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What are emotion skills?

Emotion Skills: The foundation for therapy and good mental health

Therapy goes faster and feels safer when you can notice feelings, put words to them, and work with them without getting overwhelmed.

These are learnable skills, not personality traits you either have or don’t.

Schedule a callWhat emotion skills include

What we mean by emotion skills

Emotion skills are the practical abilities that help you relate to your inner experience with clarity and care.

Emotional awareness

Noticing internal cues and telling emotions apart (instead of only sensing “something’s wrong”).

Emotion language

Having words for what you feel, so you can think clearly and communicate accurately.

Regulation

Downshifting overwhelm and making room for choice, not forcing yourself to be calm.

Beliefs about emotions

Learning that emotions are signals, not weaknesses, and that you can handle what you feel.

Neurodivergences & Emotion Difficulties

Emotions show up differently across people and neurotypes. This table highlights a few commonly reported patterns of difficulty / strain across domains. When emotional awareness is harder (alexithymia), regulation, executive functioning, and social-emotional inference can get harder too—especially under stress.

Legend:difficulty is common / elevateddifficulty is sometimes present / variabledifficulty is not typicalHover/tap the † symbol to read notes.
ProfileAlexithymiaLow emotional awarenessEmotion dysregulationDysregulation under stressSocial-emotional skill gaps†Difficulty with empathy & perspective-takingExecutive dysfunctionDifficulty with planning, initiation & follow-through
ADHD◐●◐●
Autism (ASD)●●◐◐
AuDHD●●◐●
CEN*●●◐◐
HSP*◐◐◐◐
Trauma / CPTSD●●◐◐
Anxiety / Depression & Perfectionism◐●◐◐
Research references

Selected peer-reviewed sources supporting the main patterns summarized in this table, including the idea that alexithymia (low emotional awareness) can cascade into harder regulation, social-emotional inference, and downstream functioning—especially under stress.

  1. Kinnaird, Stewart, & Tchanturia (2019): Investigating alexithymia in autism: A systematic review and meta-analysis
  2. Bird & Cook (2013): Mixed emotions: the contribution of alexithymia to the emotional symptoms of autism
  3. Craig et al. (2016): Executive functioning in children/adolescents with high-functioning autism: a meta-analysis
  4. Demetriou et al. (2020): Executive function in autistic adults: a meta-analysis
  5. Bora et al. (2013): Meta-analysis of neuropsychological tests in major depressive disorder (incl. executive function)
  6. Scott et al. (2015): A quantitative meta-analysis of neurocognitive functioning in posttraumatic stress disorder
  7. Trevisan et al. (2019): Interoceptive awareness and alexithymia: A meta-analysis distinguishing accuracy vs sensibility
  8. Laloyaux et al. (2015): Evidence of contrasting patterns for suppression vs reappraisal emotion regulation strategies in alexithymia
  9. Kiraz, Sertçelik, & Taycan (2021): Alexithymia and impulsiveness in adults with ADHD (primary study)
  10. Edel et al. (2010): Alexithymia, emotion processing, and social anxiety in adults with ADHD (primary study)
  11. Herpertz et al. (2024): Emotion processing difficulties in ADHD: a Bayesian meta-analysis
  12. Ditzer et al. (2023): Childhood maltreatment and adult alexithymia: a meta-analysis
  13. McDonald et al. (2024): Emotion dysregulation in autism: A meta-analysis
  14. Song et al. (2019): Empathy impairment in autism spectrum conditions from a multidimensional perspective: A meta-analysis
  15. Milton (2012): On the ontological status of autism: The “double empathy problem”
  16. Crompton et al. (2020): Neurotype-matching (not autistic status) influences ratings of interpersonal rapport
  17. Di Tella et al. (2024): On the relationship between alexithymia and social cognition: A systematic review
  18. Beheshti et al. (2020): Emotion dysregulation in adults with ADHD: a meta-analysis
  19. Edwards (2022): Posttraumatic stress and alexithymia: A meta-analysis of presentation and severity
  20. Khan & Jaffee (2022): Alexithymia in individuals maltreated as children and adolescents: a meta-analysis
  21. Somerville et al. (2024): Emotion controllability beliefs and young people’s anxiety and depression: A systematic review
  22. Acevedo et al. (2018): Sensory processing sensitivity brain circuits review
  23. Network-based meta-analysis of sensory processing sensitivity (2025): Relations with personality/temperament traits

† In this table, “difficulty reading emotion / empathy” refers to how easy it is to read cues and infer what someone might be feeling/meaning (emotion recognition and perspective-taking), not how much someone cares. This domain is also harder to measure and comparatively under-researched, so the notes are meant to add nuance and reduce overgeneralization.

* CEN (Childhood Emotional Neglect) is an experience; HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) is a temperament trait. They’re included because support needs often overlap with neurodivergent profiles.

Want a gentle way to build these?

We can help you practice noticing, naming, and working with emotions, in a way that feels steady, not performative.

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