Both intrinsicists and subjectivists encourage us to treat our feelings as irreducible primaries, not to be explained or questioned. Yet if we do not attempt to discover the sources of our feelings and to compare them against our present experience, they tend to become increasingly disconnected from present reality. In the absence of emotional self-awareness, our feelings thus seem to come into basic conflict with our rationality, thereby endangering our mental health and placing us in an antagonistic relationship with our own impulses. Ironically, the ultimate result of the policy of exalting feelings above all else is a sense that one's feelings are dangerous and must be avoided—an avoidance which may eventually become automatized as repression.

We should also recognize that we are never obliged to act on an emotional impulse that conflicts with our reason. Indeed, the mistaken belief that fully experiencing a negative feeling will compel one to destructive action is another major motivation behind emotional repression.     

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