Refection of Feeling

It helps the counselor build a stronger relationship with the client and takes the
session to deeper level.
The purpose of reflecting feelings is to seek out and make the client aware of the
feelings beneath the surface. This fosters insight into the client’s issue and
progresses the therapeutic process.
Reflection also ensures that the counsellor is understanding the client, helps
facilitate dialogue, helps focus the session on important issues, and helps restrain
the counsellors from asking too many questions or solving the problem, and helps
pave the way for the client to take action.
Identify the key emotions of a client and feed them back to clarify affective
experience. With some clients, the brief acknowledgment of feeling may be more
appropriate. Often combined with paraphrasing and summarizing

It involves identifying the key emotions of a client and feed them back to clarify
affective experience. With some clients, the brief acknowledgment of feeling may be
more appropriate. Often combined with paraphrasing and summarizing. The result is
that the clients will experience and understand their emotional state more fully and
talk in more depth about feelings. They may correct the interviewer’s reflection with a
more accurate descriptor.
Comparing Paraphrasing and Reflection of Feeling
Paraphrasing client statements focuses on the content and clarifies what has been
communicated. The paraphrase will indicate to the client that you have heard what
has been said and encourage him to move further to the discussion. The client may
have used the words like really hurts, anger, and worry. One can know with some
certainty that the client has these feelings, as they have been made explicit. The
most basic reflections of feeling would be: “It really hurt,” “You felt angry,” and “You
are worried.” These reflections of feelings use the client’s exact main words. But
there are also many unspoken feelings expressed in the statement—and the client
may or may not be fully aware of them.
For instance, the client might have looked down with ‘brows furrowed and body
tense’, ‘anger and fear flashed in eyes’. All this presents a powerful nonverbal
portrait. While we do not have
the anger, fear, tension said in words, it is often useful to reflect these feelings as
well, but a
solid, trusting relationship is necessary before reflecting or commenting on client
nonverbal
behavior.
Combining the feeling with the paraphrase acknowledges the client’s emotions and
may encourage a fuller telling of the story. Later in the session, after the story is told
more completely through your listening, you may help the client discuss and sort
through the many and often conflicting emotions. There are numerous possibilities
for reflecting implicit emotions that seem to be there. In each of the following we
suggest a check-out so that the accuracy of your observations can be tested with the
client. If you are intentionally attuned to where your client is at the moment and
demonstrate empathy and good listening skills, any of them could be suitable. The
general recommendation is to start with explicit feelings and use the client’s actual
emotional words. Later, you can move to an exploration of unspoken feelings.

THE LANGUAGE OF EMOTION

People are constantly expressing emotions verbally and nonverbally. General social
conversation usually ignores feelings unless they are especially prominent. Thus,
many of us are trained not to focus on the other person’s emotional experience, and
we may even be unaware of what is happening before our eyes.
It is often helpful to start work on eliciting and reflecting feelings by establishing
own vocabulary or list of emotions. An easy way to brainstorm about emotional
words is to focus on four basic feelings—sad, mad, glad, and scared. These four
words are listed with room for you to write related emotional words. Think particularly
of different intensities of the same emotion. For example, “mad” might lead you to
think of annoyed, angry, and furious.

These four emotions plus surprise and disgust are termed the primary emotions, and
their
commonality has been validated throughout the world in all cultures (Ekman, 2007)
in terms
of people’s facial expressions and language. Each of these key emotions is located
in a different place in the brain, and there are some early findings that will eventually
impact our counselling and clinical practice.

More on Emotions
Feelings are also layered, like an onion. As feelings layers become more complex,
clients may talk about conflicting and incongruent emotional tones such as feeling
confused, lost, or frustrated; or they may be direct and forthright with a single clear
emotion—fear, anger, sadness.
Feeling confused, lost, or frustrated are more abstract layers of the onion. If we start
with the “confused,” reflect this feeling, often the client will go deeper, and we can
define the underlying emotions more easily. For example, clients may say that they
are confused in their relationship with a partner. This reflection may lead to more
concrete specifics underlying confusion. This could include anger at lack of attention,
fear of being alone if the relationship ends, and residual deep caring and love for the
partner. You may discover that the partner is trying to control your client. As the
client becomes aware of this issue, further emotions may be deep anger at the
partner’s controlling behavior. Later, the client may experience feelings of relief and
anticipation of better times if the relationship ends. And in the middle of all this, the
hurt will likely remain important. Clients also express emotions in ways that are less
clear. The client above appeared puzzled. He appeared to have mixed and
conflicting emotions of caring, anger, and fear—and probably even more. A client
going through a difficult time such as a divorce may express feelings of love toward
the spouse at one moment and extreme anger the next. Words such as
“puzzlement,” “sympathy,” “embarrassment,” “guilt,” “pride,” “jealousy,” “gratitude,”
“admiration,” “indignation,” and “contempt” are social emotions made up from
primary emotions and learned in the cultural/environmental context.

