Feelings Wheel PDF (5 examples + guide)
By
OptimistMinds
As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp if you purchase products or services through the links provided.
Author bio
The Optimistminds editorial team is made up of psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health professionals. Each article is written by a team member with exposure to and experience in the subject matter. The article then gets reviewed by a more senior editorial member. This is someone with extensive knowledge of the subject matter and highly cited published material.
This blog lays emphasis on the feelings wheel PDF. There is much more to learn from this blog so let’s start with the main definition of feelings wheel, also known as Plutchik’s wheel of emotions.
What is Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions?
Rober Pluchik was a psychologist who introduced the psycho-evolutionary theory of emotions. He invented the wheel of emotions, based on his theory, presenting eight basic emotions.
These eight core emotions include happiness, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, excitement, frustration, and disgust.
In his wheel of emotions, Plutchik explained how these eight basic emotions relate to one another.
He said what emotions are the opposite emotions, and he also discussed how one emotion is converted into another.
While his wheel of emotions can often seem elusive, it is a great tool to explain concepts about emotions.
Importance of Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions
Plutchik ‘s wheel of feelings was a tremendous success because it was very effective in understanding the interaction between various emotions.
The wheel of emotions revealed basic emotions in the middle and surrounded by secondary emotions, the intensity of which increases as we move towards the center of the circle and decreases as we move to the opposite side, towards the outer side of the ring.
Within this wheel of emotions, various shades of colors are used to signify the strength of emotions. The darker colors reflect a higher intensity and the lighter shades show a lower level of emotions.
For example, rage in the wheel of emotions is annoyed at the minimum level of strength, represented by a lighter shade, whereas rage, which is the highest level of anger, is portrayed by a darker color.
Feelings Wheels PDF
The following are some feelings wheel PDFs:
Just click the one you wish to get and you will be redirected to the page form where you can access it.
- Feelings Wheel 2011 Feelings Wheel (1)
- Feelings Wheel
- Feelings Wheel – CMHA-NL
- The Feeling Wheel – AWS
- the feeling wheel – WordPress.com
- The Feelings Wheel – LIFE Recovery International
Gloria Willcox Feeling Wheel PDF
The Gloria Wilcox Feeling wheel PDF can be found below, and it is a useful tool that is often used in cases where the person needs help describing their emotions and feelings.
Gloria Willcox Feeling Wheel PDF
According to Dr. Gloria Willcox, who is a psychotherapy, there was a need felt for a feeling wheel because she realized that many times her clients were not able to articulate their feelings right in the confines of therapy, and this often led to inadequate information about them.
The Flora Willcox feeling wheel was born out of the necessity to help clients describe their mental state better, and to enable them to share as much as they possibly could about their emotional state.
The Gloria Willcox feeling wheel is similar to other types of feeling wheels, in that it is full of various color coded parts which correspond to the various feelings, which are expressed in terms of emotions and feelings that people usually feel.
There are two main rings in the Gloria Willcox feeling wheel, in which the inner ring consists of the 6 primary emotions, like Mad, Sad, Powerful, Peaceful, Joyful and Scared, and the outer ring consists of the various different secondary feelings that arise out of these primary ones.
Feelings Wheel PDF Black and White
The feeling wheel PDF in black and white helps with the assessment of emotions as well, and it can be printed out without the added problems of needing a color printer or extra resources, while the adjectives and feelings in it are the same, and this can be found below:
Feelings Wheel PDF Black and White
The black and while feelings well is also the same as any other feeling wheel, in that it consists of an outer and an inner ring, where the inner ring contains of the basic emotions like mad, sad, scared, joyful, peaceful and powerful, whereas the outer ring contains the other adjectives that come out of the primary emotions given in the inner ring.
This feelings wheel may also be printed out and colored in according to what the person wants, if they are not able to work with the black and white one alone, and it makes for a more convenient option considering it is easier to get printed.
