Emotional Regulation Vase imagery script

Below is a detailed example of how I explain the emotional vase imagery to clients, which I discussed in the article Part 1 Emotional Regulation. 

• Part 1 covers a way of conceptualizing emotional experience and emotional regulation 

• Part 2 addresses how to process and let go of old emotional baggage
  
  

After the client is ‘bought in’, feels understood, and is looking toward change, I ask if I can draw them something. I say it’ll take a few minutes, is that okay? I think visual metaphors are a useful way to organize thinking about emotions. So I draw this and talk through it while we go, spending between 5 minutes or the rest of the session to do so, depending on their engagement and psychological mindedness. Here’s some (poorly done) clip art I made of it:

Here’s how I draw it and what I explain as I add elements (this is a back and forth conversation, structured around the dialogue shown here):

- draw the black outline initially, “the vase itself represents a person’s capacity to deal with emotions”

- “the water in the vase represents any emotions you’ve experienced today, easy stuff, happy stuff, frustration, embarrassment, it all adds up. The more you feel the more water there is” 

- I draw a line near 20% from the bottom “We all wake up with some amount of water sitting in the bottom, what you might call ‘baggage’ or any older emotions we’re carrying around. We can dig into that later. 

- I give a quick example “I woke up at 20%, then stubbed my toe on the bathroom door, so now I’m at 25%” I’m drawing new horizontal lines showing the water line rising with each event. “Then I’m almost late which stresses me out, so I’m at 35%, but then my coworker who I dislike comments on my timing, which they’ve done before so I’m suddenly at 60%. The first time they did it only added maybe 5% but now it really gets to me. We can become sensitized to things, or their meaning can change.“ 

- I pause any time the client wants to tie a part of this to their experience and we talk it through, I also check in as I explain to make sure they’re understanding. 

- This is a good moment to hand a Feelings Wheel to the client. I briefly explain what it is and that it’s organized to help them get more specific about how they’re feeling.

Assuming they feel safe, most folks share. We discuss it and I ask process questions (“what’s it like to tell me about this [feeling]?”, “what’s it like, carrying all this around?” etc). This is a nice break from the drawing to refocus on process and alliance, and having this healthy emotional release is also good for buy-in on the vase. I put this part wherever it feels natural with each client, and at some point I get back on track.

- “The water level doesn’t necessarily get too high every day, and most people don’t notice at a conscious level as the water rises. We just get irritable or somewhat upset, withdrawn.”

- “Most people do notice that something’s wrong once they get up near the top red zone [which I draw in now], they start feeling like they need to take a break from the situation”

- “It doesn’t matter what adds the final bit of water to the top, but once it’s there we call it ‘flooding’ [drawing in the arrow of water spilling out]—that’s where we’re acting out of character, doing things we later regret because we feel so overwhelmed.” You want to regularly be tying parts of this metaphor into the client’s story, and this is a great time to do so, and ask process type questions.

- “Flooding is a stress response: fight, flight, freeze. Like when you told me you [acted out in some way]. It’s a healthy response when we perceive a threat, but when it’s daily stress adding up, we can end up acting in ways we later regret.” I check in here to make sure they understand the capacity idea and how water adds up, spills out etc, sometimes talking through and connecting a situation we’d already been discussing to the vase metaphor.

- “Ok, so what do I do with this? How do I get water out of the vase? How do I let less water in? Wouldn’t it be nice to sometimes be able to contain our emotions—short term—to continue functioning, then address them at appropriate times later in the day?”

- As I draw the green circles (I just use one pen, the colors here are for clarity) “We can put holes in the side of the vase to drain the water. The more holes you put the more effectively it will drain. In the metaphor, these drains are ‘coping skills’. Which is just a way of saying ‘things we can do when we’re worked up that help us calm down or let some of that energy out’. My guess is you’ve already got some things that help you relax when you notice you’re stressed/anxious etc.” Here I engage in solution-focused questioning around what’s worked in the past, to give us a basis for their coping skills. 

- At some point I start referring to the anger, addictions, depression etc as unskilled emotional outlets, and that if we can learn healthier ways to release this emotional energy, we may benefit. Sometimes I draw drain holes for these unhealthy outlets, but only up near the top; they do have some limited utility but aren’t good options. This can help clients see that they have already been trying to release emotional energy, and now we’re trying to fill a skill gap with healthier options.

- I teach more relevant coping skills at this point (see part 2) and note them down below the vase, or ideally hand it to the client so they can do the writing. There’s often more processing here and the more coping skills you know the better you can collaborate to select the ideal few for each client to see what fits.

To conclude, I tie the skills back into the drawing to address the question ‘how will I decide when I need to use these skills?’

- “All this coping is only useful if we actually use it, so we need to check on our emotional state periodically. It’s easy to check but tough to remember to do: just pause and ask yourself how you’re doing, how much ‘water’ is in there. The earlier you intervene, the easier it is to deal with troubling emotion. The longer we monitor this the more aware of our patterns and triggers we become, which is even more useful” I sprinkle in motivational interviewing questions as needed. I do make it a more back and forth conversation than I wrote here; this continuous seeming style was for convenience.

I think visual metaphors are effective for organizing our thinking about an abstract subject such as emotions. I know that reading it like this may be clunky, but once I got familiar with the metaphor and using the drawing while talking, it became intuitive for most clients.

So there’s a common approach to emotional regulation, laid out in detail. Adapt it however you see fit. I got better with this kind of intervention over time. Knowing who would benefit from it, when they feel safe enough to start it, what session it will work in etc, can be somewhat nuanced. As we hone our empathy, alliance building, and observational skills our chances of hitting hard with this kind of intervention improve. Without a proper foundation, it will not go well—as with anything.

The next step is teaching clients to process older or more intense emotion (beyond the moment to moment regulation), which I discuss in Part 2.

Variations I sometimes use with the vase image:

- Point at my water bottle as the emotional container rather than draw anything (this one feels weird when I drink the water!)

- Amount of water that gets added can change: if tired, stressed, grieving etc, either the vase is smaller, or there’s more water ‘stuck’ at the bottom. A few clients add game mechanics to it, a “multiplier effect” on how much water is added: if stressed then water is added at 1.5x normal rate, or if meditating regularly it’s added at 0.75x normal rate and so on. It’s a flexible metaphor so go with what works for you/the client

- Amount of water ‘stuck’ in the bottom can change, e.g., lose job so wake up at 50% full for a while

- They can change the vase to a bucket or volcano or similar

- A few clients have used humor and creativity to imagine filling up vases and then throwing them away as a way of letting go, so lots of room for adaptation

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