In October 2026 I wrote a LinkedIn article about how the practice of naming emotions can shift from a therapeutic tool to a source of chronic emotional numbness.
There is a point where self-awareness stops healing you and starts numbing you.
You reach it when you can describe your pain with total accuracy and feel almost none of it.
The instant they named the emotion out loud, that response dropped and the analytical brain took over.
I referenced the 2007 UCLA study “Putting Feelings Into Words”, which showed that labeling angry or frightened faces suppresses the brain’s threat response and activates analytical regions. I shared the article link (https://lnkd.in/gcQCqYt7) to invite discussion on balancing insight with feeling.