Furthermore, this black and white feelings wheel may also be used as a worksheet of sorts, and the person may be asked to color in the part which they associate with emotionally on a given day or in a given session, so that they may be able to see the difference in their mood, or be reminded of how they feel over time.
Feelings Wheel PDF Printable
Feelings wheel PDF in printable formats can help therapists a great deal because they may be able to use the paper versions in their sessions with clients, especially if the clients are children, and they may find it a lot easier to deal with when they are used in the tangible paper format.
A feelings wheel in PDF printable format is a diagrammatic representation of all the core emotions as well as the secondary ones they are related to, and it is considered to be an aid in helping people figure out what they are feeling and express themselves better.
There are an estimated 34,000 emotions in a human being’s repertoire, which means that there are emotions that our brains are capable of that we don’t even know about, and can’t even express.
A Feelings wheel in printable PDF may not just be useful in the client being able to tell the therapist what they are feeling, they may also be able to see them as a sort of bridge between where they are and where they want to go, much like the color wheel helps u determine which way we want to go to get to a certain color.
Feelings Wheel PDF Color
Feelings wheel PDF in color may be very useful for children or individuals suffering from depression or perhaps with intellectual disabilities, or even cognitive impairments, because they may engage the attention better than a black and white wheel, or they may even help the person associate certain colors with certain feelings.
Feelings wheel PDF in color may be found below:
This is one of the most colorful feelings wheel pdf and it consists of some faces in the inner ring as well, so it may be used for children as well.
This feelings wheel consists of slightly different emotions and feelings, both in the primary and secondary rings, and there are definitely more emotions and feelings covered in this feelings wheel as compared to the others we have included elsewhere on the blog.
The primary feelings and emotions in this feelings wheel are sad, shameful, peaceful, proud, surprised, afraid, angry, disgusted, loving, trusting, joyful and intrigued.
The secondary feelings in this colored feelings wheel are too many to include here, but some key ones include feelings like engaged, fascinated, attentive, self-accepting, relaxed and content.
All the different feelings are done up in different colors and these colors tend to be similar across the same primary emotion, which makes the association between those feelings easier because the color is the same.
Feelings Wheel in Spanish PDF
Feelings wheel in spanish pdf also serves the same purpose as any other feelings wheel only it is a little easier to use in the spanish population.
Feelings wheels are great resources to use in just about any population, because they can help tremendously in understanding people’s emotions and help them get to a better mental health state.
Feeling wheels are incredibly useful to help through the process of psychotherapy as well, particularly if the client is suffering from a neurological condition or a psychological problem that interferes with their speech in some way, like mutism or selective mutism.
Feelings wheel in spanish can also ensure that a Spanish person’s treatment does not suffer in any way because they don’t speak the language, and in many cases spanish feelings wheel can help a lot when the person is dealing with an immigrant population or any other area where the people don’t speak anything but spanish and they need help.
A feelings wheel in Spanish PDF can be found at the link provided below:
Feelings Wheel for Kids
Feelings wheel for kids includes feelings wheels that are more colorful than the adult ones and they may not contain as many feelings, because in many cases the child may not even understand what feelings they are being talked about in the wheel.
You can find a feeling wheel for kids PDF at the link below:
The best part of this feelings wheel PDF for kids is that it has Spanish words as well as faces too, which means it can be used for more than one population, which is always a good thing in a psychological resource.
Feelings Wheel Chart
Feelings wheel charts are used in therapy often and they help the therapist understand what the person is going through without them using too many words, or in cases where the client is not able to describe how they feel.
You can find a feelings wheel chart at the link given below:
You can use the aforementioned feelings wheel chart in the following way:
Experiencing the feeling: When a feeling starts to arise, look at the wheel.
Looking at the Core Feeling first: Start with the innermost wheel and move outward, moving from the core feelings toward any associated feelings that might be coming up for you.
How do you feel from the outside to the inside: Alternatively, if a core emotion is not clear, you can move from the outside in, identifying the associated feeling first and then making your way toward the core emotion. Don’t necessarily “hunt” for the right word. Rather, as you look, notice which words resonate with you.
