Non-verbal communication:

This morning my cat Whitie obviously understood that I was planning to open the door and go outside, when I started putting on sandals. And I understood that she understood, by observing her actions. Not a word was spoken by either party.

From our earliest moments as babies we are able to get and send non-verbal messages about our internal states to each other. We would be in big trouble as a species if that were not the case.

T's who refuse to consider any kinds of communications other than verbal cut themselves off from some of the richest means of conveying meaning. Indeed, to me, someone demanding words-only themselves sends a (non-spoken) message that they do not want to hear the messages we are sending non-verbally. That does not bode well for any therapy.

Although I did not realize it at the time, you may have noticed that my previous reply contained no words! Yet I think anyone could understand quite well something of what I was trying to say. I think it is no accident that many of the smilies here on Psych Central are representations of people's faces...

It is said that one of the problems communicating on the Internet is that non-verbal cues are absent. So there are drawbacks to relying on words only.

I think many of us here have been taught or forced not to verbalize what our thoughts and feelings are, so that the only way we can express them in therapy at first is by non-verbal behavior which happens without our even knowing it. It seems to me essential that a therapist makes herself aware of these messages. I do think that being obliged to put our feelings into words helps us understand what they are, though.