What If I Can’t Find the Right Words?

You sit down for your therapy session, and suddenly your mind goes blank. The feelings are there – complex, tangled, pressing – but the words to describe them seem just out of reach. “I don’t know how to explain it,” you might say. Or, “I’m not sure what I’m feeling.” Or simply, “I don’t know what to say.”

At Televero Health, we hear these concerns often, especially from people new to therapy. People who worry they won’t be able to articulate their experiences clearly enough to be helped. People who struggle to name their emotions or put their thoughts into coherent sentences. People who feel things deeply but find words inadequate to capture their inner experience.

If you’ve been hesitating to try therapy because you’re not sure you’ll find the right words, we want to reassure you: therapy doesn’t require perfect articulation to be effective.

The Pressure to “Say It Right”

First, let’s acknowledge where this pressure often comes from:

Previous experiences where you weren’t understood

If you’ve tried to express difficult feelings before and were met with dismissal, minimizing, or misunderstanding, you might carry a sense that you need to explain yourself perfectly to be taken seriously.

Limited emotional vocabulary

Many of us grow up in environments where emotions weren’t discussed with nuance, leaving us with a limited set of words for our internal experiences.

Disconnection from feelings

Sometimes we’ve spent so long pushing down uncomfortable emotions that we genuinely struggle to identify what we’re feeling, making it naturally difficult to find words.

The complexity of human experience

Some experiences truly are difficult to capture in language – they involve subtle sensations, mixed emotions, or experiences that exist beyond easy categorization.

These challenges are normal and common. They don’t mean there’s something wrong with you or that therapy won’t work for you. They simply reflect the very human struggle to translate internal experience into shared language.

What Therapists Actually Need From You

Here’s what might surprise you: Therapists don’t expect or need you to express yourself perfectly. In fact, the struggle to find words often provides valuable information in itself.

What helps a therapist work effectively with you:

Your presence and willingness

Simply showing up and being willing to explore, even imperfectly, creates the conditions for meaningful work.

Whatever words you can find, even if they feel inadequate

Approximate descriptions, metaphors, or even saying “I don’t know how to describe it” all give your therapist something to work with.

Openness to guidance and reflection

Being receptive to your therapist’s attempts to understand and their offers of possible language can help bridge communication gaps.

Feedback about what feels right or wrong

When a therapist offers a reflection that doesn’t quite fit, saying “that’s not quite it” is actually helpful information, not a failure of communication.

At Televero Health, we don’t expect clients to arrive with perfect emotional vocabulary or flawless self-expression. We see finding language for experience as part of the therapeutic journey, not a prerequisite for beginning it.

Beyond Words: Alternative Ways to Communicate

While therapy does involve talking, words aren’t the only way to express and explore your experience:

Physical sensations

Describing how you feel in your body – tension, heaviness, emptiness, tingling – can provide valuable information when emotional words are hard to find.

Images and metaphors

“It feels like I’m carrying a heavy backpack” or “It’s like being underwater” can communicate experiences that defy simple categorization.

Scale ratings

Sometimes quantifying experiences (“my anxiety feels like a 7 out of 10”) provides a starting point when more nuanced descriptions aren’t accessible.

What you notice

Sharing observations about your behaviors, thoughts, or patterns offers meaningful information even without naming specific emotions.

Creative expression

Some therapists incorporate drawing, movement, or other non-verbal approaches that bypass the need for precise language.

These alternatives aren’t lesser forms of communication – they’re simply different pathways to understanding that can be equally valuable when words feel elusive.

Finding Words Is Part of the Process

One of the most important things to understand is that developing language for your experiences is often part of the therapeutic journey, not something that needs to happen before therapy can begin.

Many people start therapy with limited emotional vocabulary or awareness. Through the process of therapy, they gradually:

Develop more nuanced language for their internal experiences

Become more aware of subtle emotions they previously couldn’t identify

Gain comfort in expressing feelings that once felt too vulnerable to name

Find words for experiences they once thought were indescribable

This development of language is one of therapy’s valuable outcomes, not just a tool used along the way. The very process of searching for words – with the supportive presence of a therapist – helps create new neural pathways and greater emotional awareness.

At Televero Health, we see the journey toward clearer self-expression as a collaborative process. Your therapist serves as a guide and companion as you develop greater fluency in the language of your own experience.

Starting Where You Are

If you’re still concerned about finding the right words, consider these approaches for beginning therapy:

Start with what you can name clearly

Even if you can only identify one aspect of your experience with confidence, that’s enough to begin with.

Share your concern directly

Telling your therapist “I struggle to find words for what I’m feeling” gives them important information about how to support you.

Bring examples of patterns or situations

Sometimes it’s easier to describe what happens in your life than to name the emotions those events create.

Consider writing between sessions

Some people find it easier to find words when they can take time to reflect privately without the pressure of a live conversation.

Remember it’s a process, not a performance

Therapy isn’t about getting it right or expressing yourself perfectly. It’s about exploration and discovery, which naturally includes moments of uncertainty and imperfect communication.

Your starting point doesn’t determine where you can go. Many people who begin therapy struggling to find words gradually develop rich emotional language and self-understanding through the therapeutic process.

The words don’t need to be perfect. They just need to be a place to start.

Ready to begin, even without perfect words? Start here.