What We Talk About When We Talk About

To climb out of a mental rut, build up your vocabulary.

- By Ross McCammon

If you can, have breakfast with morning an off-duty psychologist. It's a win-win for the two of you. You get to ask them questions about the human condition preferably at a diner on a gray November as I did with my psychologist/ Phish enthusiast friend and the closest thing I have to a spirit guide, Brien Kelley, Ph.D. And they get to talk to someone about their work. People love talking about their work.

A few minutes in, you'll realize how insufficient your emotional vocabulary is. They push back on terms like grit and wellness. They replace those terms with more-specific phrases. They help you learn to talk about your feelings in a more nuanced-and ultimately more effective way.

"The language stuff matters a lot," says Kelley, who's based in Manhattan, a place that, as I can tell you from experience, is teeming with people who feel emotionally and literally, with regard to the subway-stuck. "There's something about the word stuck that allows you to be in an ongoing state. There's something about it that forecloses further digging. If you replace that with being dissatisfiedthat's a harder word to let stand."