The negative primary emotions are located deep in the brain, whereas the social
emotions and happiness are found in higher areas, combining experience with
underly ing primary emotional reactions. (Damasio, 2003).

HELPING CLIENTS INCREASE OR DECREASE EMOTIONAL

EXPRESSIVENESS

Observe Nonverbals
Breath directly reflects emotional content. Rapid or frozen breath signals contact with
intense emotion. Also note facial flushing, pupil contraction/dilation, body tension,
and changes in vocal tone; note especially speech hesitations. You may also find
apparent absence of emotion when discussing a difficult issue. This might be a clue
that the client is avoiding dealing with feelings or that the expression of emotion is
culturally inappropriate for this client.

Pace Clients
One can pace clients and then lead them to more expression and awareness of
affect. Many people get right to the edge of a feeling and then back away with a joke,
change of subject, or intellectual analysis.

Some of the To Do
▲ Say to the client that she looked as though she was close to something important.
“Would you like to go back and try again?”
▲ Discuss some positive aspect of the situation. This can free the client up to face
the negative. You as counselor also represent a positive asset yourself.
▲ Consider asking questions. Used carefully, questions may help some clients
explore emotions.
▲ Use here-and-now sensorimotor techniques, especially in the present tense:
“What are you feeling right now—at this moment?” “What’s occurring in your
body as you talk about this?” Use Gestalt exercises or anything to enable a client to
become more aware of body feeling. Use the word “do” if you find yourself
uncomfortable with emotion: “What do you feel?” or “What did you feel then?” starts
to move the client away from here-and-now experiencing.

When Tears, Rage, Despair, Joy, or Exhilaration Come Up

One’s comfort level with one’s emotions and feelings will affect how the client faces
emotion. If you aren’t comfortable with a particular emotion, your client will likely
avoid it also, and you may not be effective in helping the client work through feeling
issues. A balance between, on the one hand, being very present with your own
breathing and showing culturally appropriate and supportive eye contact, and on the
other, still
allowing room to sob, yell, or shake is important.
One can also use phrases such as these:
▲ I’m here. I’ve been there too.
▲ I’m standing right with you in this. Let it out . . .
that’s okay.
▲ Th ese feelings are just right. I hear you.
▲ I see you. Breathe with it.

Sometimes it is helpful to keep emotion expression within a fixed time; 2 minutes is a

long time when you are crying. Afterward, helping the person reorient is
important.

Tools for reorienting the interview include these:

▲ Slowed, rhythmic breathing
▲ Counselor and client discussion of positive strengths inherent in the client and
situation
▲ Discussion of direct, empowering, self-protective steps that the client can take in
response to the feelings expressed
▲ Standing and walking or centering the pelvis and torso in a seated position
▲ Positive reframing of the emotional experience
▲ Commenting that the story needs to be told many times, and each time helps

A Caution
As you work with emotion, there is always the possibility of reawakening issues in a
client who has a history of painful trauma. This is an area where the beginning
interviewer often needs to refer to a more experienced professional. Even the 2-
minute expression of emotion suggested here may be too long. In such situations,
seek
supervision and consultation.

