> [!note] New — 2026-03-19 ![[assets/covers/name-it-to-tame-it.jpg]] The practice of naming emotions and narrating distressing experiences in order to regulate them. The mechanism is neurological: putting language to emotional experience recruits the left brain’s linguistic capacity to calm the right brain’s emotional flooding, producing literal change in the brain’s circuitry. ## The neuroscience of naming Research shows that merely assigning a name or label to what we feel ‘literally calms down the activity of the emotional circuitry in the right hemisphere’.[^wbc-p29] This is why journaling and talking about a difficult event can be so powerful for healing: naming is not a secondary commentary on emotion but an active intervention in it. The same mechanism underwrites the value of narrative: telling a story recruits the left brain’s sequential, logical structure and imposes it on what was formless and frightening. ## The mechanics of retelling Repeated narrative retelling works because narration is itself an integrative act: it recruits multiple brain regions simultaneously, weaving emotional and factual memory into a coherent account rather than leaving them isolated.[^wbc-p5b] Under acute distress, a child does not retrieve the full story; they latch onto whatever is emotionally salient (Marco’s persistent ‘Eea woo woo’ illustrates this).[^wbc-p4] The adult’s task is to follow the child’s emotional focus, not redirect to what seems significant from outside. What the left brain contributes to this process is structure: factual detail and linear logic that give emotional material something to hold onto.[^wbc-p9] Without that structure, intense feeling remains formless and is therefore harder to process or move past. Narration is the operation that applies structure to feeling. Attunement matters: pausing to observe shifts in the child’s emotional state calibrates pace to where the child actually is.[^wbc-p20] ## Telling the story back Children need to be met on their own terms, respecting their readiness about how and when to talk. Begin the story and invite details, or introduce it during a side-by-side activity; children are more apt to share when something else is also happening.[^wbc-p28c] The detailed narration the book demonstrates is striking in its specificity: ‘you wanted to wear your red pants, we had waffles with blueberries, and then you brushed your teeth’.[^wbc-p30] Sensory and sequential detail gives the left brain traction on material that previously had none. ## Making the story permanent The culminating example is a father who, with his daughter, ‘wrote and illustrated a book together that told the story and featured her favourite places in her classroom’.[^wbc-p31] I love this idea; and I’m wary of my own enthusiasm. The question is whether I would actually do it in the moment when it is needed, under pressure, rather than in the abstract when it sounds appealing. That gap between loving a technique on the page and deploying it when a child is distressed is exactly where parenting practice either takes root or doesn’t. ## Selected passages > ‘Research shows that merely assigning a name or label to what we feel literally calms down the activity of the emotional circuitry in the right hemisphere.’ > > *The Whole-Brain Child*, p. 29 ## Appearances - [[The Whole-Brain Child (2011)|*The Whole-Brain Child*]], Siegel & Bryson (2011) - Ch. 1 ‘Parenting with the Brain in Mind’, pp. 4, 5, 9 - Ch. 2 ‘Two Brains Are Better Than One’, pp. 20, 28, 29, 30, 31 ## Related [[Neural Integration]] · [[Connect and Redirect]] · [[Neuroplasticity]] [^wbc-p4]: [[The Whole-Brain Child (2011)]], p. 4 · *’By repeatedly telling his mother “Eea woo woo,” Marco was focusing on the detail of the story that mattered most to him: Sophia had been taken away from him.’ · [[The Whole-Brain Child - 18.jpg|↗]] [^wbc-p5b]: [[The Whole-Brain Child (2011)]], p. 5 · *’Marianna helped him retell the story over and over again.’ · [[The Whole-Brain Child - 19.jpg|↗]] [^wbc-p9]: [[The Whole-Brain Child (2011)]], p. 9 · *’She did so by bringing in factual details and logic from his left brain—which, at two years old, is just beginning to develop—so that he could deal with the accident in a way that made sense to him.’ · [[The Whole-Brain Child - 23.jpg|↗]] [^wbc-p20]: [[The Whole-Brain Child (2011)]], p. 20 · *’pause the story at different times to observe subtle shifts in her feelings.’ · [[The Whole-Brain Child - 34.jpg|↗]] [^wbc-p28c]: [[The Whole-Brain Child (2011)]], p. 28 · *‘while something else is happening. Children are much more apt to share’ / ‘we can gently encourage them by beginning the story and asking them to fill in the details’ · [[The Whole-Brain Child - 42.jpg|↗]] [^wbc-p29]: [[The Whole-Brain Child (2011)]], p. 29 · *‘why journaling and talking about a difficult event can be so powerful in helping us heal. In fact, research shows that merely assigning a name or label to what we feel literally calms down the activity of the emotional circuitry in the right hemisphere.’ · [[The Whole-Brain Child - 43.jpg|↗]] [^wbc-p30]: [[The Whole-Brain Child (2011)]], p. 30 · *‘He told her, “I know you’ve been having a hard time going to school since you got sick. Let’s try to remember the day you felt sick at school. First, we got ready for school, didn’t we? Remember, you wanted to wear your red pants, we had waffles with blueberries, and then you brushed your teeth? We got to school and we hugged and said goodbye. You started to paint at the activity table and I waved bye to you. And then what happened after I left?”’ · [[The Whole-Brain Child - 44.jpg|↗]] [^wbc-p31]: [[The Whole-Brain Child (2011)]], p. 31 · *‘They wrote and illustrated a book together that told the story and featured her favorite places in her classroom.’ · [[The Whole-Brain Child - 45.jpg|↗]]