Objective Analysis
A cognitive skill designed to help people separate their subjective interpretations of an event from the observable facts of the event. This technique trains people to describe situations strictly in terms of reality – free from judgment, evaluation, or assumption.
This method overlaps with the Stoic practice of objective representation, cognitive distancing (CBT), cognitive defusion (acceptance and commitment therapy), nonjudgmental stance (DBT), and mindfulness-based approaches. It incorporates reality testing to check the accuracy of what someone perceives about the world around them and if their thinking is correct or in error.
Purpose: To learn how to interrupt reactionary automatic evaluations of an event or something perceived (e.g., a thought, mental image, or feeling-sensation); to reduce thinking errors and self-imposed emotional distress; and to ground one’s attention in reality before appraising a situation and attributing meaning to it to help reduce emotional reactivity.
Interrupt the Pattern: The common pattern people do is perceive an event or thought, and then they react to it with an automatic judgment, belief, or assumption, and then they ascribe that meaning to the situation. The individual is creating the evaluation and then reacting as if it is true. It may or may not be. So, that pattern needs to be interrupted.
Overview: Pause and identify what is objectively true about the situation. What can you know and verify? Use objective language… and then stop there. Period. This suspends attributing meaning, creating assumptions, or making value-judgments. There is no comma after a fact – it is a period. Then ask, what is within my control in this situation? Frustration arises when we try to control something that we cannot; when we want things to be different than they are. The emphasis is on separating objective facts from our interpretations, judgments, and assumptions, and then acting on them.
“It is not things themselves that disturb people, but their judgments about those things.”
(Epictetus, Enchiridion, 5)
Objective Analysis Steps
- The first step is to describe the situation using neutral, factual language.
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- Then stop. Enunciate a period – say it out loud. Take a breath. Then describe the event again as you just did in step one. Pause. Take a breath. You are suspending judgment and not creating any meaning at this time.
- Distinguish between what you can and cannot control and focus on what you can control – your intended behaviors (i.e., your intended thoughts, feelings, actions, and responses in the present moment). Accept the things that are not within your control; if you try to control what you cannot, then resistance builds, and you frustrate yourself.
- Acknowledge uncertainty when appropriate. There are things you do not know – that is a natural and very realistic part of life. It is outside your control to know everything.
- Evaluate the situation and be curious. You can decide how to view the situation by becoming interested and seeking different possibilities that might explain the situation. Curiosity suspends judgment because you are in a state of wonder and exploration – your mind has not been made up yet; you are still gathering information.
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
(Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 13.4)