Navigating Emotional Experiences and Therapy: The Wise Mind Approach
Attributing our images, sensations and metaphors which cannot be translated into words easily into the way we lead our lives describes the experience of human life. This consciousness that includes words, images, sensations and metaphors that do not individually but as a whole make meaning to the experience of one in the moment. Helps conceptualize the true nature of being, Per Antonio Damasio, the neurologist who wrote the book, “The Feeling of What Happens”.
Bringing awareness to the fact that we as humans have feelings is the consciousness that Antonio Damasio describes. Having feelings itself is the layer that we approach first as humans first. Having to bring that awareness to experiencing these emotions is what constitutes consciousness. This consciousness is what we explore as emotional experiences in therapy. This is called processing by forming a narrative around the emotional experience. Through this processing in therapy or with another mechanism one is able to bring about adaptive responses. Based on this new knowledge about the emotional experience. So there is room for change from this step forward. Now that there is an awareness to acknowledge said emotional experience.
As one sits with the emotional experience, there is need to clarify the need behind the emotional experience. Essentially, through the lens of the wise mind as per Dialectical Behavioral Therapy by Marsha Linehan. Being able to sit with the discomfort of the emotional experience. Being able to acknowledge the need behind the cues received from the emotional experience. As well as the cues from the rational mind helps navigate the life situation at hand through the wise mind. Which sits at the intersection of the rational mind and emotional mind.