#44: Working with Judgments
Today, we take a deep dive into working with judgments.
Judgments about ourselves and others can increase emotional suffering and negatively impact relationships. Judgments are often assumptions, interpretations, or myths that we add to the facts. We then tend to mistake our judgments for facts.
This episode explores how to notice all of the subtle and often habitual ways judgments show up, as well as how to shift into a nonjudgmental stance.
Show Highlights
- Using nonjudgmental language helps provide a more accurate assessment of things
- Working on reducing judgments is not about getting rid of discrimination, discernment, or analyzing
- Judgments tend to be too broad and don’t give you a path forward
- Judgments about ourselves are major pain points
- Notice your patterns around judgments – what situations do you tend to react to in a judgmental way?
- Get factual by focusing on the senses: what did you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell
- Get factual by focusing on the who, what, when, and where
- Describing consequences and emotions without judgments
- Emotions aren’t judgments
- Describing things without judgments brings down distress and helps you get into Wise Mind
- Pay attention to judgmental voice tone and body language
- Being nonjudgmental doesn’t mean we don’t describe negative consequences
- Trying to put yourself in someone else’s shoes when judgments of others come up
DBT Skills Discussed
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#44: Working with Judgments Transcript
Marielle Berg
Hello and welcome to The Skillful Podcast, where we explore DBT and RO-DBT skills to help you reduce emotional suffering, improve your relationships, and become more present in your life. I’m your host, Marielle Berg, a psychotherapist at the Bay Area DBT and Couples Counseling Center.
Marielle Berg
Hi, Ed, welcome.
Ed Fowler
Hi Marielle.
Marielle Berg
Today we are going to be talking about working with judgments.
Marielle Berg
When we first started the podcast now, a couple years ago, I know we did an episode on the How skills, which in DBT, are part of our Mindfulness skills. And so there’s three How skills. There’s nonjudgmentally, one mindfully, and effectively,
Marielle Berg
Ed and I were talking and we decided that it would be a good time to take a deep dive into each of these skills and flesh them out more. And we thought we would start with judgments. Because this is one of the things that I feel it trips people up so much and can create so much emotional reactivity. And it’s something that we spend a lot of time in our groups talking about, about how you know how to be nonjudgmental, and why we want to work on noticing and reducing our judgments.
Ed Fowler
And I find that being conscious of judgments can be really helpful in reframing things in a way that is going to reduce stress and pressure, and intensity. And it’s hard to notice judgments where I think human beings tend to think in terms of judgments and there can be value in that.
Ed Fowler
And at the same time judgments can really stress us out more, so learning how to pay attention to judgments without judging the judging, and just notice and try to reframe, can be really helpful in reducing distress and being more present in the moment, which is why this falls under our Mindfulness category.
Marielle Berg
We’re not talking about judgments here that are more about discrimination, like the positive kind of discrimination, or maybe what I mean by that is more like discernment or analyzing. Because that is, you know, that’s some people’s jobs, people are trained and paid to discern or analyze between things in terms of value. So this could be, you know, judges in a court of law or any kind of judge, you know, at the Olympics, or any kind of competition. And their job is to figure out who is the best of the bunch.
Marielle Berg
Or something like a jeweler or an art or antique dealer, they also make judgments about whether a stone is real, or whether you know, painting is genuine or not. So we’re not talking about those kinds of judgments or discernments. We need those in life. They don’t, I mean, they might increase emotional reactivity, if you find out that a treasured antique is worth nothing. But those aren’t usually the kind of judgments that create problems for folks, what we’re talking about here are the kinds of judgments that evaluate things, evaluate ourselves, or others or certain circumstances as kind of good or bad, or worthy or not, or valuable or not.
Ed Fowler
I think you’re making a nice distinction between judgments which are a part of life, and the way we think about judgments as something that can be difficult, which is the good or bad, all or nothing, that can be unhelpful. And this is where non judgmentalness is a Mindfulness skill.
Ed Fowler
Because if we’re trying to be aware and present in the moment, judgments of good or bad can take us out of the moment. And so we’re looking for, you know, this opportunity to really be factual. So when I think about nonjudgmentalness, I think about getting factual, as opposed to any other approach to judgments, which again, there’s many different ways to think about and apply judgments.
Marielle Berg
Yes, and very often our evaluations or judgments are things that we add to the facts that are really based on our opinions, or personal values. Maybe myths we have about ourselves or others, or just ideas we have in our mind. There. There’s something we add to the facts. And then we often mistake those judgments to be facts. So if we have decided that a friend of ours is selfish, and we say that to ourselves enough, then we begin to assume that that is a fact whether or not we actually have evidence to support that.
