Putting into words what we feel isn’t always easy. Sometimes, a painful experience keeps spinning in our heads and blends with thoughts, images, physical sensations, fear, anger, or guilt. In that context, talking can be a first step to organize what we’re going through and begin to understand it in another way.
However, expressing an emotion doesn’t mean the problem will automatically disappear. The key lies in what we can do with what we manage to identify and communicate.
“Putting it into words gives it a certain shape. To tell what we feel we have to identify it and find a way to name it. In that process, the way we relate to what we are experiencing changes,” explains Dr. Flavio Calvo (MN 66869), psychologist, lecturer, author, and speaker.
Putting Emotions into Words Helps Understand What We Are Experiencing
Many times, discomfort appears as a generalized sensation: we feel off, but we don’t clearly know what is happening to us. By pausing to explore that experience, we can discover that behind that feeling there are different emotions that need to be recognized.
“A person arrives at the office saying ‘I feel bad’ and discovers that that discomfort had many different aspects: there was anger about something that happened, fear about what could happen next,” notes the specialist.
When those emotions remain mixed, they can feel like a block hard to manage. On the contrary, differentiating them allows recognizing what affects us, what we are thinking, and what we need at that moment.
Naming what we feel can also help us take some distance from the emotion. This does not mean stopping to feel it, but being able to observe it without getting fully trapped in it.
“I can feel distress and, at the same time, observe what triggers it, what I think and what I do when it appears,” explains Calvo.
That possibility of recognizing what we’re going through can open a space to review our reactions and find other ways to respond to a situation that causes distress.
What Happens When We Keep Our Feelings Inside
We don’t always manage to talk about a painful experience right away. Sometimes we need time to understand it, find the right words, or feel prepared to share it. The problem arises when silence becomes the only way to handle what hurts us.
“Making a constant effort so that certain thoughts, memories, or emotions don’t surface can keep us on edge,” warns the psychologist.
Even if a person doesn’t speak about what is happening to them, discomfort can manifest in other ways. Irritability, isolation, sleep difficulties, bodily tension, or intense reactions can be some of its expressions.
That’s why, it isn’t about forcing ourselves to tell everything or believing that we have to talk before we’re ready. It’s about recognizing when silence stops being a temporary choice and becomes the only strategy available to face what we feel.
Talking About What Happens to Us Doesn’t Always Suffice
Expressing emotions can be valuable, but not every way of talking helps process an experience. Repeating a painful situation over and over without being able to break out of the same pattern can increase distress rather than soothe it.
“Repeating a situation for hours, without being able to break out of the same loop, can become rumination and increase distress,” explains Calvo.
The difference is that talking allows us to organize what we’ve experienced, review interpretations, and start to think of other responses. It isn’t enough to revisit what happened: it is also important to recognize what triggers us, what meaning we give it, and how it influences our actions.
In that sense, therapeutic work isn’t solely about listening to a story. It also involves observing how a person tells their story, which situations they repeat, which topics they avoid, and what place they occupy in relation to others.
The Difference Between Speaking to a Friend and Doing Therapy
Talking with a trusted person can offer support and help us feel accompanied. However, talking with a friend and working through an experience in therapy are different processes.
“A friend holds us and often shares their opinion from the partiality of the bond they have with us,” explains the specialist.
The therapeutic space, by contrast, has a professional framework. The psychologist listens without becoming personally involved in the conflict and has tools to ask questions, point out patterns, and work on the emotions that arise.
Moreover, therapy offers a confidential setting where one can explore what is difficult to share in other spaces. This doesn’t mean that talking with friends isn’t useful, but both experiences can serve different functions.
Writing Can Also Help Process What We Feel
Putting a experience into words doesn’t necessarily mean speaking aloud. Writing can also become a tool to explore emotions that are still difficult to express.
In therapy, for example, a person can write a letter they will never send, record what happens before a reaction, or put in writing something they still don’t dare to say.
Writing can serve to express anger, say goodbye to someone, organize a pending conversation, or work through what was left unsaid. Its value doesn’t depend on another person reading those words, but on what they allow us to recognize and work through.
There are also therapeutic resources that propose reconstructing a conversation or rehearsing a different response. One of these tools involves imagining a dialogue with another person sitting opposite an empty chair, to explore what remained pending and the emotions associated with that bond.
In some cases, understanding what is happening to us is a first step; afterward, it is necessary to experience new responses within the therapeutic space to be able to bring them into daily life.
Does Talking Heal? What Might Change When We Express Pain
The idea that talking heals can be limited if interpreted as a promise that telling what happens to us will make suffering disappear. Some experiences continue to hurt even after we have been able to put them into words.
What can change is the relationship we build with what we live: an experience that once seemed confusing can start to be understood, and an emotion that overwhelmed us can become easier to recognize and work with.
Putting into words what we feel doesn’t solve everything by itself, but it can help us identify our needs, review interpretations, and find other ways to act.
As Dr. Flavio Calvo states, there are pains that do not disappear simply by telling them. What can transform is “the way we carry them and what we do with them after we have been able to name them.”
Dr. Flavio Calvo (MN: 66869). PhD in Psychology, educator, author and lecturer, @calvoflavio
