Posted by Racer on December 17, 2008, at 14:26:53
In reply to Saying 'I don't know' too much, posted by MusicLuv on December 17, 2008, at 13:09:07
I tend to see it as part of the therapist's job to help you identify feelings, help you learn how to put them into words. I know that's a lot of what my therapist had to do for me, for a long time. (And sometimes still...)
As for things that helped, I used word pictures to try to describe what I was feeling. Some feelings were easiest for me to illustrate with stories of past events, others by putting words around a sort of mental image. Eventually, it got easier to say, "Aha! That 'dessicated landscape' feeling is grief," or the "feeling locked in chains" feeling is anxiety. (None of which means that those feelings are any more pleasant, by the way -- only that I learned to recognize and name them.)
I hope that helped, and welcome to Babble!
poster:Racer
thread:869245
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081205/msgs/869270.html