Briefly Noted: Neopathonyms

We need more emotion words. The classic six-pack of anger, fear, sadness, joy, disgust, and surprise doesn’t cut it. Even the dozens on a therapist’s feelings wheel can’t always capture the unique layers of what we actually feel.

Emotions aren’t hardwired. They don’t live in some neural circuit waiting to be activated. They’re constructed. Decades of affective neuroscience have shown that our brains assemble emotions in real time, combining bodily sensations with context, memory, and meaning to generate a feeling that fits the moment.

Why does that matter? Because the more precisely we can name what we’re feeling, the better we tend to cope, connect, and regulate. People with high emotional granularity are more flexible, less reactive, and physically healthier. Naming our emotions precisely expands our range of feeling and opens up more ways to experience what’s happening. That flexibility keeps us from getting stuck in the same painful feelings over and over, treating every situation like it calls for the same response, even when it doesn’t.

I see this a lot with male clients in recovery. The word resentment comes up regularly and becomes a catch-all for anything uncomfortable: anger, disappointment, irritation, betrayal. But the problem with a catch-all is that it tends to pull for a catch-all response. If everything gets labeled as resentment, the body learns one move: stew, withdraw, write about it, decide it is what it is, and move on. But without naming the more granular experience, the resentment just keeps repeating.

When a client starts to tease apart more subtle possibilities—I was annoyed with her; I felt dismissed by him; I was hurt, not just mad—they start to respond differently. More range, more clarity, more choice.

It's like the way a painter doesn’t just see “blue.” They see cobalt, indigo, cerulean, slate. When we can feel our emotions at that level of specificity, we have more choice in how we experience and respond to them.

And here’s the fun part. If emotions are built, not born, then we get to make up new ones whenever the old labels fall short.

I’ve started calling these invented emotion words neopathonyms, like neologisms, but for feelings, because I’m a nerd: the kind of nerd who likes making up words (see: this whole note).

Here’s an example. It’s one coined by neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, a leading voice in affective neuroscience, from her book How Emotions Are Made (2017):

“Imagine the feeling of reaching into a bag of potato chips and discovering that the previous chip you ate was the last one.”

It’s part disappointment, part relief, part guilt, and still a little hungry. She named it chiplessness.

That’s the kind of emotional texture I’m talking about. A feeling so specific and familiar that once you name it, it sticks, even if only for yourself.

Got a neopathonym of your own? I’d love to hear it.