How *Not* to Use Your Words

Relentlessly labeling yourself and the world can alienate you from your experience.

Black Iris (1926) by Georgia O’Keeffe

“In psychotherapy, the words we use both give rise to and kill meaning. Words can name and create meaning, bringing experience to expression and understanding. However, they never capture precisely what is. We can get lost in words. They can separate us from experience, imposing alien meanings on it instead of being …