Thoughts, Feelings, and Talking in Therapy

We're almost done with the book. Can you feel it? Yet as far as discussing talk therapy, we've only just begun. Okay. So yes. You knew this already. But did you also know that these two feelings are what people should feel throughout the course of talk therapy? After all, we are one of the deepest mysteries in the Universe. Human beings. Then again, the real mystery here is where what we think and feel comes from. As well as whether our memories contain what we think and feel. Never thought about it? Well you should. Especially since being asked what you think and feel in therapy conflicts with what I've been saying about the mind and body. Not sure what I'm getting at? You're about to find out, in this chapter of Plain Talk about Talk Therapy.

What The F Are Thoughts and Feelings?
In the opening chapter I joked that the standard bad therapist's line, so how did that make you feel?, should be a signal to run for the door. Yet we all know, intuitively at least, that in the service of getting to know ourselves, that we'll need to answer these kinds of questions. Again and again, in fact.

The thing is, despite knowing we'll need to endure these somewhat vapid requests, we're never told directly what we're being asked for; what a feeling is. Let alone where we should be looking for this information.

Imagine if the guys behind the deli lunch counter did this. Or the salesman at the car dealer. Or the customer service woman at the bank help desk. Or the head of sales at the reality office. Imagine what it would be like if they never told you what they need from you. You'd never get what you want. Not sure what I'm saying? Well consider this. Consider how talk therapy usually unfolds.

Tom, the decent therapist: "So Sidney, when your teacher, Ms. Wordsworth, scolded you, what did you feel?"

Here the therapist is asking Sidney what is perhaps the most common question a therapist could ask a client; for the client to recall what he felt in a certain situation. The underlying assumption? That we record, and can recall from memory, our thoughts and feelings. Can we? Common sense observations point overwhelmingly to that this is highly unlikely. As well as to that we probably make this stuff up on the fly. However, because of the way therapists voice this question, we infer they believe the opposite; that we do record our thoughts and feelings in memory. Moreover, because this unspoken assumption is a mainstay of the therapy, the client then responds to this request without ever questioning this assumption.

Sidney, the ADD client: (a long blank pause, followed by) "Well, doc, I don't know. Mad, I suppose?"

Here the client offers the therapist what is perhaps the most common answer a client could offer a therapist; a guess voiced as a question. That this answer is voiced as a question is a sure sign the client is asking the therapist if this is what he should have felt. To which a decent therapist might respond by offering Sidney some help, probably in the form of some possible answers for what he might have felt. A great therapist, on the other hand, would bypass this question by asking Sidney to check in with his body. In other words, to notice where and what he was physically feeling, if anything. His here and now sensations. Tightness. Heaviness. And so on. As well as what he felt about being asked this question.

Tom, the decent therapist: "Well Sidney, when you tell someone to go F themselves, usually you are feeling mad."

Since Tom is a decent therapist, not a great one, he suggests a possible answer. This answer assumes not only that Sidney recorded his feelings in memory but also that his feelings make logical sense. And while this kind of logic is often absent from what people feel, when a therapist suggests a logic with which to frame feelings, people usually feel better. More so when what they say they felt pleases the therapist. Which then prompts the client to say things like the following.

Sidney, the ADD client: "Well then I guess that is what I must have felt. Yes. Mad. That's it. I was mad. Really mad."

Here Sidney the client agrees to say he recalls feeling what the therapist suggested. Including that what he felt makes logical sense. By this point, Sidney may even be feeling this anger in his body as the body often takes it's lead from the mind.

Tom, the decent therapist: "That's great Sidney. You're doing a good job of getting in touch with what you felt then."

Here the therapist rewards the client for fabricating the proper feelings. Decent therapists describe this process as that the "client has gained insight." In reality, there is no way to know for sure this is what the client felt. Or if the therapist has instilled these feelings in the client. We can only know that the client is now sure this is what he must have felt, and that he feels better knowing that what he felt makes sense.

