice but to

have them in your life. Then the

question is how can you relate to them

in the healthiest way? What I suggest is

that when they're feeling upset, you

don't contradict what they're saying.

Instead, you try to validate their

emotions. You try to help them get

emotionally regulated, but at the same

time, you don't validate their false

perceptions. This is something that I

call lighting. It's a play on the word

gaslighting. Whereas gaslighting is

getting someone to doubt their sensory

perceptions and make themselves feel

crazy. Lightging is the reverse when we

validate false perceptions that someone

has. So don't engage in light gassing,

but try to help this person get

emotional control and regulation by

validating their emotions and finding

what you can to agree with them that's

actually true. If you try to contradict

them while they're feeling really upset,

it's unlikely to go well. You might also

encourage this person to seek therapy if

that's something that they're willing to

hear from you. But I don't recommend

doing that in the context of them being

upset at you. I recommend doing that as

a separate topic on a different day. In

addition, if you're in a situation where

someone with emotionally reactive traits

is very upset at you, if you're able to

work with them to help get them into a

more regulated state and you listen

empathetically and validate their

emotions, you can then ask them whether

it would be okay if you tell them what

your perception of the situation was.

The goal is to help them empathetically

relate to your experiences of the

situation without feeling blamed for it.

But what if you have emotionally

reactive traits? What should you do?

Well, what I'd highly recommend is

exploring dialectical behavioral

therapy. While it was originally

developed for borderline personality

disorder, it provides a really helpful

toolkit for dealing with intense

negative emotional reactions. You can

work with a DBT therapist or you can

even do a workbook on your own. We'll

put a link in the description below.

Throughout this discussion, I may have

made it seem as though emotional

reactive traits are a binary. But of

course, that's not how it works with

human nature. This is a spectrum. Almost

everyone has some experience of having

emotional reactive traits. Some people

have a little bit, some people have a

moderate amount, and some people have a

very, very large amount. It's of course

the people with a very large amount that

I'm talking about in this video. But

this is really a nearly universal human

experience we can all relate to. What

we're talking about here in this

discussion is people who have a very

high degree of this trait. You can learn

a lot more about this topic by checking

out my in-depth essay. We'll put a link

in the description below. If you found

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