Six Exercises for Emotional Freedom: Ways to Build Confidence In Yourself

The Practical Legacy of Andrew Salter, Still Relevant 77 Years Later

Everything old eventually becomes new again as we rediscover, remix, re-interrupt fashions, ideas, music and stories. Psychotherapy isn't immune to this - new ideas presented as revolutions can always be traced back to the foundations of what has gone before - sometimes as an evolution, sometimes as a reaction. The foundations of modern therapy were developed by therapists such as Andrew Salter in the 1940/50, and even these can

be traced further back. I wrote an earlier post looking at the influence that can still be felt in how therapy is practised today - The Forgotten Rebel: Andrew Salter and the Foundations of Modern Therapy.

In this post i'll be exploring the 6 exercises he presented in Conditioned Reflex Therapy - still very relevant, still relatable to the language we use today, still as practical and easy to use in your everyday life as when first introduced nearly 80 years ago. You aren't going out of your way and having to find time to fill out a thorough record, being asked to practice mindfulness for 30 minutes every day on top of your already busy life or leaving a 50-minute session feeling a bit undone - not knowing exactly what to do with that "undoneness". These 6 exercises are for you to do, now, in the next interaction you have and the one after that.

And if 6 new things to do seem daunting - don't get too caught up. It's important to note that you do not have to do all of the exercises, pick one and focus on that, they feed into each other and by doing one, you will naturally start to do the others. I've seen really positive results from a client just using exercise 5 - agree with praise. Have you ever received a compliment and the rejection of it is not just mental but physical/painful, the idea that another person can view you positively - "nope, no, never"? That reflexive reaction to reject, to protect, to close off can be hard to overcome, but just moving towards acceptance (a very relevant and current idea you may have or will come across in therapy) can move you towards change.

Exercise 1: Feelings Talk

Say what you feel, when you feel it.

Most of us have learned, for some very good reasons, to put a filter between what we feel and what we say. This filter keeps us safe, avoids confrontation, doesn't step on anyone's toes, and keeps us under the radar. However, it also keeps us stuck and moving away from our feelings.

Feelings Talk is not about dumping your emotional state on everyone around you. It is about removing that automatic suppression you feel and the habit of saying "I'm fine" when you are not. If you notice the barrier between what you are saying when the words leave your mouth and what you are actually feeling. It's also not about just saying you feel "crap", "embarrassed", "hurt" - you might also have an automatic suppression of "excited", "happy", "pleased".

What it looks like in practice:

Someone cancels plans at the last minute for the third time. Your normal response might be to say "no worries", but you feel inside irritated, your internal self-talk is not so kind or accommodating. The feelings talk response might be "I feel frustrated when you repeatedly cancel plans — this keeps happening, and it matters to me."

Notice the difference between "you keep letting me down" and "I feel let down". The first locates the problem in the other person. The second locates it in your experience and your feelings — calming ownership and sense of yourself in the moment.

Try it:  Think of a situation this week where you felt something and said nothing, or said something other than what you felt. What was the feeling? What would you have said if the filter wasn't there?

Now turn that into a new statement of what you will say the next time - say it out loud.

"I feel/felt________because________"

Exercise 2: Face Talk

Let your face say what you feel.

Before we suppress a feeling in words, we suppress it in expression. We might force a smile, or have developed the most neutral of neutral looks that's impossible to read, letting the person talking to us know they cannot get to us.

And then you might have come across people in your life who wear every emotion on their face; there is no doubt when they are annoyed, anxious, excited, or joyful. This can feel both strange (why aren't you hiding!) and reassuring (I know exactly where I stand).

Face Talk is the practice of being this second type of person and allowing your facial expression to match your internal state, and like feelings talk, removing that automatic suppression of expression.

This one is harder than it sounds, because most of us have been managing our facial expressions for so long that we have stopped noticing we are doing it, so this exercise starts with awareness.

What it looks like in practice:

You are in a meeting, and someone presents an idea you find less than convincing, you nod along, your face says engaged and open, the look you have practised as you try not to repeat in your head "don't say he's an idiot, don't say he's an idiot" Face Talk doesn't mean scowling at your colleague — it means allowing a degree of honest expression rather than performing a response you don't feel.

