Opposite action

In 1924, the psychologist Mary Cover Jones worked with a little boy in New York, known in her report as Peter, who was terrified of rabbits.

While Peter ate a snack he enjoyed, she brought a rabbit in a cage a little closer, session by session. Over a few months his fear faded, until he was happily playing with it. It's often described as one of the first cases of what became exposure therapy: fear shrinks when we approach what we're afraid of, safely and gradually, instead of avoiding it.

Every emotion comes with an urge to act. Fear says avoid. Shame says hide. Anger says attack. Sadness says withdraw. When a feeling fits the facts, its urge is often useful. When it doesn't, or acting on it would make things worse, following the urge tends to keep the feeling going.

Opposite action means doing the opposite of the urge: approach what you're afraid of, show your face when shame says hide, be gently kind when anger wants to attack, get moving when sadness says stay in bed.

DBT says to do it all the way: posture, voice and face as well as the action. Doing it through gritted teeth tends to work less well.

• Buddhism

  Meeting ill will with loving-kindness is an old practice: cultivating the opposite of a harmful state of mind.

• CBT

  Behavioural experiments also test what happens when you approach instead of avoid.

Think of a feeling that's been steering you lately, in a direction that isn't helping.

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After a small mistake at work you feel ashamed and want to avoid everyone, though the shame is bigger than the mistake. What's opposite action?