How to Notice and Name Emotions

By Emma McAdam

We all experience intense emotions at one point in our lives or another — it’s only human. But when it comes to managing and regulating our emotions, there’s no handbook for how to handle difficult emotions when they sneak up on you. We might try a short-term solution in the moment, but this doesn’t equip us to deal with these emotions in the future. How can we better regulate our emotions, for the long haul?
In How to Notice and Name Emotions, an audio course from Scribd Coach, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Emma McAdam explains how you can notice and name your emotions, process the difficult ones, and prevent them from building up in a harmful way. Drawing from her background as a therapist, she explains all different areas of emotion processing: what it is and how you can create positive goals for yourself; the importance of naming emotions without judgment; how to appreciate the function of our emotions; vital skills for processing emotions; and more. She also shares exercises along the way to help you put what you’ve learned into practice.
There is no handbook for managing emotions — but How to Notice and Name Emotions will put you on a solid path.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scribd Coach
• Release date: Mar 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781094432908

Emma McAdam

Emma McAdam is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and coach currently based in the state of Utah. She is the founder of Therapy in a Nutshell and the creator of a number of mental health courses. To learn more about Emma, visit TherapyInANutshell.com.

Book preview

How to Notice and Name Emotions

HOW TO NOTICE AND NAME EMOTIONS

EMMA MCADAM

SCRIBD COACH

Copyright © 2022 by Emma McAdam

All rights reserved

ISBN: 9781094432908

First e-book edition: March 2022

Scribd, Inc.

San Francisco, California

Scribd.com

For more, visit www.scribd.com and follow @Scribd on Twitter and Facebook.

About Scribd Coach

This ebook is brought to you by Scribd Coach, a new imprint from Scribd dedicated to short-form, inclusive, and insightful personal and professional growth courses written by recognized experts.

Each Scribd Coach course is available in audiobook format or as an ebook transcribed from the audio course — like the book you’re about to read. If you’re interested in the audio edition of this course, or if you’d like to read more personal growth content from Scribd Coach, check out the Scribd Coach imprint page. 

You can share your thoughts on this title by rating and leaving a review on the book page. Thanks for reading — enjoy!

Introduction

Hello and thank you for joining me today. My name is Emma McAdam, and you are reading How to Notice and Name Emotions, a course from Scribd Coach.

As humans, we all have to experience intense emotions at some point in our lives. Unfortunately, there is no simple handbook for what to do when these uncomfortable feelings come up. We’re often given just a handful of skills to deal with them: we can talk them out, actively avoid them, or try to distract ourselves with a big bowl of ice cream. 

Some of these might even work well in the short term. You get relief from your heavy emotions and give your brain a break from the stress. But if these are the only tools you have in your toolbelt when those loud emotions rear their head, then you won’t be fully equipped to work through them in the long term.

This course is designed to guide you through the different skills you’ll need to handle uncomfortable emotions. We’ll spend a lot of time talking through emotions, actually. You’ll learn how to notice and name your emotions, process the difficult ones, and prevent them from building up in a harmful way.

Emotion processing might sound like therapy jargon at this point. What does it even mean? Before we move on to our first course, let’s do a brief analogy so you can better understand what we’ll be working on over the next five units.

Imagine you’re processing something totally different. You run a fish processing factory, and every day you get truck deliveries full of seafood: shrimp, salmon, bass - you name it. When the trucks come in, the fish need to be identified first. Then it needs to be processed based on what type of fish it is. It needs to be cleaned, filleted, and cut into usable portions. The actions you take are totally determined by what type of fish you’re working with.

Just like with our emotions, some fish can be particularly unpleasant to work with. One warm sunny day, a shipment of fish comes in and something goes wrong.

Reviews for How to Notice and Name Emotions

[Eva F. · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good insights but would have preferred more tangible exercises. For me personally, more courses are necessary to make sense of the topic.