Try it: Find a mirror and think of something that genuinely frustrated you recently. Let the feeling of frustration show on your face just to see what it looks like when you stop managing it. Then think of something that genuinely pleased you, and now, that practised neutral look. The gap between what you feel and what your face has been showing is the inhibition.

And now, when you're next in a conversation, and you feel yourself tense into that neutral look or forced smile, stop yourself and relax into how you actually feel.

Exercise 3: I Talk

Own your feelings and views with the word "I."

This is the exercise with the most direct lineage into modern assertivness traning. The goal is to shift impersonal or accusatory language to first-person ownership of experience. Not "that was a bad idea" but "I don't think that will work." Not "you make me anxious" but "I feel anxious when this happens."

By shifting to what the "I" is you automatically and speaking in the first person requires you to locate the feeling in yourself rather than in the other person or in the situation. That act of location — I feel this — is the beginning of the capacity to do something about it.

What it looks like in practice:

"You never listen to me" becomes "I feel unheard when I'm interrupted."

"This job is impossible" becomes "I feel overwhelmed by the workload right now."

"You made me feel stupid" becomes "I felt embarrassed when that happened."

The actual feeling is the same in each example however, now you have made that feeling yours.

Try it: Think of the last time you used a "you" statement — out loud or in your head. Write it down. Now rewrite it as an "I" statement using the structure: "I feel... when... because..."

Exercise 4: Contradict and Attack

Disagree from feeling, not from reason.

This one might feel like the most uncomfortable before you have even read any further. Especially if you have spent any amount of time on internet in recent years and "feelings" being used to take the place of facts, it becomes a weapon not an opportunity to learn something about the world or yourself.

This is a very important point to draw out of this, however, no matter how much we are presented with "facts" and know something to be true, unless we also feel it is true, there will always be a barrier. Have you ever been told you are good at something, been given really positive feedback, presented with a piece of paper that says "Certificate of Confirmation You Know Your Shit, no really, it's dated and has signatures " but still have a feeling that you're a fraud or it must be wrong.

What we can do is use this "feeling of something being wrong" as information - we might not have a logical case, the evidence presented might show a different picture - the feeling of "wrongness" is still there, however, potentially unexpressed because you haven't been able to work out why it's wrong and been able to form a fully realised argument. So it's not about using a feeling to be entrenched in a belief, but to reconcile contradictory information you have been presented with.

"This doesn't feel right to me" is a complete sentence that could lead to a discussion about why it doesn't feel right. "I'm not comfortable with this" doesn't require justification or an immediate response if someone says "why".

What it looks like in practice:

You are having a conversation and someone says something that lands badly - it might feel dismissive, or they made an assumption that feels wrong, something about the plan just feels...off, but you can't put your finger on it. You don't have the argument ready, just the feeling, but Contradict and Attack is about saying it anyway.

"I don't agree with that." 

"Something about this feels off to me." 

"I'm not sure - this just doesn't sit right."

Just the act of expressing the feeling begins to clarify it - if it feels off to you, others in the room might be feeling the same but held back because they couldn't articulate - but it can often be the case that the 'why' of the feeling arrives long after the 'what' - trust your gut.

Try it: Think of a recent situation where you disagreed but stayed quiet because you couldn't articulate why. What would you have said if you had allowed yourself to speak from the feeling rather than waiting for the argument?

Remember: this is not about ruminating about having the perfect argument that would have made everything make sense, three words is enough: 'this feels wrong.'

Exercise 5: Agree with Praise

Accept compliments without flinching.

This is the exercise that tends to produce the most recognition — and the most resistance.

Salter identified the inability to receive positive feedback as a conditioned inhibitory response. Not a character trait, not modesty, not humility. A learned suppression of a natural positive reaction, repeated so many times it has become automatic.

The pattern is familiar: someone says something genuinely kind. You deflect. "Oh it was nothing." "I just got lucky." "You're too kind." Or you dismiss it internally even if you manage to say thank you — you don't believe it, you assume they're being polite, you find a reason the praise doesn't count.

