Emotion Regulation · DBT skill
Understanding and Naming Emotions
Understanding and naming emotions means breaking a feeling into its parts (the prompting event, your interpretation, body changes, the urge and what you did) so you can name the emotion precisely.
The steps
- Name the prompting event: what happened, just the facts a camera would record.
- Notice your interpretation: what you told yourself about what happened.
- Notice what happened in your body: face, throat, chest, stomach, muscles.
- Notice the urge: what the emotion wants you to do or say.
- Notice what you actually did or said, and how it showed on your face and in your voice.
- Pick the word that fits all of it: hurt, embarrassed, irritated, afraid, ashamed, jealous, sad. Specific beats general. "Hurt" points somewhere that "bad" doesn't.
In practice
When you feel "bad" or "upset" but can't say what the emotion is.
An example
A coworker gets the credit for a shared project, and someone feels "awful" all afternoon. Walking through it: the fact is that the manager thanked only the coworker; the story is "my work doesn't count"; the body has a hot face and a tight throat; the urge is to skip the team lunch. The word that fits is hurt, with some anger, which points to talking with the manager rather than avoiding everyone.
Where people get stuck
- Stopping at "bad," "stressed" or "upset." Those are summaries, not emotions; keep going until you find a word that fits.
- Calling a thought a feeling. "I feel like they don't care" is an interpretation; the emotion underneath might be hurt or fear.
- Judging the emotion instead of describing it. The goal is an accurate name, not a verdict on whether you should feel it.
When to wait
When the emotion is so intense you can't think straight. Bring it down first with TIPP, then come back and describe it.