Dealing with Feelings: A Conversation With Dr. Marc Brackett - Revisit

Dr. Sheryl (0:01)

Hey, it's Dr. Sheryl. I want to share something from the Good Inside Podcast that I think belongs specifically in your ears as a parent of a tween or teen.

Dr. Marc Brackett from Yale has spent his career studying how we learn and fail to learn to process our emotions. What I keep coming back to as someone who works with adolescents is how many kids never get taught a vocabulary for what they're feeling. And if your kid can't name it, they can't manage it. They act it out instead.

That's not a character flaw, it's a gap. This conversation gave me language I didn't have before, and I think it'll do the same for you. I hope you enjoy it.

Becky Kennedy (0:52)

So happy to have you here today.

Marc Brackett (0:54)

Thank you.

Becky Kennedy (0:55)

So many things I want to talk about, but let's just start with you and kind of what brings you to this work. So you spent your whole career basically studying emotions, right? And as parents, emotions are at the center of our lives. Parents' emotions, kids' emotions, emotions about in-laws, there's a lot of emotions.

I just want to know what really drew you to this work in the first place.

Marc Brackett (1:15)

Well, since we're talking with a parenting expert, I'll be frank, I just feel like my emotional life was kind of robbed for me as a kid. I had terrible abuse in my childhood and a lot of bullying and just felt like there was no place to go with my feelings. So what did I do? I ate them, I cried them, I banged my head on them. I did everything that you would call unhealthy to deal with them.

Becky Kennedy (1:43)

And just before we continue, because I know that probably that led into so much research and you really like took that and turned it into a whole journey.

All those things you were naming, I just have to say, they were incredibly adaptive things to figure out as a kid. Because emotions are, they're so powerful, you can't stop them. So if you don't have coping skills or you don't have support, you gotta do something.

Marc Brackett (2:03)

You gotta go somewhere.

Becky Kennedy (2:03)

Yeah.

Marc Brackett (2:04)

I mean, I left people in a very like dark place with that opening, but I am blessed also because I had an uncle who was my mother's brother. His name is Uncle Marvin and he was a teacher by day and a bandleader by night in the Catskill Mountains who happened to be writing a curriculum to teach kids about feelings, who happened to live with us one summer at the right time when I just shared what was happening and totally transformed my life.

Becky Kennedy (2:30)

How old were you?

Marc Brackett (2:31)

I was 11

Becky Kennedy (2:32)

He was with you the summer when you were 11?

Marc Brackett (2:34)

Yeah. Wow. And it just everything changed because he asked me the simple question that guides my work, which is, how are you feeling?

No one asked me that question. I think people were afraid to ask me how I was feeling.

Becky Kennedy (2:48)

Did that feel really scary or really amazing at the time or both?

Marc Brackett (2:52)

I think it felt relieving because I was trapped and this person actually cared, and as I say, gave me permission to feel.

Becky Kennedy (3:02)

The next time we talk, we're going to do a full episode just on that. We're not going to talk about your researcher book at all.

Marc Brackett (3:06)

No worries.

Becky Kennedy (3:07)

I told you we would talk about those things today and I keep my word. So how did that shape a lot of your career? And can you talk a little bit about the research you've done around that too?

Marc Brackett (3:20)

Well, you know, so Uncle Marvin kind of saved my life. Things got better for me. I still, you know, you know, things still were difficult. You know, I wasn't sure who I was and what I was going to do with my life.

And then when I got to college, I, you know, majored in psychology and I double majored in Spanish and criminal justice and had all these different interests. And then I was still like, what am I going to do with my life? And then I was in therapy and it was around 1994, 95 And all of a sudden this big book came out called Emotional Intelligence. And I was like, this is my uncle. Like this wasn't my uncle who wrote the book. It was Daniel Goleman. But I would devoured that book because it just reminded me of all my experiences with my uncle. And he was a journalist. But I saw these two names that were like the theoreticians. And I called them both up and I said, I think I want to get my Ph.D. and study with you.