Okay. So not all therapists are this cliche. Still, when therapists ask clients to recall their thoughts and feelings, this is what they are asking their clients to do. And when clients ask therapists to clarify what they are asking for, therapists often have no way to do this. Other than to rephrase the question with different words, or to offer the client logically possible answers.

Why don't therapists have a better way to explain what a feeling is? Over the years I've asked myself this many times.

I've also struggled to find a way to answer these requests. After all, it is me who is asking folks to tell me what they feel. Shouldn't I be able to clarify for them what feelings are?

The truth? I should. But until now, I haven't been able to. So what have I done? I've done what many other talk therapists do. I've danced around the question, with everything from showing pictures of faces labeled with feelings words to long winded dissertations on the nature of emotion. All the while hoping, I guess, that the person would intuit what a feeling is.

How does this usually work out? More times than not, between the two of us, we somehow manage to make this work. Probably because most people are quite willing to fish for their feelings the same way that I do, all the while supposing, I guess, that they will somehow stumble onto the "right feelings." At which point hopefully my face lights up so that we can both assume, they and I, that they now know what it was they thought and felt back then.

Does this fishing for feelings do any good?

In many cases, it does. People get to see how dumb therapists are. And that we're no better off than they are. With regard to naming our feelings anyway. On the other hand, if you were to ask me to seriously consider if this process helps people, in the grand scheme of things, I'd say it probably does as more to confuse people than it does to heal them.

This then has been the state of talk therapy. People asking other people to fabricate feelings on the spot, all the while assuming people store their feelings in their memories. In hindsight, I feel amazed by this. As well as by the fact that we have somehow been helping anyway. This said, I cannot count the number of times I've felt at a loss as to how to teach people what feelings are. As well as worried that what I am saying might be biasing them away from their truth.

So let me ask you. Has this even happened to you? Have you ever felt pressured to put this vagueness we call feelings into words that feel true? And have you ever tried to define for someone else what feelings are only to come up against this very vagueness?

Of course, the proof for this vagueness lies in the very books with which we define our words; our dictionaries. Including my old standby, the massive twenty three volume OED. To its credit though it does offer us our first clue. That the word feelings derives from Greek and Latin words, both of which mean the palm of your hand.

What does this imply? It implies that feelings derive from sensations. After all, palm is an obvious reference to that feeling things means touching things. But touching what? Touching the wall? Touching moments? What do we touch when we feel things? Unfortunately, the OED does not say.

Then there's the vagueness surrounding this word in everyday life. For instance we commonly use the word feelings to refer to what we experience in our heads. As in what we feel about something; our opinions about it. At the same time we also use the word feelings to refer to what we experience in our hearts. What we feel period. Our emotions.

Here then is our second clue; that the word feelings can refer both to our thoughts and to our emotions. As in this word can refer to two variations of the same thing.

Then there is our third clue; that at the same time, we also use these two words, thoughts and feelings, to refer to two separate and distinct experiences. Each with its own set of rules and such.

For instance when the word feelings refers to what is in our hearts, feelings can be neither right nor wrong. As in, feelings aren't facts. Yet when the word feelings refers to what is in our heads, feelings are right. Or wrong. Or both. As in the "right thinking" of Buddhism. And the right way of thinking in politics.

So what is a feeling? A thought? An emotion? And which is it, can they be wrong or not?

To me, these questions define one of the major dilemmas in talk therapy today. The dilemma? That we refer to thoughts and feelings as if they are two varieties of the same thing while at the same time, we refer to them as being two different things. One of which can never be wrong, the other, frequently wrong. Or even inconsequential at times as in, "it's just your opinion."

Now take a breath. And still your mind. Now notice your body while you consider this.

I've just suggested we have three clues as to what the word feelings actually means. One. That feelings derive from physical sensations. Two. That feelings, as thoughts and emotions, are two aspects of the same thing. And three. That we treat thoughts and emotions are two separate and distinct things.

