Therapeutic tools: The skill of mentalizing

Therapeutic tools: The skill of mentalizing

The capacity to ‘mentalize’ is important for regulating emotions and managing relationships. Mentalizing involves paying mindful attention to your own and others mental states and involves more complex understanding of behaviour in relation to the mental states that...
Therapeutic tools: Activating new emotions to create change

Therapeutic tools: Activating new emotions to create change

Focusing on unmet emotional needs mobilises primary adaptive emotions to create change. Emotions guide us to problem-solve and into actions to get needs met. The adaptive sadness of grief can help extinguish feelings of loneliness and unworthiness. Accessing needs and...
Therapeutic tools: Suffering in held in memory

Therapeutic tools: Suffering in held in memory

Every emotion involves a specific set of needs. When needs are met, experience flows and emotions are fleeting. If we feel shame but at the same time, we are validated by someone meaningful we gain reassurance and feel comfortable and confident again. If needs are not...
Therapeutic tools: Getting needs met

Therapeutic tools: Getting needs met

Mental health problems often arise as a result of the following processes: Disclaiming one’s emotions; preserving past emotional responses in the present; emotion dysregulation (distress) and the construction of particular narratives or stories about oneself (being...
Therapeutic tools: Leaning how to feel

Therapeutic tools: Leaning how to feel

In order to heal, we must learn how to feel. Les Greenberg describes how states of feeling are different from states of thinking. To feel is a slow process that requires us to slow down. To create a space for feeling when we become aware of a feeling, we can use the...
Therapeutic tools: Unmet needs and the source of suffering

Therapeutic tools: Unmet needs and the source of suffering

Psychological suffering and emotion pain signal unmet needs (Greenberg, 2021). Emotions carry information about whether needs are met or unmet. Les Greenberg refers to the psychological needs that are most commonly not responded to or are violated that leave a legacy...