We can distinguish between two types of emotions: Primary and Secondary Emotion. Primary Emotions are the immediate emotional response to a situation, they are called Primary Emotions because they are the first and fastest to appear. It is your first reaction to a situation and they remind you of your need to belong.
A typical example would be if you are angry because someone is being uncaring to you or someone you love and you feel the need to protect or set boundaries. Then the feeling of anger is your incipient emotion that can help you protect something that is important to you and allow you to assert yourself more.
However, we don’t always know or want to show how we feel. You may experience some unwelcome feelings, or feelings you learned not to express in the past, and that’s when you usually encounter secondary emotions. Secondary emotions are emotional responses to primary emotions.
For example, if someone who is important to you says something hurtful to you, you may become sad, which is your primary emotion. But if experiencing sadness is difficult for you for some reason, you will likely only realize your anger. Anger is the secondary reaction because it is an emotional response to the original grief.
In our society, men tend to show anger when they are experiencing more vulnerable feelings such as sadness or shame, while women tend to show sadness or guilt when they experience anger. When you don’t understand your own or someone else’s emotional response to something or the response is completely disproportionate, it’s often a sign that secondary emotions are being used to mask primary emotions.
Our primary emotions are usually basic emotions such as sadness, fear, shame, anger and joy. Theoretically, all basic emotions can also be secondary. However, some secondary emotions are more common than others, such as anxiety, agitation, overall depression, aggression, extreme anger, emptiness, or despair.
The reason that secondary emotions are often unhelpful is that they mask your true feelings and send confusing signals to the outside world about what you need. For example, if you are sad and need support and closeness, sending out secondary anger will only create distance by telling others that they should stay away.