Compare Feelings: Another way to use the chart is to compare how you’re feeling today with how you felt earlier today or even yesterday. For example:
“I’m feeling _________ today, but yesterday I felt _______ and ________. “
Feelings Wheel With Faces
Feelings wheel with faces may be used in cases where children, or even adults with intellectual disabilities or cognitive impairments are involved, because there is reduced need to understand the adjective related to the feeling, instead, the person can just look at the faces and pick out a feeling.
One may find a feelings wheel with faces at the link given below:
This type of feelings wheel with faces may be used very frequently in special schools or even normal schools, and it may help the teachers be more in touch with what the children are going through and if they are in a healthy state of mind.
Feelings Wheel Poster
A feelings wheel poster is nothing but a large feelings wheel which may be used as a type of wall hanging which helps to remind the individual of what they are feeling and where they need to go with their feelings, that is, how much more they need to develop to attain a healthy state of mind.
A feelings wheel poster may be found at the link below.
A feelings wheel poster may also make for a good addition to any therapist’s or even their home, and in the time of video therapy and video conferences, it can truly help as a handy resource for just about any therapist conducting online therapy.
Feelings Wheel Preschool
A feelings wheel for preschool should be very simple and straightforward, and preferably consist of many colors and images, maybe even small images of popular cartoons making the kind of faces that represent certain emotions.
A feelings wheel for Preschool may be found on the link below.
A preschool feelings wheel may be especially useful to teach children about emotions and teach them how to respond to emotions, which in turn can be especially useful in bringing out the children’s traits of empathy and emotional intelligence.
When one introduces the feelings wheel to the preschool children, they need to talk about the fact that all emotions are helpful, even the big and overwhelming ones and that making a feelings wheel can help us to identify how we are feeling at any given time.
The person leading the preschool class about the feelings wheel will then need to talk the children through each of the emotions on the wheel, and teach them to identify the following things:
- Can you draw a picture of that memory in this part of the wheel?
- What is this emotion? How does our body feel when we feel angry/sad/happy? How does our face look?
- Can you share an example of a time that you felt angry/sad/happy?
Feeling Wheel App
There are many Feeling wheel apps, and they all serve to guide the person through the confusing field of emotions as they try to understand their mental state better, and these apps may be downloaded from any of the popular app stores like the amazon appstore, apple app store or the android app store.
Here is a list of Feelings wheel apps with links to them:
All the feelz Feelings wheel app
Marco Health Tech Feelings wheel App
The primary purpose of feelings wheel apps is to make it easier for people to get in touch with their emotions, because everyone has a device these days that they can use to look at a feelings wheel, which means that as long as there is an app for it, it becomes a lot easier to do.
Feelings wheel apps can also be used in conjunction with diary or journal apps, which may help the person to keep track of their emotions on a regular basis.
How to Use the Feelings Wheel?
To use the feelings wheel, you need to get either a feelings wheel pdf, or a printout of a feelings wheel, or even a feelings wheel app, and look at the inner ring of emotions to find the one that applies to you most, and then the secondary emotions from the outer ring that apply as well.
To use the feelings wheel in a two-dimensional circle manner, you can just dive into the feeling wheel straight away and they may find that it helps them discover what primary feelings they are feeling, as well as how emotions combine to create secondary emotions like awe, remorse, aggression, optimism.
The two-dimensional approach to using the feelings wheel may not necessarily give the individual the necessary information about how these emotions are affecting their behavior and it may not express the intensity, but it may still be good for individuals who are struggling to express their emotion.
To use the feelings wheel in the three-dimensional ellipse form, the individual can view the emotional intensity of the primary and secondary emotions and try to get some information about what behaviors they elicit in the person.
Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions PDF
The Plutchk’s wheel of emotions PDF forms are most commonly used aside from Dr. Gloria Willcox’s, and apart from the slight difference in the feelings that are on this wheel of emotions, there is not much difference between the two.