Salter's point was that this is the same mechanism as all the other inhibitory patterns — and it responds to the same intervention. Practice receiving it. Practice saying thank you and meaning it. Practice the assumption that when someone offers you positive feedback, they are doing what you do when you offer it to someone else: meaning it sincerely.

What it looks like in practice: Someone tells you that you handled a difficult situation well.

The inhibited response is to minimise — "I don't know, I think I could have done better." 

The excitatory response is to receive it — "Thank you, that means a lot." Full stop. No qualifier.

Try it: Think of the last compliment you received. What did you do with it? Did you accept it or deflect it? If you deflected it — what would it have felt like to just say thank you and let it land?

Exercise 6: Improvise

Act before you have talked yourself out of it.

The final exercise is about decisiveness — specifically, about overcoming the internal self-talk ("i can't do this", "don't embarras yourself", "they'll think i'm stupid") or the tense anxious feeling that makes you stomach gurgle, feel like you have an anvil on your chest or traps your words deep in the back of your throat — that stops you from acting.

Take your first instinctual, gut reaction and go with it rather than staying on a seesaw of indecision. The internal conflict can be exhausting and it produces worse outcomes than a committed, imperfect choice.

Improvise is the practice of acting on the first thing that feels right, or when two options present themselves, choosing the one that serves you better at that moment and committing to it. You are allowed to change your mind. You are allowed to be wrong. What you are not allowed — under Salter's framework — is to remain paralysed indefinitely because no option is perfect.

What it looks like in practice:

You are asked a question you haven't prepared for. The inhibited response is to hedge, stall, or offer qualifications until you have cycled though all of the forseable options (and some not so foreseable) to get the "right" answer. The response I want you to practice is to to trust that your instinctive response has value, that it doesn't need to be polished before it is allowed to exist.

Try it: In the next conversation you have today, notice the moment before you speak — the half-second where you started to edit. Let one thing out unedited and see what happens.

Alternatively recall a recent conversation where you “froze” or played it safe. What did you want to say but didn’t? Say it outloud now, dont hesitate, just say the words.

The Daily Practice

When Andrew Salter worked with clients, he didn't just offer exercises; he wanted people to live an uninhibited life led from feelings, undoing the learned and self-imposed barriers that stop us from doing and being.

The structure he suggested:

Before the day begins, spend five minutes mentally rehearsing being more open and assertive (the word he used was "excitory") — imagining specific situations and seeing yourself respond with feeling, directness, and spontaneity.

During the day, notice other people being assertive or inhibited. Observe your own responses. Make deliberate efforts to use the exercises — I Talk, Feelings Talk, Face Talk, accepting praise, disagreeing with feelings, and improvising.

At the end of the day, don't do a post-mortem or replay every interaction and grade yourself, this can just be a way to beat yourself up or negatively evaluate yourself - it is always easier to find our own flaws than find your successes! Review briefly — where were you more assertive than usual? Acknowledge it. Where would you have liked to respond differently? Rehearse that response once, and move on.

Why This Still Matters

The DNA of these six exercises can be found in modern therapy, the emotional literacy of work of owning your feelings, in your body (somatic awareness), the self compassion of accepting and the willingness to act without certainty.

The words mindfulness or cognitive defusion or self-compassion weren't yet everyday terms (for therapist at least) but he did have ways to put these into practice, written in plain language, that you can start today.

As stated at the start of this post, you don't have to do all of the exercises but if you don't know where to start - say one thing you actually feel, today, to someone who is present when you feel it.

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Want to work with me

If any of this has resonated and you are looking for CBT and hypnotherapy for anxiety in Leicester, Hinckley, or online across the UK, I offer a free 20-minute initial chat — no obligation, just a conversation.

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About Martin Middleton

Martin Middleton is a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist based near Leicester and Hinckley, integrating CBT with Hypnotherapy and drawing on Donald Meichenbaum's resilience framework to support clients in moving from surviving to thriving. He offers sessions online across the UK and in person.