One Easy Change That Can Make
A Huge Difference in Your Practice

If you have been reading my articles so far, you may have a suspicion that I am a word snob. You’d be right.

I love words; I collect them instead of figurines (popular back home in the Midwest), or stamps, or whatever people usually collect. This annoys some people, BUT . . . there is a time when it is important, even critical, to be a word snob if you are a therapist.

When you talk about feelings.

Everybody thinks they talk about their feelings, but often they don’t. Here’s why: sometime back in the 70s, there was a popular movement to make “feelings statements.” To start your sentences with “I feel”—because unlike thoughts, feelings are indisputable.

As we know from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; thoughts, feelings, and behavior are inextricably intertwined. Our thoughts drive our feelings which drive our behavior. If you can change your thoughts, you will change your feelings and your behavior. If you can even imagine the possibility that a given thought is not 100% true, your feelings will begin to change. Most likely, your mood will begin to improve. This is the magic of CBT.

But what if you don’t know the difference between your thoughts and your feelings? If you think everything is a feeling, you will believe that everything you think is true. Then you can’t change it, and you are stuck in your lousy feeling, with nowhere to go.

When I explain this to my clients, and challenge them to differentiate between their thoughts and their feelings, at first, they find it tremendously difficult. They are used to starting every sentence with “I feel like . . . .”

When a sentence starts with “I feel LIKE . . . ,” what follows is going to be a thought, not a feeling.

This is especially evident (and annoying!) in couples therapy. She says, “I feel like you were being passive-aggressive with that comment.” That’s a thought, not a feeling. But now he has nowhere to go with that. He says, “It was not passive-aggressive. I was trying to tell you . . . .” She says, “Well, that’s just how I feel.” End. Of. Discussion.

She feels victorious, but it’s a pyrrhic victory. Empty. He feels tremendously frustrated. When he tries to explain himself, she cries that he never cares about her feelings. He is trapped, but so is she. She will not be able to understand, or feel understood by, her partner any more than he will—as long as this dance continues.

Sound familiar?

Therapists do this all the time as well. We don’t want to be so aggressive as to state an actual thought—it doesn’t sound compassionate; so, everything becomes a feeling. We are doing our clients a disservice when we don’t show them that there is a time and a place to express your thoughts as well as your feelings.

Saying “I think” instead of “I feel like” sounds aggressive to most people. I find this to be especially true for women, even in this day and age. Ask a woman to say, “I think it would be more effective to do this a different way” at her next meeting, and she may visibly shudder. It feels so aggressive. (Did you see what I did there?) She is so much more comfortable with “I feel like it would work better if we did it like this . . . .”

Ask a man to say to his partner, “I think you are jumping to conclusions” and he knows his partner will just shut him down with “I don’t feel like I am,” or “you always tell me what I am doing wrong.” If he is clued-in he may say, “I feel like you are jumping to conclusions” and when his partner argues he can then say, “Well, that’s just how it feels to me.”

So how do we fix this?

Awareness and practice. It’s basically habit-reversal training. First change your own behavior if this is something you regularly do. Then catch your clients doing it, and redirect them every time. It’s easier than you might think, and it works like magic.

In individual therapy your clients may be a little skeptical at first, but when they start to practice it at home they quickly become converts to this new way of expressing themselves. They also feel much more powerful as they are increasingly able to accept their own feelings and challenge their own thoughts. Their partners often catch on, and now they have a much more effective way of communicating. So simple, and so powerful.

It’s tougher to teach this in couples therapy, but it makes a HUGE difference almost immediately. Challenging someone to say “I think” or “I believe” instead of “I feel” forces them to own their thoughts and beliefs, and it puts their partner less often on the defensive. It gives couples the space to look at what each other believes, and talk about the different feelings those beliefs generate.

I find that in couples therapy, partners are actually very understanding of each other’s feelings. When one partner says to the other, “I am afraid you are becoming bored with me” their partner can empathize with the feeling without having to defend themselves. The first partner, in owning their fear, begins to realize that it is based on a thought that might not even be true. Often just receiving empathy from a partner who doesn’t get defensive is enough to change the whole dynamic. If not, after empathizing with their partner’s fear, they can discuss the thought and challenge it together. As you know, often the fear has nothing to do with the other partner—and this gives them a template for discussing difficult feelings without your intervention.

Learning to differentiate thoughts from feelings is something that will benefit all of your clients, even if you don’t specifically practice CBT. Changing your language is a simple way for anyone to move toward managing their feelings and communicating more effectively with their partner. Try it and see for yourself!

Amy McManus, LMFT, helps anxious young adults build healthy new relationships with themselves and others after a breakup. Amy’s blog, “Life Hacks,” offers practical tips for thriving in today’s crazy plugged-in world. Learn more about Amy from her website www.thrivetherapyla.com.