Do your therapy or coaching clients say they feel nothing?

Focusing Tip #556

“My clients seem to avoid feelings.”

A psychotherapy intern asked me:

Many of my clients seem to avoid feelings. When I ask what they are feeling, they say, “I don’t know.” They seem shut down or cut off from their feelings, and I don’t know how to help them get in touch.

Here is my answer:

Avoiding feelings is a safety strategy. Many people grew up in an environment where showing feelings was unsafe. Especially showing vulnerable feelings, like those invited in a therapy office, could get a child criticized or mocked or even slapped.

Strong feelings may feel unsafe internally as well. There was a time when those feelings were “too much” for the person to handle, and “something” believes that is still true.

So “not having feelings” is something to respect – and also something to say Hello to and explore. “Something in you that doesn’t want to allow your feelings to come” can be invited, and we can help the client get to know that part of themselves.

Another thing I find is that people think they have to have a strong feeling, or a feeling they can clearly name, or else they feel “nothing.”

“I don’t feel anything,” one client said to me.

“OK,” I said. “And maybe just describe how your throat feels as you remember that time with your family.”

“It’s a little bit tight.”

Isn’t that interesting? Someone who felt nothing is now aware of this “little bit tight” in the throat. I would just say that back… “You are sensing something in your throat… a little bit tight…” and see what happens next.

People are always feeling something… either they feel the “not wanting to feel” or the “little bit tight,” or something else… and it is our willingness to welcome whatever they do feel that makes it easier for them to find and stay with what is here.

In what is here, is the way forward, if we stay with it with openness and curiosity.