Plutchik’s wheel of emotions PDF can be found on the link given below.
Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions PDF
The Plutchik’s wheel of emotions looks at emotions in a slightly different manner than the other types of feeling wheels, and it takes an Evolutionary History perspective to emotions.
Plutchik’s theory of emotions looks at how the presence of emotions evolved and what purpose they serve, and according to most researchers emotions have a high evolutionary value, and they may have existed long before there were apes or humans in other types of animals that are usually considered primitive.
Why did the emotions evolve in the first place? The third point of any theory of emotion will state that emotions have a survival value, and this may even be the most influential role of emotions, to help us survive.
Another important characteristic of emotions is that they have Prototype Patterns, and there may be common identifiable patterns and elements in each emotion.
According to most theories of emotions, there are Basic Emotions namely: trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, anticipation and joy.
After looking at the basic emotions, one needs to look at their Combinations, sort of like mixing colors, which is the primary postulate behind the feelings wheel, no matter who has given it.
For example, adding up various primary emotions will produce new ones such as: love = (joy+ trust), guilt = (joy + fear), and delight = (joy + surprise).
Another trait of emotions is that they are hypothetical constructs, and they are ideas or concepts that may have behavioral manifestations but they may not go beyond that.
A common trait of everything in the universe is that everything exists in a duality, there are always opposites to something, and the same applies to emotions, and each one has its polar opposite like:
- Sad and joy
- trust and disgust
- fear and anger
- surprise and anticipation
Recommended Amazon Tools and Books
The following is a list of some amazon tools and books on the wheel of emotions. All of these tools and books are easily available on the Amazon Store.
Just click the one you wish to study and you will be redirected to the page from where you can access it.
- Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions – NEW Classroom Psychology Science Poster
- The Feelings Wheel: HOW TO WIN AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE WITH FEELINGS WHEEL by Sonny Reiter
- Plastic Visual ASD Feelings Board and Keyring (Picture Communication Symbols)
- SchKIDules Feelings Accessory Pack: 17 Feelings Magnets and an I Feel Sentence Starter
- Laminated How Are You Feeling Today? Art Poster Print by Jim Borgman 8.5×11
FAQs: Feelings Wheel
How do the feelings wheel work?
The Feeling Wheel (FW) is a useful instrument to utilize while focusing on cognitive efficacy. The FW is split down into several parts.
The six basic emotions are Sad, Angry, Scared, Calm, Strong, Joyful. These reflect the most readily recognizable emotions. Such feelings are considered supplementary.
What are the 8 core emotions?
According to Robert Plutchik, the 8 basic emotions are joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, anticipation, anger, and disgust.
What are the 5 core emotions?
The 5 basic emotions are joy, fear, sadness, disgust, and anger.
What are the 4 core emotions?
The 4 core emotions are happy, sad, afraid/surprised, and angry/disgusted.
What are the primary feelings?
Primary emotions are the first response of the body, and they are usually very easy to identify as being so strong.
The primary emotions most common are fear, happiness, sadness, and anger.
There can also be secondary feelings despite various conditions, but it is typically with one of the above that we respond first.
What is the difference between feelings and emotions?
A basic distinction between feelings and emotions is that feelings are actively felt, while emotions occur either consciously or subconsciously.
This page provided you a detailed note on the Feelings Wheel PDF. The blog also mentioned some feelings wheels.
If you have any questions or queries regarding this blog, let us know through your comments. We will be glad to assist you.
References
The Emotion Wheel: What It Is and How to Use It [+PDF] by Hokuma Karimova (2020)
Feelings Wheel 2011 Feelings Wheel (1)
Feelings Wheel
Feelings Wheel – CMHA-NL
The Feeling Wheel – AWS
the feeling wheel – WordPress.com
The Feelings Wheel – LIFE Recovery International
Amazon.com
Unsplash.com
Take Control of Your Mental Health and Live Your Best Life with BetterHelp Online Therapy