Now consider how what I've just told you so parallels what I've been saying about views of the four philosophers on the mind and the body. As well as the views of more modern folks. Scientists and such.

To wit, I've told you that some folks, the materialists, believe our feelings arise from our bodies. From what we feel in our bodies. Sensation itself. Thus here we have a whole lot of folks who believe feelings stem from sensation. Which explains why we would use the word feelings to refer to sensations.

I've also told you that Spinoza believed that the experiences of the mind and body were two aspects of the same thing. Thus here we have clue two; that our thoughts and feelings are two aspects of the same thing. Which would explain our using the word feelings to refer to both.

In addition, I've told you that Descartes believed our experiences of the mind and body were two separate and distinct things. And if we use the word feelings in the clue number three sense of how we commonly use it to refer to emotion, we can say that Descartes two separate and distinct things were thoughts and feelings. Again, a usage we already use, and the root of our having two separate and distinct rules by which to live.

Now add in that when we apply Herbart's threshold of perception to Descartes and Spinoza's ideas, we see how all these things come together. You see Herbart's line is the threshold of sensation. Above which we experience thoughts and feelings as it they are two separate things, thoughts coming from the mind and feelings from the body. And below which thoughts and feelings turn out to be two aspects of the same thing, a single continuum extending from the mind to the body; from thoughts to feelings.

Finally add in my recent discoveries about the mind and body. That the speed at which we sample our physical sensations is what determines whether we experience physical sensation as thoughts or as feelings and you have solved one of the greatest mysteries in human personality. What a feeling is. So what is it? It's all the things I've just described and a whole lot more. Starting with the ideas we've just discussed, all of which already appear in our everyday language. The ideas?

• That feelings derive from the physical sensations we sense along our spines. This roughly approximates the path described by the existential mystical practice of yoga in ancient India and by doing so, honors many modern day healing practices. Note this does not imply the materialism of modern western medicine; that the body gives rise to the mind. Rather, by including the brain in this vertical path, we infer Descartes mind / body interactionism; the idea that not only does the body give rise to the mind, but also that the mind gives rise to the body. As in we can mentally imagine sensation which then gets physically felt in the body.
• That the speed at which we sample these physical sensations determines which of Descartes two conscious experiences we have. Either mind sensations / thoughts, which are the things we sample at the faster rates, or body sensations / feelings, which are the things we sample at the slower rates. Here thoughts would include all reasons and logic and attempts at reason and logic. Whereas feelings would include all emotions as well as our intuitions and gut reactions.
• That beneath these two experiences this lies a single continuum of sensation, consistent with Spinoza's idea that the mind and body are two aspects of one thing. Expressed as physical sensation, it runs from the top of the head to the base of the spine and includes the rest of the physical body at heights approximating the points at which the limbs and such attach to the spine. And expressed psychologically, it runs from the fastest sensations; pure thoughts, to the slowest sensations; pure feelings.
  

Now add to all this that we can easily observe all these things in ourselves. Including that we each have a default preference for which of these two ways we experience life, either as quickly sampled thoughts or as slowly sampled feelings.

Here then is the thing talk therapists have been needing all along; a way to define what they have been asking us for. And yes, this does not address the ambiguity present in our everyday day language, as far as the word feelings referring to everything from physical sensation to thoughts and emotions. However, it does at least begin to address what underlies this ambiguity.

This then leads us back to the action part of these requests; that we recall our thoughts and feelings. And to my assertion that we cannot do this. That we do not store thoughts and feelings but rather make them up on the fly. As we sense them. Even about the past.

So where do thoughts and feelings come from? This is what we're about to explore. Starting with what to me is a rather amazing coincidence. The idea that this possibility; that we make up our thoughts and feelings on the fly, has been around for a hundred years. Including as one of the main beliefs of one of America's first psychologists. Harvard professor, William James.

What did James have to say? Let's look.

[click here to read the rest of Thoughts, Feelings, and Talking in Therapy]