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Feeling Words in Therapy

Here is a letter describing how a list of negative feeling words is being effectively used in therapy.

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Hi Steve,

The list is used by me to assist persons with past emotional pain "pinpoint' their truest feelings. For example, being angry is a good defining word but, betrayed or abandoned pinpoints their pain exactly.

Since most people are not able to "find the right word(s)" that best describes how the feel; the list serves the purpose. As you may already know, words are just symbols and when someone identifies with a word or a word resonates with how they are feeling, the rest of my work, releasing past pain or releasing past events; is relatively easy.

I use the miracles work sheet from the book Radical Forgiveness and just go with it. If you read the work sheet you will see where having the most descriptive word helps. Because having them fully feel the pain once again makes it easier for me to release the pain.

I have been using your list for a few years and have watched its growth; good for you. The reason for ordering the list is because I was working with a woman who was in extreme pain due to being brutally raped and sodomized. For this to work, release the pain and start to feel love again, I had to make sure she had the most comprehensive list of feeling words to choose from and thanks to you, this was accomplished. Thank You

I mean really Thank You because I was not sure if I could have drawn it out of her without the list. Coincidentally, when she was choosing words from the list, I decided to choose words of how I thought she might feel. The results were identical as if we were copying each other. We both were amazed.

It is good to have the positive and negative words separated because the negative words are the way of getting to the source of the original pain so we can talk about it directly and precisely. Because words are symbols that create feelings, for transformation to take place, unfortunately, I have to bring them back to the original pain. So, the most descriptive words that identify the pain the most exactly helps me and them bring it to the surface fast.

After their story is out and the pain is really felt; transformation begins. At the end we go back to the list of positive words, decide how we want to feel - complete the work sheet and transformation is complete.

Thanks again,

Mike