In psychotherapy, when new elements emerge from the unconscious and in transit to the consciousness, some patients are emotionally more upset. Emotional disturbance is given by chemical, nervous, visceral, muscular, bone responses, as part of a bioregulatory process. The emotional disturbance is a request of the organism to adapt to a new internal organization. It is expressed, in addition to words, with a nonverbal language: tonality of the voice, postural graduation, gestures, movement of breathing, dry mouth or dry lips, shades of colors of the face, with eye movements, with silence, smells released, feeling warm or cold...

Some patients respond to emotional disturbance by activating the sympathetic system; but an excited prolonged activation of the sympathetic can awaken a stress process. Sympathetic innervation can increase or decrease an inflammation.

Nonverbal language can reveal how the patient responds intimately to these bioregulatory processes, what channels of his sensitivity he uses, how he interacts with these transiting symptoms.

Since ancient times, man has tried to read or decipher this language.

I suppose that this nonverbal language can become a valuable indicator and detector tool in the anamnesis and in psychotherapy.

I will illustrate this hypothesis with some cases from my clinical practice. 

In the psychotherapy I practice, I integrate, at every therapeutic meeting, an experience of deep relaxation. The initial purpose is to allow the patient to turn inward, to experience a state of calm, quieting the mind and stimulating the vague nerve, thus learning to perceive some nonverbal signals within, leaving room for listening. A calm mind stimulates the autonomic nervous system in connection with other organs of the body, counteracts stress, increasing parasympathetic activities and changing behavior.

I have noticed that patients have the opportunity to express emotions that can be interpreted as condensed traces of past conflicts, memories, images of psychological and/or physical trauma - belonging to different periods of their lives - perinatal experiences, that are expressed with decreased activation of the sympathetic.

In this way, gradually, other new elements can be accepted. This allows us to feel more able to accept - also as a lifestyle - the different, the other from ourselves. It also strengthens the ability to adapt; opens the possibility of making other experiences of inner peace, activating the benefit given by the parasympathetic nervous system.