Self-Distancing (psychological distancing)

Introduction

Executive functioning refers to a set of cognitive abilities and behaviours predominantly controlled by the frontal lobe of the brain, ie

• goal direction and planning behaviour
• inhibiting ‘knee-jerk’ or emotional responses
• monitoring behaviour and correcting mistakes
• changing behaviour in response to a change in the environment.

Self-distancing is an example of an executive function:

• Shifting (the abilities to rotate or divert our attention to another aspect of a problem or to change our focus from one item to another are very important for self-distancing.)
• Response inhibition (the ability to restrain our initial emotional response to a particular situation helps us to create self-distance. Additionally, by preventing ourselves from acting on our initial emotional response, we can respond differently.)
• Updating (this process refers to our ability to update the information that we are using and focusing on during a particular situation. Specifically, after shifting our attention and inhibiting our initial response, we can reassess the available information in the current context and decide what remains important and what is no longer valuable.)

(for more detail, see other parts of the Knowledge Base)

Self-distancing has been described as

“…Ability to step back and without an immediate response, survey that environment, and reflect on the course of action instead of being dominated by immediate stimulus…”

Giesbrecht et al as quoted by Alicia Nortje, 2020

It is a cognitive strategy in which a person shifts perspective from immersed (“I’m in this problem”) to observational (“I’m watching this situation from the outside”).

It involves increasing the psychological distance between you and the event so that emotions involved in extreme stress, anxiety, sadness, anger, etc are not allowed to dominate.

It helps people:

• Reduce emotional reactivity, eg sometimes we are in a situation where

“… - Our emotions prevent us from seeing the big picture and responding appropriately; for example:

• We might feel swept away by our emotions, leading us to say or do hurtful things.
• We might feel paralyzed by our feelings, and we’re unable to move past the emotion.
• We might make bad decisions because we lose sight of the bigger picture…”

Alicia Nortje, 2020

• Think more objectively
• Regulate stress and uncertainty
• Make wiser, longer-term decisions
• Break patterns of defensiveness, fear and blame.

Self-distancing is when people take a “fly on the wall” or “helicopter” perspective; they are less overwhelmed by emotions and more able to reflect constructively.

Typical cues you are not self-distancing

• “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”
• “They are attacking me.”
• “Everything is chaotic.”
• “I’m failing at this change.”

What self-distancing looks like

• “What would an external consultant see happening here?”
• “How would I explain this situation to a friend?”
• “How will this look in six months?”
• “What message is the team actually trying to send?”

It moves you from reacting to leading.

Streams of self-distancing

There are 3 main streams of self-distancing

“…1. Psychological distancing can refer to the temporal distancing of events in time. For example, events in the distant future are treated differently compared with events in the near future…….

2.  Psychological distancing describes our ability to separate ourselves from people whom we dislike. Specifically, we create space between ourselves and someone else who we perceive as undesirable……

3. Psychological distancing is rooted in developmental psychology and describes how children create space between their actions and their immediate environment……

Together, they suggest the same thing: increasing the distance between ourselves and something else so that we can change the way we approach and think about the current situation…”

Alicia Nortje, 2020

NB You step away from a situation or position so that you can gain perspective. Some examples:

• using a long-term perspective can help define goals and make deadlines better
• helps weaken the clutch of negative emotions so when you are upset you realise what is happening and this might not justify the intense, immediate emotional reaction you initially felt

(main source: Alicia Nortje, 2020)