So How Do You Feel About That? – “I don’t know.”

It’s incredibly difficult for children to talk about their feelings. This is especially the case for children with Autism. I was trying to help a young autistic boy express how he felt when he discovered that his actions had resulted in the death of a family pet. This had been a life-changing incident, directly resulting in years of residential placement away from his family.

When I asked him about his feelings in regards to this incident, I was not really surprised to hear “I don’t know.” My attempts at clarification were almost completely ineffective.  I suggested that creating a Feelings Map could be helpful.

Much to my astonishment, this boy, who never revealed much in the way of strong or complex emotions, rapidly and decisively created a detailed Feelings Map illustrating a dozen different feelings associated with that incident. Furthermore, he was subsequently able to use words to show that he understood the meaning of each emotion and he explained the relative placement of the emotions on the target map!

Feelings and The Brain

Feelings are especially difficult to talk about because they primarily reside in, and are controlled by, parts of the brain that have limited language, instead finding it easier to communicate via artistic expression. The Bear Clan Feelings Map tool allows the user to drag emoticons and feelings words onto a bulls-eye style map to describe their emotional state.

Overview

The Bear Clan Feelings Map is designed to allow a person to use a computer mouse to drag emoticons and feelings words onto an image of a target.

This tool assists people in creating a picture map that illustrates their current emotional state or what they experienced at some earlier point in time.

The Feelings Map Tool includes a selection of 36 feelings and can be customized to include any other feelings words.

Use in Therapy Sessions

This tool can be used as part of a therapy or processing session to help people describe their feelings. It is especially helpful when someone is having difficulty verbalizing feelings. The Feelings Map lets the person make a picture of the feelings, including the relative strength and centrality of mixed feelings.

A Feelings Map can help a person tease apart the affective mud that often times surrounds strong feelings. It can also help a person realize how many different feelings can be associated with the same topic. The Feelings Map also serves as a vehicle for discussing individual feelings and their placement on the Map.

The Feelings Map and The Bear Clan Archetypes

The Feelings Map tool can “speak” to all four of the primary archetypes used in Bear Clan: The Artist, The Scout, The Warrior, and The Chief.  It can also facilitate movement among the archetypes.

We start in the East. This is the direction of The Artist. The Artist is particularly concerned with the experience and expression of feelings, emotions, basic needs, and vision.

While not having a lot of words, the parts of the brain associated with The Artist archetype do respond very well to the power of story.  Creating a Feelings Map is one way that a client can tell an emotionally-charged story.

When that story is met with a basic sense of love and respect, then a sense of belonging is created.  This is inherently healing for most people and allows them to move to a more cognitive way of processing something that was highly emotional.

Cognitive processing is the province of the Scout. In addition to representing the thinking parts of the brain, The Scout is particularly concerned with exploration, the acquisition of knowledge and skills, analysis, developing tactics, and awareness.

The Scout likes maps. Maps help The Scout feel oriented. Once The Artist has created the Feelings Map, The Scout then finds it significantly easier to use words to describe the placement of various feelings on the map.

Once a person has been able to use the Feelings Map to describe the territory of their emotional reactions, it is easier for that person to move from the South to the West. The West is the domain of The Warrior.

The Warrior is particularly concerned with taking action, and implementing plans, tactics, and strategies. To feel centered, The Warrior must experience a sense of meaning.

Discussion of the Feelings Map helps a person to feel that their emotional reactions make sense in the context of their situation. This provides a sense of the emotional reactions existing as part of a coherent story with the person as an active participant who can now take action.

Taking action may simply be talking about their feelings. However, there may be some other follow up actions that can help the person move from the West to the North on the Archetype Compass. The North is the domain of The Chief.

The Chief is particularly concerned with leadership, values, beliefs, and spiritual health.  The Chief takes an holistic and systemic view of self, family, and community. Actions that help a person express The Chief within them will lead to a sense of closure.

The Chief is the keeper of a person’s Executive Skills. Making plans strengthens The Chief. A plan related to The Feelings Map might be to share the map that’s been created in a family session.

The Chief is also tasked with regulating emotions, cognitions, and behaviors. In other words, regulating the other archetypes – The Artist, The Scout, and The Warrior. Processing the feelings map that the client created strengthens The Chief’s regulation abilities.

Resources

To download a blank feelings map that you can use, go to the Tools page.  That’s where you’ll also find detailed instructions on how to physically manipulate the tool on your own computer.  It’s pretty easy to use.

Comments

I truly hope you’ll experiment with the Feelings Map tool and let me know how it goes! I strongly encourage your comments. If you use the Feelings Map, and it helps your session work, and more importantly helps your client, please let me know. I encourage you to become an active participant in the development of the Bear Clan community!