INSTRUCTIONAL READING: BECOMING AWARE

OF AND SKILLED WITH EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE

Many authorities argue that our thoughts and actions are only extensions of our
basic feelings and emotional experience. The skill of reflecting feeling is aimed at
assisting others to sense and experience the most basic part of themselves—how
they really feel about another person or life event.
At the most elementary level, the brief encounters we have with people throughout
the day involve our emotions. Some are pleasant; others can be fraught with tension
and conflict even though the interaction may be only with a telemarketer desperate
to make a sale, with a hurried clerk in a store, or with the police as they stop you for
speeding. Feelings undergird these situations just as the more complex feelings we
have toward significant others underlie more intimate relationships.
At another level, our work and social relationships and the decisions we make are
often based on emotional experience. In an interviewing situation it is often helpful to
assist the client in identifying feelings clearly. For example, an employee making a
move to a new location may have positive feelings of satisfaction, joy, and
accomplishment about the opportunity but simultaneously feel worried, anxious, and
hesitant about new possibilities. The effective interviewer notes both dimensions and
recognizes them as a valid part of life experience.
A basic feeling we have toward our parents, family, and best friends is love and
caring.
This is a deep-seated emotion in most individuals. At the same time, over years of
intimate contact, negative feelings about the same people may also appear, possibly
overwhelming and hiding positive feelings; or negative feelings may be buried. A
common task of counselors is to help clients sort out mixed feelings toward signififi
cant people in their lives. Many people want a simple resolution and want to run
away from complex mixed emotions. However, ideally the counselor should help the
client discover and sort out both positive and negative feelings.
Trust between counselor and client is necessary for full emotional exploration, but in
some cultures expression of feelings is discouraged. You will find that a brief
acknowledgment of feeling is at times more appropriate than a deep exploration of
feelings.
In acknowledging feelings, you state the feeling briefly (“You seem to be sad about
that,” or “It makes you happy”) and then move on with the interview. However, do not
use individual or cultural uniqueness as an excuse to avoid talking about emotion in
the interview. All clients have vital emotional lives, whether they are aware of them or
not.
With children, you will find acknowledgment of feelings may be especially helpful,
particularly when they themselves are unaware of what they are feeling. At the same
time, many children respond well to the classic reflection of feeling, “You feel (sad,
mad, glad, scared) because . . .”
When addressing client feelings and emotions in an interview, the following specifics
are important to keep in mind.

Observing Client Verbal and Nonverbal Feelings

When a client says “I feel sad”—or “glad” or “frightened”—and supports this
statement with appropriate nonverbal behavior, identifying emotions is easy.
However, many clients present subtle or discrepant messages, for often they are not
sure how they feel about a person or situation. In such cases the counselor may
have to identify and label the implicit feelings. However, with skilled listening you can
often help such clients label their own emotions.
The most obvious technique for identifying client feelings is simply to ask the client
an
open question (“How do you feel about that?” “Could you explore any emotions that
come to mind about your parents?” “What feelings come to mind when you talk
about the loss?”).
With some quieter clients, a closed question in which the counselor supplies the
missing feeling word may be helpful (“Does that feel hurtful to you?” “Could it be that
you feel angry at them?” “Are you glad?”).
At other times the counselor will want to infer, or even guess, the client’s feelings
through observation of verbal and nonverbal cues such as discrepancies between
what the client says about a person and his or her actions, or a slight body
movement contradicting the client’s words. As many clients have mixed feelings
about the most significant events and people in their lives, inference of unstated
feelings becomes one of the important observational skills of the counselor. A client
may be talking about caring for and loving parents while holding his or her fist
closed. The mixed emotions may be obvious to the observer though not to the client.
The intentional counselor does not necessarily respond to every emotion, congruent
or discrepant, that has been noted; reflection of feeling must be timed to meet the
needs of the individual client. Sometimes it is best simply to note the emotion and
keep it in mind for possible comment later.

The Techniques of Reflecting Feelings

1. A sentence stem using, insofar as possible, the client’s mode of receiving

information (auditory, visual, or kinesthetic) often begins the reflection of feeling (“I
hear you are feeling . . . ,” “It looks like you feel . . . ,” “Sounds like . . .”).
Unfortunately, these sentence stems have been used so often that they can almost
sound like comical stereotypes. As you practice, you will want to vary sentence
stems and sometimes omit them completely. Using the client’s name and the
pronoun “you” helps soften and personalize the sentence stem.
2. A feeling label or emotional word is added to the stem (“Jonathan, you seem to
feel bad about . . .” “Looks like you’re happy,” “Sounds like you’re discouraged today;
you look like you feel really down”). For mixed feelings, more than one emotional
word may be used (“Maya, you appear both glad and sad . . .”).
3. A context or brief paraphrase may be added to broaden the reflection of feeling.
(To use the examples above, “Jonathan, you seem to feel bad about all the things
that have happened in the past 2 weeks”; “Maya, you appear both glad and sad
because you’re leaving home.”) The words “about,” “when,” and “because” are only
three of many that add context to a reflection of feeling.
4. The tense of the reflection may be important. Reflections in the present tense
(“Right now, you are angry”) tend to be more useful than those in the past (“You felt
angry then”) and now.” But occasionally, a “there and then” review of past feelings
can be quite helpful. You’ll find that experiencing feelings and thinking back on them
in the past are often quite different.
5. A check-out may be used to see whether the reflection is accurate. This is
especially helpful if the feeling is unspoken (“You feel angry today—am I hearing you
correctly?”).
Individual and cultural diversity in the way one expresses feelings needs to be
respected. Emotions are very personal. Regardless of cultural background, each
client will be unique.
Build trust and relationship first.

