Noticing Our Feelings

Now, I do lean on more bottom-up therapies, where we focus on the physical feelings into order to calm the emotional and mental feelings. However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an important place for more insight-based talk therapies. In Frederickson’s book, Co-Creating Change: Effective Dynamic Therapy Techniques, it is outlined, “To feel her feelings deeply, a patient must be able to observe and pay attention to them. To regulate her anxiety, a patient must be able to observe and pay attention to it. To see and turn against her defenses, a patient must be able to observe and pay attention to them and the suffering they cause. The patient must be able to observe and pay attention to feelings, anxiety, and defenses moment by moment to get well.”

Using whatever techniques or therapeutic modalities, I have seen that this step is vital. Healing requires paying attention to those feelings. Often, I encounter intellectualizers that have difficulty staying there, with their feelings, and may not even recognize that they’ve been avoiding them. They may even report feeling numb or distressed but have no idea why. This is why we spend time talking about those feelings in therapy: to get you to slow down and notice them, giving you more agency in how you move forward with them.

“To feel her feelings deeply, a patient must be able to observe and pay attention to them. To regulate her anxiety, a patient must be able to observe and pay attention to it. To see and turn against her defenses, a patient must be able to observe and pay attention to them and the suffering they cause. The patient must be able to observe and pay attention to feelings, anxiety, and defenses moment by moment to get well.”

~ Co-Creating Change: Effective Dynamic Therapy Techniques, by Jon Frederickson