When a new client comes to see us at Brisbane Wellbeing Psychologists it is often because they are dealing with challenging circumstances or want to change or improve their life in some way. Your psychologist will work with you to understand how you are feeling and what change you want to make. The ability to communicate what you are feeling is, of course, very useful in this process.
Interestingly, while we are taught many things about the world when we are young, we learn very little about emotions. We know that we sometimes feel happy, or scared, or sad, or angry, or excited; but beyond those very general emotions we lack the words to think about or communicate the nuances of our feelings. When did you last take the time to consider how you would best describe the way you were feeling? Perhaps take a moment to think about that now.
There are debates between psychologists about how many emotions there are. Some say there are 6 basic emotions, some say 10, and others claim there are 27 categories of emotion. We can let them argue about it. For our purposes right now it really doesn’t matter who is right. What does matter, and what is helpful to us, is being able to explore the nuance of our feelings, and to have words to help us communicate those experiences to others.
Interesting fact: 34,000 emotions have been named!
Studies have shown that if you are not able to articulate negative feelings (even just to yourself) you are likely to experience them with greater intensity and for a longer duration. So, apart from helping others to understand how you are feeling, by using words to articulate your emotions you are actually likely to improve your experience of life! So, next time you’re feeling something…perhaps take the time to work out what that something actually is. To help you with this there are some lists below…though this is certainly not exhaustive. When we are struggling, the mind becomes quite stuck and it is hard to gain perspective – a bit like being lost in a forest. You can think of therapy as helping you to gain perspective from up on a mountain top to see more clearly what you are experiencing and where you need to go
Author: Kate Wheeler, Provisional Psychologist at Brisbane Wellbeing Psychologists
