THERAPY TALK: Processing  

Processing is a word you will hear thrown around a lot in the world of therapy. To “process your emotions”, to “process an event”, to “process what happened to you” … but, what exactly do we mean by ‘processing’?

To ‘process’ in therapy, means to truly digest and understand the experiences we’ve had and integrate this learning into our way of living. Processing is an act where we take time to ask questions, reflect and get curious. It is taking our emotional reactions or experiences and understanding why we’ve responded or felt that way. It’s giving space for our thoughts and our emotions to come forward, and allowing the new information we gain from processing to make changes to our belief systems.

Factual Storytelling VS. Processing

Sometimes, when clients come into therapy, they’ll express great confusion around how they can “talk about” all the things that bother them (or all the “things” that have happened in their life) without missing a beat. But for some reason, these “things” still weigh on them, keep them up at night, or cause distress. Here we have factual storytelling.

There’s a great difference between ‘factual storytelling’ and ‘processing’. Factual storytelling may involve sharing details or timelines, recapping events as they happened, or providing context to life experiences. We may hear things like: “I got divorced in 2017”, “I miscarried two times”, “I lost my job”, “I have cancer”. What’s missing? We want to know how that experience made you feel, and how it impacted your functioning, your life, your beliefs.

Processing would ask:

• Can you consider WHY this experience happened to you?
• What does it mean about you, others or the world, that events like this happen?
• What emotions do you feel around the life event or experience?
• How did this experience change or shape how you relate with the world around you (and yourself)?

When we process, we can make sense of and understand things that happen (or are going to happen) in life. Processing is about making space, letting in emotion, and evaluating our beliefs around our experiences. It’s about reflection. It’s about accepting some things that are hard to accept, and changing some things that are hard to change.  Processing, in a safe and therapeutic space, is a powerful experience.