Everyone wants to feel understood. This idea is at the core of emotion coaching and is a way of communicating with loved ones that has the potential to strengthen relationships and help people of all ages develop the emotional intelligence they need to understand and manage their feelings.
Emotion coaching isn’t targeted at any specific mental illness; it is universal and can guide conversations between people of any age in any situation.
Naming the feeling is key to emotion coaching: “We name it to tame it.”Emotion coaching is part of a therapeutic approach called emotion-focused family therapy (EFFT). EFFT encourages caregivers to actively participate in their loved one’s mental health recovery. It equips them with skills to provide behavioural and emotional support, facilitate healing conversations, and overcome their worries and fears.
For caregivers – be they parents, spouses, siblings, other family members or friends – emotion coaching has the potential to turn tough moments with loved ones into meaningful growth.
Rob Nettleton, a social worker at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre in the Youth Psychiatry Program, is an expert in emotion coaching and hosts regular workshops. Free and open to the public, these two-part workshops are an opportunity for anyone to learn about emotion coaching and practice new skills.
Some of the most common situations faced by parents and caregivers who take Nettleton’s workshops include:
- Loved ones who resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms such as substance use or self-harm when dealing with intense emotions.
- Anxiety and avoidance when confronted with anxiety-provoking situations, such as going to school.
- A lack of motivation and engagement in treatment or the use of coping skills.
Nettleton sees the potential for caregivers to become “agents of change.” As an active part of the treatment team, caregivers can play an important role in reinforcing therapeutic strategies at home. By consistently practicing emotion coaching, they can help loved ones identify and regulate their emotions, which can reduce the need for unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Nettleton emphasizes that when caregivers approach conversations with empathy, patience, and understanding, they empower their loved ones to build emotional resilience and engage more meaningfully in their treatment journey.
The first step: Identify and validate
When broken down, emotion coaching follows a simple sequence of steps. First, identify what your loved one is experiencing, then validate their feelings.
Whatever the situation, Nettleton suggests caregivers weave “because” statements in their responses and avoid the word “but” to help convey a deeper understanding.
So instead of ‘I understand you're really frustrated right now, but you have to go to school anyway,’ try this:
‘I know you're feeling really anxious about going to school because exams are stressful and because you don't have any classes with your friends right now.’
Nettleton says naming the feeling is key to emotion coaching: “We name it to tame it.”
It may sound simple, but naming the emotion helps tamp down the actual feeling of it in the brain and body. Nettleton uses anxiety as an example, which often comes with physical symptoms such as an elevated heart rate and difficulty breathing.
“Identifying it as anxiety reassures us that what we’re experiencing is normal, maybe not pleasant, but it's normal,” describes Nettleton. “Once we have a name, we can turn to the tools and coping skills needed to calm down.”
Providing support
The next step is to provide emotional and practical support, which, as Nettleton points out, is the default reaction for most people.
“These are things that parents and caregivers have always been very good at – they immediately want to do something. Caregivers are awesome problem solvers.”
The caveat here is that to truly hear and engage, the emotional intensity needs to be dialed down first. (In other words, don’t skip the validation step.) Nettleton uses an analogy to describe how challenging it can be to communicate clearly with someone experiencing intense emotions. Imagine your loved one is on the penthouse balcony while you're at street level, yelling up to them. Everything you say is ineffective because they can't hear you.
As you offer practical support, Nettleton encourages caregivers to try and put themselves in their loved one's shoes.
Naming the feeling is key to emotion coaching: “We name it to tame it.”“A lot of parents and caregivers get stuck in the notion that they’ve never gone through what their loved one's gone through but you don't have to,” reflects Nettleton. “Have you ever been sad? Have you ever found it difficult to get out of bed? Have you ever been really nervous and stressed and anxious about something? Have you ever felt so completely overwhelmed and no idea what to do or how to proceed? If so, you can empathize.”
Nettleton, who is currently researching and writing a paper about emotion coaching, is buoyed by the “small wins” he hears about after his workshops, such as a teen who refused to speak to a parent but started communicating by text.
If caregivers don’t immediately see the change they’re hoping for, remember that the goal is to increase the level of connection, and sometimes that takes time.
He says that if the caregivers take only one idea away from his workshops, it’s that they try to avoid jumping into problem-solving mode right out of the gate. Instead, take a step back, try to understand what's going on, and listen.
“Remember that sometimes your loved one isn’t looking for a solution. Sometimes, they just want to get something off their chest.”