Can naming your emotions help you manage whatever it is you're experiencing?

Two things. I think one is that it helps you distance from the thought process itself, because you are not your thoughts. You can't even control them in truth because there's too many of them and they happen 24 hours a day. And sometimes we feel like that is our reality, but in truth, those thoughts are automated. They're literally patterns that have just been transferred from generation to generation. If you name them, you distance from them. So you go, '“Oh, that's just a weird thought. That's not me.” So it helps you feel better in that context.

And secondly, if you name your emotions something that kind of makes you laugh, it doesn't scare you or hurt you like it would if it were a negative thought. Therapists used to teach children, if they had a scary thought in their mind, to make it sound like Donald Duck in their head. So again, they would respond differently than just having the negative thought and it would then create a negative feeling. Because, if you imagine that, then those feelings aren’t scary anymore or hurtful anymore.

Dr. Lynn Ianni