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Originally Posted by East17
I have difficulty in recognising and naming emotions too. I really struggle with doing mindfulness because I know I am feeling / experiencing something, I just don't know what!
I often come to a dead stop in therapy sessions because I can't verbalise what it is I'm feeling.
It is very frustrating.
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Yeah, I get you. I've read that only a minority of therapists are trained/have experience with alexithymic clients. Is your therapist trained with it? Have emotion word lists helped you, or did therapists not provide you with any such list? Do you have no problem feeling something even if asked what you feel "on the spot", is it just a problem with labelling?
Why or how does mindfulness require you to know what you are feeling or experiencing? (Real question, I'd like to hear more on this if you can say more)
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I'll add more in case it helps.
I would say it already counts as identification/recognition of a feeling/emotion if you recognise you've felt it before and you know what to do with it based on previous experience, or if it's new then you know because you can connect it to the situation you are in, or whatever thing/memory you are thinking of, where you can see what it is a reaction to and how.
Verbalising is a separate step from that, especially if it comes to verbalising the nuances. You may be able to say what basic emotion you are feeling, without further precision or nuances. Many times you don't really have to verbally describe those nuances to know how to make a decision or take action on what you feel.
But if you can't even identify a feeling like above and emotion word lists or emotion wheel images (downloadable online) don't help, then I would say you can be patient and try and wait to see if you can identify it later, observing it on several occasions and in different situations, contexts.