That’s called labeling.

Give someone’s emotion a name and you show you identify with how that person feels. Think of labeling as a shortcut to intimacy, a time-saving emotional hack.

Labeling has a special advantage when your counterpart is tense:

Exposing negative thoughts to daylight “It looks like you don’t want to go back to jail” – makes them seem less frightening.

-Never split the difference, p.54