DBT in Practice: Emotion Regulation Skills - Checking the Facts
A few blog posts ago, I wrote about emotional regulation skills, and firstly I spoke about understanding what emotions DO for us (see DBT In Practice – Understanding What Emotions Do For You).
In today’s blog post I want to introduce us to the DBT skills we use to change our emotional responses, there are three of them:
1. Check the Facts – sometimes the emotions we have in a situation may not actually fit the facts, so this skill is all about checking in on whether our beliefs and assumptions about a situation are correct or not
2. Opposite Action – this is a skill for when we decide that our emotions either: do not fit the facts, or acting on our emotions will not be effective
3. Problem solving – this is a skill for when we realise that the facts of the situation are indeed the problem, so if we solve the problem, we will reduce the frequency of the negative emotions that come with the situation
Today I am just going to focus on the first skill, checking the facts! The main idea is that many of our emotions and actions are informed not by the events themselves, but by our interpretation of the events.
For instance, I may feel angry (feeling) and yell (action), because my partner didn’t wash the dishes (event). However, that is based on my interpretation that he doesn’t care about the house, when the facts of the situation were that he got called into work early and couldn’t complete the task.
In a nutshell, our interpretations/thoughts about an event have a bigger impact on our emotions than the actual event itself, so we need to make sure we are acting on the right information.
So how do we check the facts? Now DBT has a very specific way of doing this, but I have edited it a bit for simplicity
1. Ask – what is the emotion that we want to change?
2. Ask – what is the event prompting my emotion? (Remember to describe the FACTS of the situation, what we see through our five senses vs. what we think may be happening)
3. Ask – what are my interpretations, thoughts, and assumptions about the event?
4. Ask – are there ANY OTHER WAYS of seeing this situation?
5. Ask – does my emotion and/or the intensity of my emotion fit the facts?
Let’s go through my above example with my partner not doing the dishes
1. What is my emotion? Anger 10/10
2. What is the event? My partner said that he would do the dishes last night and I have gotten home, and the dishes are still in the sink (remember to be non-judgemental here)
3. What are my interpretations, thoughts, and assumptions? He did this on purpose because he doesn’t care about the house, he forgot to do it because he always forgets to do things, he assumes I am going to do it (see all the judgements here? He did this on purpose, he doesn’t care, he always forgets… It’s important to recognise when we are being judgemental when we don’t know for sure…)
4. Are there any other ways of seeing the situation? It’s possible he might have forgotten, not because he doesn’t care but because I told him to do it while we were watching a movie and he was distracted, it’s possible he is planning on doing it later, it’s possible he had to go to work early, he did mention he had a big project on…
5. Does my emotion and/or the intensity of my emotion fit the facts? My emotion may not fit the facts, I won’t know the reason he hasn’t done the dishes until I ask him, and also the intensity of my emotion is probably too high, perhaps a 5/10 may make sense but a 10/10 is probably a bit too much
So, once I go through this process, I might find that I shouldn’t send the mean message I had constructed, but instead I should just ask him when he gets home!
Take care and as always, remember to practice your skills and ask your individual therapist for help if you need!
