[needimprovement]

There’s such a close connection between psychology and emotion that the difference is hard to ascertain. I'm not sure, but I feel like there's a difference.

Any ideas?

[Ringer]

The difference is that one is a generic term for states of mind while the other is the study of the mind.

[pioneer]

Thoughts can induce emotions and emotions can induce thoughts. For example, if someone used racial slurs against you, these thoughts can induce the emotion of anger. Some of this anger is conditioned and some is created by the emotion behind the persons words. Once your anger is activated, your thoughts might change and new thoughts might pop into your head, triggered by and connected to the emotion. You many call them names. These thoughts may induce their anger, etc.,

As an example of the an individual loop, it is a rainy day and someone feels down and blue. Because they feel down, thoughts of depressing things might come to their mind. As they think about these things, they may start to feel even more depressed.

Because of the relationship between emotions and emotional thinking, there are two basic approaches that can one use to break an emotion/thought loop. One can change their feelings or one can change the thoughts that are induce by the feelings. For example, I may eat chocolate to feel better. With my emotions altered into positive delight, my thoughts might change. The change of feelings can also be done with drugs, to feel better. The other approach is to change the thoughts so the emotional loop changes or breaks. For example, counting to ten, when angry, does not make any room in your head for the anger thoughts to develop, often breaking the anger loop.

One possible difference between psychological and emotional is where to break the loop; thoughts or emotions.

[needimprovement]

Thank you for the excellent responses so far. I felt my next question needed its own thread. So I started one HERE.