The Place of Positive Emotions in Reflecting Feelings

Positive emotions, whether joyful or merely contented, are likely to color the ways
people respond to others and their environments. Research shows that positive
emotions broaden the scope of people’s visual attention, expand their repertoires for
action, and increase their capacities to cope in a crisis. Research also suggests that
positive emotions produce patterns of thought that are flexible, creative, integrative,
and open to information (Gergen & Gergen, 2005). “Sad, mad, glad, scared”—this is
one way to organize the language of emotion. But perhaps we need more attention
to glad words such as “pleased,” “happy,” “contented,” “together,” “excited,”
“delighted,” “pleasured,” and the like. If you were to take just a moment now and
think of specific situations when you experienced each of the positive emotions listed
in the previous sentence, it is very likely that you would smile, your body tension
would be reduced, and even your blood pressure might change in a more positive
direction.
When you experience emotion, your brain signals bodily changes. Thus, when you
feel sad or angry, a set of chemicals floods your body, and usually these changes
will show nonverbally. Emotions change the way your body functions and thus are a
foundation for all our thinking experience (Damasio, 2003). As you help your clients
experience more positive emotions, you are also facilitating wellness and a healthier
body. The route toward health, of course, often entails confronting negative
emotions.
Research examining the life of nuns found that those who had expressed the most
positive emotions in early life lived longer than those who expressed a less positive
past (Danner, Snowdon, & Friesen, 2001). Stress reaction to the 9/11 disaster found
that students who had access to the most positive emotions showed fewer signs of
depression (Fredrickson, Tugade, Waugh, & Larkin, 2003)

RESEARCH EVIDENCE

Emotional processing—the working through of emotional states and the ability to

examine feelings and body states—has been found fundamental in effective
experiential counseling and therapy. For example, gains in treatment of depressed
clients was found to be highly related to emotional processing skills (Pos,
Greenberg,
Goldman, & Korman, 2003). As you work with all clients, your skill in reflecting
feelings can be a basic factor in helping them take more control of their lives. Dealing
with emotion is not only a central aspect of interviewing, counseling, and
psychotherapy; it is also key to high-quality interviewing (Bensing, 1999b; Daniels &
Ivey, 2007). Working with emotion requires attention to nonverbal dimensions. Head
nodding, eye contact, and especially smiling are important. Clearly, warmth, interest,
and caring are communicated nonverbally as much as or more than through the use
of the skill. Moreover, Hill and O’Brien (1999), and Tamase and Kato (1990) found
that using questions oriented toward affect increased client expression of emotion.
Nonetheless, once a client has expressed emotion, continued use of questions may
be too intrusive, and the more reflective approach will be more useful. “Several
studies have shown that between 30 and 60 percent of patients in general practice
present health problems for which no firm diagnosis can be made” (Bensing, 1999a).
Recognizing emotional complexity can be important. Older persons tend to manifest
more mixed feelings than others (Carstensen et al., 2000). Perhaps this is because
life experience has taught them that things are more multifaceted than they once
thought. Helping younger clients become aware of emotional complexity may also be
a goal of some interviewing sessions. Tamase, Otsuka, and Otani (1990), through
their work in Japan, have provided clear indication that the reflfl ection of feelings is
useful cross culturally. Hill (2001) reported on a series of studies in this area and
noted the facilitating impact of reflective responses. She notes that clients are
usually not aware when helpers are using good restatement and reflections.
Effective listening facilitates exploration.

