Many of us have heard our therapist say something along the lines of
“Where do you feel that emotion in your body?”
There are a few reasons a therapist might be inviting this question into the space depending on your unique experience. However, a simple way to understand the basics of this question is to think of our senses, or sensory system, as a system of sensors.
Think of the dashboard in a car. When the check engine or low tire pressure light comes on it’s because a sensor has detected, or sensed, that something is wrong. In a way, our senses work similarly. They’re constantly checking in with our internal and external experience to help determine who/what is relevant to us, and who/what is safe or unsafe (it’s important to note here that our thoughts can also trigger sensations in the body). Our senses work so hand-in-hand with our brain that the system includes specialized neurons and neural pathways. These “sensors” tell our body when things are okay, and when they are not.
Senses and Emotions
Emotions are often experienced alongside sensory shifts in our body like sweaty palms, our mind going blank, or our face feeling hot. Each of us has a pattern of recognizing and responding to these sensations. As a result, our senses are a core part of identifying our unique emotional patterns, and learning to respond to emotions in more helpful ways.
Introducing a new sense: interoception
The most commonly recognized sensory systems include smell, vision, touch, taste, and hearing. Working with the senses in therapy can build awareness of another lesser known sensory system: interoception.
Interoception senses/interprets internal signals from our body. This system can become under or overactive. If we’re overly aware of interoception, we might experience emotions more intensely or mislabel sensations negatively. If it’s underactive, we may regularly respond “I don’t know” or “I feel nothing” to this question from our therapist. In this case, we may benefit from building more awareness of our sensations so that we can better respond to our emotional needs.
Overall, building awareness of our sensory patterns can help us begin to do two very important things: recognizing emotional patterns in ourselves and others, and becoming better informed at how to respond to emotions.
Experiential therapies such as drama therapy, art therapy, play therapies and somatic therapies are a few options that may help integrate sensory systems within the therapy space.
Resources:
Craig, A. D. 2002. How do you feel? Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 3:655–66. doi: 10.1038/nrn894
Murphy, J., Brewer, R., Catmur, C., and Bird, G. 2017. Interoception and psychopathology: a developmental neuroscience perspective. Dev. Cogn. Neurosci. 23:45–56. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2016.12.006
