Emotions revealed: recognising facial expressions

How can reading faces be valuable?

In any except the most trivial relationships, how the other person is feeling, and our acknowledgment of that, can make all the difference in the world. For example, if we can recognise that someone is feeling sad--whether it's our child, our spouse, our patient, or a junior doctor--it can be helpful to be able to respond to his or her sadness. If we can identify people's emotions early on, we are better able to deal with people in a variety of situations. We are also better able to manage our own emotional responses to their feelings.

Patients bring a variety of emotions with them when they see you, but you are unlikely to see these emotions fully expressed. Because of their embarrassment, fear, guilt, or shame, patients do not put their emotions into words or into full facial expressions. So you will usually see only subtle traces of these emotions on their faces.

Brief or subtle facial expressions

You do not need to be taught how to spot full facial expressions of emotion, as these are easy to recognise and we already have a natural …