The Non-Verbal Realm and Unspoken Experiences of Therapy
When I first started practicing therapy, I found myself drawn to the coherent structure and straightforward explanations and solutions offered by cognitive behavioral therapies. During this time, my therapeutic work revolved around discussions of goals and symptoms, coping mechanisms and behavioral patterns, negative feedback loops and cognitive distortions. I loved how my clients internal struggles could fit so perfectly into a predictable flow between thoughts, sensation, emotion and behavior.
Overtime, I started to pick up on a deeper subtext within these discussions - communicated in a dialect that was somehow mutually felt, but could not be put into words. This unspoken language existed in the space between client and therapist, within the therapeutic relationship. Once I stopped trying to follow logic to understand a clients internal world, and started following emotion, I found that a sense of connection, shared purpose, acceptance and sometimes love would emerge in this non-verbal realm of the relational space. I knew this was there when I would feel a lightness, or a warm and fuzzy sensation arise in my chest. At first I thought this was a one-sided experience, but once I started checking in with clients in-the-moment experiences by asking questions like “what are you feeling as you say that?”, I realized that this was a shared experience. As I started to explore the conceptual framework offered by emotion-focused therapy, I discovered the words I was looking for to explain the shifts I was noticing in my own work. When a therapist, or anyone, asks about what is happening inside ones body, or emotions being felt in the moment, it draws both parties attention towards these non-verbal experiences, and in the process, creates a shared experience. It is my belief that it is from this shared experience of connection and attunement, rather than the words being said or the patterns being observed that transformation emerges
When we think of empathy, the classic understanding is the notion of being able to “put ourselves in someone else’s shoes”. Although this speaks to a cognitive understanding of someone else’s perspective, I think it lacks the kind of intuitive, felt understanding that allows us to truly empathize. One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed in how I practice, is the vulnerability I bring into a session by not just verbalizing my understanding of a clients lived experiences, but by immersing myself in the felt experience being communicated to me.
Although I still see value in cognitive modalities, and integrate them within my work, a relational and emotion focused approach has truly felt like the best fit for my personal and professional identity. I still have so much growing to do as a person and a professional, and as I write these words I notice that they don’t come close to fully expressing what it is that takes place in the non-verbal realm of therapy. Nonetheless, I hope throughout my own journey of self-discovery I continue to get closer to finding the words that represent these shared experiences, and cultivating these moments of transformation.