Reflection of Feeling and Neuropsychology

Neuropsychology has found that counseling’s traditional categories of emotion as
also appear in brain imaging (Kolb & Wishaw, 2003). Most important are mirror
neurons that are basic to empathy—one cannot reflect feelings without basic
empathic understanding. Among other functions, mirror neurons fire when we see or
hear what the client is experiencing. These brain functions are basic if we are to
understand and be with another person. While emotional experience is important
throughout the entire brain structure, the limbic system is the center, which can be
described as the place where primitive needs meet with demands of the outside
world (Cozolino, 2002, p. 70). Feelings of fear and anger are located in the
amygdala, which also reacts to intensity of emotion. In fact, some emotional intensity
is critical if learning is to occur in the memory center, the hippocampus. Those who
experience feelings of depression have a less active frontal cortex.
Selective attention to events and thoughts that bring about positive emotions can
help calm the more turbulent parts of the limbic system and activate the frontal
cortex.
More complex and mixed emotions are also defined and organized in the prefrontal
cortex (Kolb & Wishaw, 2003). For example, you may receive a gift from a person
who is very important to you, but the gift isn’t to your liking. You may feel irritation
about
the gift (mild anger directed outward), positive appreciation for the thoughtfulness it
represents, and guilt about not responding more positively to the giver (anger
directed inward). You may even feel mild bodily fear from the amygdala that your
lack of enthusiasm shows too prominently. In the middle of the conflicting emotions
above,
the executive left brain makes the decision on how to behave and respond. All this
happens within milliseconds. Usually the response will be an appropriate but
somewhat muted “thank you.” But imagine that you have had a bad day and are tired
from the stress and many difficult decisions you’ve had to make. Amir (2008) has
found that “making decisions tires the brain.” He suggests that the brain is like a
muscle.
Without rest, the brain becomes less effective. Multitasking—doing too many things
at once—is a classic way to tire the brain and prepare it for an outburst and release
of damaging cortisol. To carry this a bit further, real damage to neuronal
functioning often occurs during a single traumatic event (war, rape, hostage
situation, flood). This can produce posttraumatic stress and even destroy memory
centers. Think of serious stress as either one “big bang” or a series of small
continuous acts of harassment, insults, or teasing/bullying, which are called
microaggressions. Microaggressions on a daily basis damage neural functioning and
can result in serious outbursts such as the rash of killings in universities, or they may
beat down the individual, leading to “learned helplessness,” depression, and
inactivity.

Searching for wellness and positive assets will likely be helpful. As part of a wellness
assessment, be sure that you reflect the positive feelings associated with aspects of
wellness. For example, your client may feel safety and strength in the spiritual self,
pride in gender and/or cultural identity, caring and warmth from past and/or present
friendships, and the intimacy and caring of a love relationship. It would be possible to
anchor these emotions early in the interview and draw on these positive emotions
during more stressful moments. Out of a wellness inventory can come a “backpack”
of positive emotions and experiences that are always there and can be drawn on as
needed. When reflecting feelings, observe your client and elicit strengths. Make this
part of your reflection of feeling strategy. For example, the client may be going
through the difficult part of a relationship breakup and crying and wondering what to
do. We don’t suggest that you should interrupt the emotional flow, but with
appropriate timing, reflecting back the positive feelings that you have observed can
be helpful. When providing your clients with homework assignments, have them
engage daily in activities associated with positive emotions. For example, it is difficult
to be sad and depressed when running or walking at a brisk pace. Meditation and
yoga are often useful in generating more positive emotions and calmness. Seeing a
good movie when one is down can be useful, as can going out with friends for a
meal. In short, help clients remember that they have access to joy, even when things
are at their most difficult.
Service to others often helps people feel good about themselves. When one is
discouraged and feeling inadequate, volunteering for a church work group, working
on a Habitat for Humanity home, or giving time to work with animal shelters can all
be helpful in developing a more positive sense of self.
Important caution: But please do not use the above paragraphs as a way to tell your
clients that “everything will be okay.” Some interviewers and counselors are so afraid
of negative emotions that they never allow their clients to express what they really
feel. Do not minimize difficult emotions by too quickly focusing on the positive.

Noting Emotional Intensity: A Developmental Skill

Clients have varying styles and levels of intensity with which they describe emotional
experiences. All of the styles here have both positive and negative possibilities. You
will find that some clients are overwhelmed by emotion and feelings while others are
more remote and may use thinking and cognition to avoid really examining how they
feel.
In developmental counseling and therapy (DCT), key observational skills have been
identified to help organize the depth of client emotional experiencing (see Ivey, Ivey,
Myers, & Sweeney, 2005, for elaboration of ideas presented here). Feelings are not
just “feelings.” They vary in intensity and in the ways they are expressed. It is
important that you be able to determine how a client reacts emotionally. Once you
have awareness of a client’s style of emotional expressiveness, you will have a
better idea of how you can help the client explore the complex world of affect and
feeling.
DCT’s four emotional styles are described in the following paragraphs. Spend some
time noticing these important differences as practice is critical for developing
competence. The effort will pay off.

