phone:
338 6946679
e mail:
selfmirroring@gmail.com
Clinical use of Self Mirroring Therapy
Understanding our emotions is a difficult goal to achieve. For example, anxious individuals often label emotions such as fear, anger, excitement, anxiety, and shame as “feeling bad,” or instead of describing their emotions, they name their somatic symptoms: tachycardia, chest tightness, excessive sweating, etc.
Others say they feel anger with a tone of voice and facial expression that communicates sadness.
Finally, there is a category of patients who know what they are feeling but cannot put it into words.
Unfortunately, if we are unable to recognize our emotions, it is very difficult for us to manage the behaviors these emotions induce us to perform.
However, as limited and imprecise as we are in verbally translating our emotions, we (even when we do not recognize them) “transmit” them externally in an extremely detailed way through our facial expressions (Argyle 1974).
This is because the face, unlike verbal language, is directly connected to those areas of the brain involved in emotions, so regardless of the subject's level of awareness, their face will still display the emotional state they are experiencing.
On the other hand, we possess an innate ability to recognize others' emotional expressions regardless of age, sex, race, or culture. Who hasn't been asked: “Why are you angry?” or “Why do you have such a sad face? Have you seen yourself?” even though we had no perception of displaying or even feeling such emotions. It's as if each of us wore the emotion we are experiencing on our face, in a language that everyone knows how to read.
Clinical publications
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The Clinical Implications and Neurophysiological Background of Using Self-Mirroring Technique to Enhance the Identification of Emotional Experiences: An Example with Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
P Vinai, M Speciale, L Vinai, P Vinai, C Bruno, M Ambrosecchia, M Ardizzi, S Lackey, GM Ruggiero, V Gallese
Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy Jan. 2015
Meeting between technology and psychology: Italian experiences
Technology to support people with neuropsychological disorders
In: A. Cantagallo, "Telerehabilitation and aids.
Maurizio Speciale, Fabio Tonello, Piergiuseppe Vinai,
Franco Angeli Rome 2014
Video based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
In "The clinical interview in cognitive psychotherapy"
Maurizio Speciale, Piergiuseppe Vinai
Raffaello Cortina Milan, 2013
phone:
338 6946679
e mail:
selfmirroring@gmail.com