What a Nominalization Is
A nominalization is a process word that has been turned into a thing word. A verb frozen into a noun. “To relate” becomes “a relationship.” “To decide” becomes “a decision.” “To frustrate” becomes “frustration.” The process—which was alive, moving, involving specific people doing specific things—gets packaged into a static object. And once it’s an object, it feels fixed, solid, and unchangeable.
The test for a nominalization is simple: can you put it in a wheelbarrow? You can put a chair in a wheelbarrow. You can’t put “a relationship” in a wheelbarrow. “Relationship” sounds like a thing, but it’s actually a process—two people relating to each other in specific ways, moment by moment. The noun disguises the verb.
How Nominalizations Trap You
When a process becomes a thing, you lose three critical pieces of information: who is doing what, to whom, and how. And you lose something even more important: the sense that it can change.
“Our relationship is broken.”
This sentence treats “relationship” as an object that can be broken—like a vase. If it’s broken, it’s broken. What can you do? But de-nominalize it: “The way we’re relating to each other isn’t working.” Now it’s a process. Processes can be changed. The way we relate can be adjusted, experimented with, improved. The static object becomes a live action.
More examples of nominalizations trapping people:
- “My depression is getting worse.” Depression as a thing you have, like a disease object sitting on your chest. De-nominalized: “The way I’m depressing myself is intensifying.” Now there’s an agent (I), a process (depressing), and the possibility of doing it differently.
- “I need more motivation.” Motivation as a substance you’re running low on. De-nominalized: “I need to find what moves me to act.” Now it’s about discovery, not acquisition.
- “There’s no communication in this team.” Communication as a missing resource. De-nominalized: “The people on this team aren’t communicating with each other about [what].” Now it’s specific, actionable, and solvable.
This is the Meta-Model perspective on nominalizations: they’re deletions that hide the process and its details. The Meta-Model response is to de-nominalize—to turn the thing back into a verb and recover the missing information. “Who is doing what, to whom, and how?”
How Nominalizations Empower You
Here’s where it gets interesting. Everything above is the Meta-Model view: nominalizations are bad, de-nominalize them, recover the specifics. But the Milton Model takes the opposite position: nominalizations are extraordinarily useful precisely because they’re vague.
When Milton Erickson said “You can begin to experience a deep sense of comfort and learning,” every word in italics is a nominalization. “Comfort” and “learning” are frozen processes. But because they’re frozen—because the specifics have been deleted—the listener fills in the gaps with their own meaning. Their comfort. Their learning. Erickson’s vague language becomes the listener’s precise experience.
This is the paradox of nominalizations: the same vagueness that traps people in the Meta-Model context frees them in the Milton Model context. The difference is direction:
- When someone uses a nominalization to describe a problem (“my frustration,” “our failure”), the vagueness hides the process and prevents change. De-nominalize.
- When you use a nominalization to deliver a suggestion (“a sense of peace,” “a new understanding”), the vagueness invites the listener to create their own specific experience. Nominalize deliberately.
Strategic Use of Nominalizations
In Therapy and Coaching
De-nominalize problem statements to unfreeze them. “Your anxiety” becomes “the way you’re making yourself anxious”—which immediately creates agency and changeability. Then use nominalizations in the solution frame: “As you develop a new sense of confidence and ease...” Let the client fill in what confidence and ease mean for them.
In Presentations
Use nominalizations when you want the audience to project their own experience onto your words. “This product delivers real innovation and value” works precisely because “innovation” and “value” mean different things to different listeners—and each listener hears their own meaning. De-nominalize when you need specificity: “Here’s exactly how this saves you three hours per week.”
In Self-Talk
Notice when your internal dialogue uses nominalizations that feel heavy and fixed: “my failure,” “this disaster,” “my inability.” De-nominalize them: “the way I failed at this specific attempt,” “what went wrong in this specific situation,” “what I haven’t yet learned to do.” The shift from object to process is the shift from stuck to movable.
In Influence
When you want people to agree with you, use nominalizations. “We all want success, growth, and excellence” is almost impossible to disagree with—because every listener defines those words differently and agrees with their own definition. When you want people to act specifically, de-nominalize. “We need to increase revenue by 15% this quarter by closing three new enterprise accounts.”
Discussion