Affect labeling
Affect labeling is the act of putting an emotion into words; a 2007 imaging study found naming a feeling lowered amygdala response to negative images.
Naming a feeling and having a feeling are different acts. Affect labeling is the first one: taking something you are experiencing and putting a word on it — nervous, ashamed, relieved — instead of leaving it as undifferentiated bad.
In a 2007 imaging study, Lieberman and colleagues had people view negative images and either label the emotion on show or process it another way. Labelling was followed by lower amygdala response than the comparison conditions. That is a measurement of brain activity during a task, not evidence that naming a feeling fixes it.
What it means for a journal
It is the argument for writing six words next to a mood score instead of just picking the number. "Felt low" is the number again in letters; "still no reply about the flat" is a label. If you keep a mood log, the naming is the part that does something — and if a feeling is persistent or frightening, the person to talk to is a professional, not a notebook.
Research
- Putting feelings into words: affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuliLieberman, M. D., et al. (2007)
Common questions
- Does naming an emotion make it weaker?
- Not reliably, and that is not quite what the research showed. In a 2007 study, Lieberman and colleagues found that labelling an emotion was followed by lower amygdala response to negative images than other ways of processing them. That is one measure, in one task, in a scanner. It is a reason to write the word down, not a technique for switching feelings off.
- Is affect labeling the same as venting?
- No. Venting is expressing the feeling at length and at volume. Affect labeling is the smaller act of naming it accurately — one word or six, chosen for precision rather than release. In journaling terms it is the difference between three paragraphs about a bad afternoon and one line saying what the bad thing actually was.
- What if I can’t tell what I’m feeling?
- Then write the situation instead of the emotion. “Third late night this week” is a usable label even when you cannot name the feeling attached to it. Precision about what happened is easier than precision about your inner state, and it is the part you can still read back in a month.