Sensorimotor emotional style. These clients are their emotions. They experience
emotions rather than naming them or reflecting on them. The body is fully involved.
They may cry, they may laugh, but emotional experience is primary, and there is only
limited separation of thought and feeling. The positives of this style of emotional
involvement are access to the real and immediate experiences of being sad, mad,
glad, or scared in the moment. On the negative side, these clients may be
overwhelmed by too much emotion.
If you are to help clients experience their issues, you will often want to encourage full
sensorimotor experiencing of emotion. A question that may enhance sensorimotor,
deeper emotions is “What are you feeling/experiencing at this moment?” You may
also suggest that the client develop a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic image: “Can you
develop an image of that experience—what are you seeing/hearing/feeling at this
moment?” This imagery exercise can be powerful. Use with care and a clear sense
of ethics.
Concrete emotional style. The skills of reflecting feeling as presented in this
chapter are primarily focused on a concrete emotional style. Feelings are named
(early concrete) with statements such as “You seem to feel sad.” Late concrete
emotion is emphasized when we add causation statements to the reflection—“You
feel
sad because. . . .” Many of your clients will come to you with only a vague sense of
the emotions underlying their concerns. Concrete exploration of emotions helps
clarify issues. The resulting increased awareness can form a foundation for moving
to more in-depth emotional exploration. Note that as we make emotions concrete or
examine their patterns, we move away from direct here-and-now sensorimotor
emotional expression. The first task is concretely naming or labeling the emotion
—“What are you feeling?” If necessary, ask, “What name would you give to that
feeling?” Th e simplest, most direct concrete reflection of feeling is “You are feeling
(or felt) X?” For example, “You feel sad” (or glad, mad, or scared). This naming of
feelings itself can be very therapeutic to some clients, as they may be very out of
touch with their emotions.

Abstract formal-operational emotional style. The client becomes less concrete

and
more abstract and reflects on emotions, but he or she may avoid experiencing them
at the sensory level. Formal clients may be quite effective at seeing repeating
patterns of emotion, but they may also have difficulty being concrete and specific.
You may find that some clients are very good at reflecting abstractly on their
feelings, but they never allow themselves to experience emotion with the full
sensorimotor style. Reflection is very useful in helping clients understand their
patterns of emotional reaction. “As you look back on your situation/ yourself, what
types of feelings do you notice?” “As you reflect on that feeling you just talked about,
what do you think?” “What are your patterns of emotion?” “Do you feel that way a
lot?” At this point emotion is more abstract. Clients think back rather than directly
experiencing their feelings.

Abstract dialectic/systemic emotional style. Clients using this style are very
effective at analyzing their emotions, and their emotionality will change with the
context. A client may say, “I am terribly sad to lose my lover through AIDS, but I am
proud of how he/she lived effectively despite it. In a way, I am joyful at the triumph
over adversity my lover has demonstrated.” Note that this is a more analytic and
multiperspective view of emotionality, which moves even further away from direct,
here-and-now experiencing. Jennifer does not illustrate this type of emotion as yet.
Dialectic/systemic emotions are complex, and they change in context. Th e style
tends to be theoretical, and emotions are analyzed more than experienced. “How do
your emotions change when you take another perspective on your issue(s)?” “Where
do you think you learned that pattern of emotional expression—in your family or
elsewhere?” These are only two of many possible questions that lead to
multiperspective thought on emotional experience. If you assess clients’ emotional
styles, you’ll be better able to empathize and understand how they are experiencing
a situation. For example, with clients who are predominantly abstract in style, you
can join them in analyzing and reflecting. It may be helpful to aid them in
experiencing emotion more immediately within the concrete or sensorimotor styles. A
person experiencing significant loss (divorce, death, job loss, illness) will usually
benefit from talking about her or his issues using all four emotional styles. With
concretely oriented clients, a long-term interviewing goal may be to help them get
more distance on their emotions and think more abstractly. With reflective clients,
help them become more here and now. Emotion is holistic, and no one way of
experiencing emotion is best.