One common thing I hear in the therapy room is:
“I feel embarrassed that I don’t know how to deal with my emotions.”
Or:
“This all seems so obvious. Everyone else knows how to do this. What’s wrong with me?”
Often, clients describe themselves as “too sensitive”, “broken”, or “bad at coping”. Many assume they’re failing at adulthood because they struggle to recognise, regulate or express their emotions.
The reality is usually very different.
Emotional Regulation Is Learned, Not Inherited
We are all born with emotions.
Fear, sadness, anger, joy, disgust and surprise are part of being human. They are automatic, instinctive and essential.
What we aren’t born knowing is how to understand those emotions, communicate them, or respond to them in healthy ways.
Those are skills.
Children develop emotional regulation by watching and being supported by the adults around them. When a parent notices a child’s feelings, helps them name those feelings, responds consistently and models healthy coping, the child gradually learns to do this for themselves.
But many parents simply didn’t have those skills themselves.
That doesn’t necessarily mean they lacked love or good intentions. Many were doing the best they could with what they had. They may have grown up in families where emotions were dismissed, criticised or avoided, meaning they never had the opportunity to develop emotional awareness themselves.
As adults, their children often arrive in therapy believing they’ve somehow missed something that everybody else learnt.
They haven’t.
They simply weren’t taught.
When Parents Can’t Teach What They Never Learned
Sometimes clients describe relationships where they were expected to manage everyone else’s emotions while ignoring their own. Others recall hearing phrases like:
“Stop crying.”
“You’re overreacting.”
“Just get on with it.”
Over time, these experiences can teach us that emotions are something to suppress rather than understand.
As psychologist Dr Denise Renye writes in her article, (link below) emotional immaturity is often a developmental gap rather than a character flaw. Many adults are doing the best they can with emotional skills that were never fully developed in childhood.
You can read her thoughtful article here:
Recognising this isn’t about blaming parents.
It’s about understanding that emotional skills are passed from one generation to the next and sometimes that chain needs repairing.
Your Emotions Are Not Wrong
One of the most important things therapy can teach is this:
Emotions are never wrong.
They are information.
Sometimes they accurately reflect what’s happening right now.
Sometimes they’re influenced by earlier experiences, unmet needs or old survival strategies. An intense emotional reaction today may have far deeper roots than the situation in front of you.
The goal isn’t to stop having emotions.
It’s to recognise them, understand what they might be communicating, and choose how you respond instead of feeling controlled by them.
It’s Never Too Late to Learn
One of the most hopeful parts of therapy is discovering that emotional regulation isn’t fixed in childhood.
It can be learned throughout life.
Many clients tell me they feel relieved when they realise they aren’t “behind” or “failing”. They are simply learning skills that were never modelled or practised growing up.
That shift alone often reduces years of shame and self-criticism.
Learning to identify emotions, tolerate distress, communicate needs, set boundaries and respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively can transform relationships with others and with yourself.
How Therapy Can Help
My approach combines a compassionate, non-judgemental therapeutic relationship with practical, evidence-based strategies.
Alongside exploring your experiences and understanding how they’ve shaped you, I may incorporate emotional regulation techniques, mindfulness, coping strategies and interpersonal communication skills, drawing on aspects of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT).
Therapy isn’t about becoming someone different.
It’s about understanding yourself more fully, developing new skills and responding to life’s challenges with greater confidence and self-compassion.
Thinking About Starting Therapy?
If you’ve spent years believing you’re “too emotional”, “not good enough”, or wondering why emotions seem so much harder for you than everyone else, therapy can help you make sense of those experiences.
You don’t need to have all the answers before you begin.
If you’d like to explore how counselling could help, I’d be pleased to hear from you. Please get in touch to arrange an initial conversation or ask any questions about how I work.
E: Counselling@talktherapywithclaire.org
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