2.2.2. Outline: Some Things You Can Say to Clients about
PE Emotion Theory
We discuss ways of talking to clients about emotion and PE emotion
theory at in several chapters (e.g., Chapters 5, 13). Here are some more examples of possible therapist experiential
teaching responses intended to help clients better understand
emotion work at “teachable moments”:
•We believe that exploring and expressing
emotion is the key to helping you change.
•Emotions contain valuable information about what is going on
around you. Rational thought
usually ignores this information.
•Emotions
help you adapt to what is going on around you and help you figure out how to
get your needs met.
•Emotions are complicated; people sometimes get stuck in
emotions. We need to make sense of
them.
•Sometimes there are layers of emotions, and more basic, important
emotions get covered up by other emotions, like getting angry at yourself for
being sad about something.
•Working with emotions is hard work and often painful, because the
emotions have to be felt in order to work on them: they don’t usually change
just by talking about them, or by telling them to go away, or by explaining
them.
•We may need
to work together to help you find the best level of emotion for you, neither
too cold or too hot: Enough so you
can feel your emotions, but not to the point where you feel overwhelmed or get
too scared to go on.
Materials designed to
accompany the book Learning Emotion-Focused Therapy: The
Process-Experiential Approach to Change from APA Books.
©2003 Robert Elliott, Jeanne Watson, Rhonda Goldman, and Leslie Greenberg
http://www.process-experiential.org/learning