It would be silly to suggest you should act out emotion as you feel it. It is necessary for good relationships that they work within structures and codes that demand personal feelings be put aside sometimes in the interests of the greater good. That is as it has always been and is fair enough.

The problem here is that feelings put aside can become so suppressed that they get lost. As they sink deeper into the unconscious they morph into complexes. The complexes can then lead to disfunction. This is the central insight of the great psychologists: that emotion suppressed doesn't go away, it only manifests as something else, often something problematic. The old rhetorical question “why am I doing this” is a familiar one as a person behaves inconsistently with intentions and expectations. Such a person is often unable to articulate what is felt. This is why the “talking cure” is valid therapy. Although long and tedious sometimes it allows the process to begin of coming to terms with feelings that have been put away. It helps to unpick the complicated mess of old emotion that has been mismanaged and at best gets back to the heart of the issues.

People are critical, and probably rightly, of an overly emotional approach to life. Too much emotional heat lived out makes for troubled relationships. Emotion with intelligence is the thing and requires that one keeps in touch with feeling while not always acting out of it. It is necessary to know what feelings are, to be reflective with respect to them, and to be constantly updating the intelligence they offer.