What is Emotional Hijacking?

The psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman introduced the concept of emotional hijacking in the mid-1990s in his book, Working With Emotional Intelligence (see my article: Reacting to the Present Based on Your Traumatic Past).

What is Emotional Hijacking?

As a psychotherapist in New York City who specializes in helping clients to overcome trauma, I see many clients who experience emotional hijacking based on unresolved trauma from the past (see my article: Understanding Why You're Affected By Unresolved Trauma From a Long Time Ago).

What is Emotional Hijacking?

So, let's start by defining this term.

An emotional hijack occurs when the part of the brain called the amygdala, which is an emotional processor, bypasses (or hijacks) your normal reasoning process.  

Although normally your decision making occurs in other parts of the brain, the amygdala takes over during certain circumstances (see my article: Trauma, the Triune Brain and Somatic Experiencing).

This can be a very good thing: If you're being chased by a tiger, you probably wouldn't survive if you had to rely on the logical part of your brain to reason out what you should do.  That would take too long when seconds could mean the difference between life and death.

So, when the amygdala takes over, you react without having to use the logical part of the brain and you run before you even realize that you're doing it.

But there are times when the amygdala reacts when you want the logical part of your brain to help you to pause and process the situation first.

Situations Where People Are Emotionally Hijacked

Here are some examples of people getting emotionally hijacked.  See if you can relate to any of these scenarios, which are based on composites of many different cases with all identifying information removed:

• Feeling Ignored and Invisible: Joe was trying to tell his wife, Betty, about his stressful day with a difficult colleague.  Normally, Betty is attentive and empathetic, but she was distracted by an email that popped up on her computer at home from her boss that needed an immediate response.  As a result, she was only half listening to Joe, which upset him. Without even thinking about it, Joe lashed out at Betty and said, "You never pay attention to me!" Joe was unaware that emotionally he was brought back to all the times when he was a small child and he tried to get his mother's attention, but she was too distracted by Joe's father, who was drunk.  At the point when Joe got emotionally hijacked in the present, he didn't realize he was reacting to unresolved trauma from the past.  But when he spoke to his therapist about it later on in the week, she explained the concept of emotional hijacking to him, and she helped him to understand the connection between the present situation with his wife and his unresolved trauma from the past.  He realized his reaction to his wife was out of proportion to the current situation, and he apologized to his wife. He also told his therapist he wanted to work on his unresolved trauma so he wouldn't continue to get emotionally hijacked (see my article: Growing Up Feeling Invisible and Emotionally Invalidated).

• Feeling Left Out and Unlovable: When Sue asked her close friend, Ann, to go to the movies, she felt hurt to hear that Ann already had other plans with her other friend, Tania.  Not only did Sue feel hurt, she also felt left out and unlovable.  As she walked home, she silently berated herself for even asking Ann to go to the movies. She said to herself, "Why did I even ask her? She obviously doesn't care about me or she would've included me in her plans with Tania.  What an idiot I am to believe she's a good friend of mine!"  During her next therapy session, Sue told her therapist about what happened.  Her therapist had heard many stories prior to this of Sue's good friendship with Ann, so she knew that Sue was reacting to the present based on her past experience as a child with an emotionally unavailable mother.  As her therapist reminded Sue about her long, close friendship with Ann and how loving and supportive Ann had been in the past, Sue realized that her thinking was distorted, and this was another situation where she was emotionally hijacked (see my article: Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

• Feeling Powerless:  When Bill tried to return a defective laptop he bought the day before, he was turned away at the store by a brusque sales associate who told him that he couldn't, under any circumstances, replace it or give Bill his money back.  The original sales associate, who sold the laptop to Bill had told Bill that he had 90 days to return the laptop for any reason for either a replacement, a refund or store credit.  Bill even had a receipt that confirmed the store's policy.  But the current sales associate was rude and abrupt, and Bill felt powerless.  He didn't know what to say or do, so he left the store feeling confused.  Later that day when Bill spoke to his wife about the incident, she recognized Bill's familiar pattern of getting emotionally hijacked in similar situations.  She helped him to calm down so he could think more clearly about it.  When he was calmer, based on his work in therapy, Bill realized the sales associate's manner was similar to how his father used to berate him when Bill was a child.  He also realized he was reacting to the current situation as if he was living in the past.  The next day, Bill went back to the store and asked to speak with the sales manager, who was very apologetic for how Bill had been treated the day before and he refunded Bill his money (see my article: How Unresolved Trauma Affects How You Feel About Yourself).

The examples above represent only a few of the many situations where people get emotionally hijacked.  You can probably think of many others.

Conclusion

Emotional hijacking occurs when the emotional processor in the brain, the amygdala, reacts and bypasses the logical part of the brain so that you have an immediate response that is usually out of proportion to the current situation.

More times than not, your brain is reacting to memories from the past which are related to unresolved trauma.

People often realize, in hindsight, that they overreacted, but they might not realize why, especially if they're not in therapy.  

By then, they might feel ashamed for their overreaction. 

Over time, there is also the possibility of damaging important relationships if these overreactions keep happening.

My Next Articles

In my next blog article, I'll provide some tips on how to deal with emotional hijacking: Self Help Tips on Emotional Hijacking.

Also see my article: How Experiential Therapy Can Help You to Overcome Emotional Hijacking.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you recognize that you tend to get emotionally hijacked often under certain circumstances, you could benefit from getting help from a trauma therapist (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Overcoming unresolved trauma with the help of a licensed mental health professional who has expertise in this area can free you from getting emotionally hijacked.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many clients to overcome psychological trauma.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.