Therapists today help their clients objectify pain in this way by attributing an arbitrary shape or color to it, such as a black circle. This technique, called “physicalizing” the feeling, can help you picture it in your mind’s eye, from a detached perspective, at a particular location in the body. You might even think of yourself as looking at physical pain or another symptom of illness through a glass window, separating the body from the mind, or imagining the pain as temporarily outside of the body on the other side of the room.
