North Star Conversations Transcript: The Power of Naming—Courtney Wells, PhD

Brandon Gimbel (00:00)

I find that it is very powerful and helpful to name something, to describe someone's experience and get it right, or get it wrong but have my patient correct me and then they get it right. But the naming of it and then that's it, then sitting with it is in my opinion probably the most important thing that I do. When you use the word naming, what do you mean and how do you think about it?

Courtney Wells (00:22)

I think about it serving different functions. Sometimes even being able to name something that you're experiencing internally or have experienced in the past already does the beginning acts of defusion. So already it starts to separate it in some capacity from my being as a person, which helps to dial down the threat of that experience, especially when it's aversive. And so being able to name some things like panic and name something like the heart racing with panic. That alone allows us to feel less like, "oh my God, am I dying?" Which is a terrifying feeling. And so to be able to name that and name it as panic and in that moment, register it as panic, it already creates that tiny bit of separation from self and the experience. I think there's a common humanity in the self-compassion direction: you're not detached, you're not alone, you're not off there on an island by yourself. This is part of the human experience for many people.

Brandon Gimbel (01:21)

The key piece that I, the word I didn't use, but you used, is the ACT idea of defusion, which is the separation from our mind, taking a step back and watching what our self talk or our mind is doing and using some skill to distance ourself from it and to say, "I don't have to be doing that." It's empowering.

Courtney Wells (01:38)

In the Western culture specifically, we don't do a great job of naming emotions and labeling that. For many of us, that was not modeled. That was not taught. The somatic experience of what are you actually experiencing in your body and what is showing up in the connection between not just what your mind is doing, but also the emotional experience and the physical experience. Naming is so helpful in that regard.