Ed Fowler
And this is where judgments can take us off track, because, oh, he’s just selfish, doesn’t give us actionable information. Okay, maybe the person tends to be self selfish. And it’s judgmental to assume that if a person has a quality, that it’s all encompassing, he’s always selfish. But maybe they tend to be selfish.
Ed Fowler
But in this circumstance, what’s bothering me, what do I want to be different? What would I like him to do that’s different? “He’s just selfish” doesn’t give me anything to work with. And so noticing that add added judgment of selfishness can take us off track and limit our options for how to address the situation. So we want to be paying attention to those offhand, unexamined judgments that are too broad, and not specific and can make the situation more challenging to deal with.
Marielle Berg
Yes, and we’ll go into this more. In a little bit, I think when we talk in more detail about how to actually practice being nonjudgmental, but I think it’s just important to highlight what you said, Ed, in terms of when we have those blanket statements about people or about ourselves, that are negative, it doesn’t give us a lot of information, it doesn’t give us a lot to work with. So what exactly is making us feel or think that so and so is selfish and kind of breaking it down. And getting more detail, which can really help us figure out if there’s a way to move forward or make some change.
Marielle Berg
I’m hoping as we’re talking that listeners are thinking about their own relationship to judgments in their lives. So some of the most painful places that people can get stuck, and I certainly get stuck here at times too, are judgments about ourselves. We’re not good enough somehow, we’re falling short, whatever the judgments might be. And this is such a emotionally fraught place to be and can make us feel really stuck. Maybe we should spend just a little bit of time talking about self judgments.
Ed Fowler
And with judgments in general, like the tip off for me, is extreme language. So I always do that. I’ll never get that right. I’m terrible. I’m sorry, I’m so stupid, like, kind of extreme language is a tip off that we veered into judgments that are probably not all encompassing in the way “I always do that” implies. And because judgments are a part of life, and human beings do this, and we always will, if we’re not conscious of it, then all of a sudden, it’s like, oh, I always do that. Well, if I always do that, then I have no options. What can I do? There’s no way to change that. And now I’m feeling stuck.
Ed Fowler
And so we want to look for the extreme language. That’s the tip off, that I might be in judgment, especially about ourselves. That’s where I think it is easiest for us to fall into the shorthand that isn’t helpful.
Marielle Berg
And so we have these shorthand blanket statements about ourselves, certainly. You know, I’m a slob I’m lazy, I’m stupid, that is such, unfortunately, a common one. And then we also have judgments about others, which can really affect relationships in negative ways. And so thinking about how how you judge yourself versus how you judge others. Maybe also thinking about how you feel when you sense you’re being judged by others. I don’t think any of us really like that, it usually feels pretty uncomfortable.
Marielle Berg
And maybe also, how do you feel when you hear others judging others? I mean, sometimes there can be this sort of sense of bonding, which feels like it has a more negative quality around judging others can also feel very uncomfortable. So these are all different ways that judgments can come up that I think are useful to, for listeners to kind of reflect on, when you’re thinking about how judgments show up in your life and where you might like to make some change around judgments.
Ed Fowler
And I think that people can fall into a pattern of judgment. So for instance, some people tend to be really judgemental of other people, and even more judgmental of themselves. Where other people are not judgmental about other people at all, like it’s really like, but they’re very self-judgmental. It’s my fault, it must have been me, I must have done something.
Ed Fowler
So noticing our own patterns around judgments – do we tend to get really judgmental in this kind of extreme all or nothing blanket statement language around particular people, particular situations, towards ourselves more than others, when particular topics come up? Do we have certain reactions that tend to be judgmental? And so noticing our own patterns around judgments can help us recognize when to be on alert for those and start to shift them.
Marielle Berg
Because so often, we’re not very conscious, it can be pretty habitual, it can be sort of this running background noise, judging ourselves judging others. And it can really have a negative impact on our emotions. If you’re in an intensely judgmental place about yourself or someone else, or a situation, you can be pretty certain that your Subjective Units of Distress, your emotional level of upsetness will, will rise.
Marielle Berg
And so that’s why we spend so much time in DBT, talking about judgments and trying to notice them and replace judgments with being nonjudgmental. And so there, there are ways to do this and different kinds of things to keep in mind when you want to practice being nonjudgmental.
Marielle Berg
One other thing I want to say before we go into how to actually do it. And we’ve been talking some kind of weaving in how to actually do this in our conversation, but we’re going to go into it some more. The point isn’t necessarily to replace negative judgments, like I’m so awful with I’m so great, with positive judgments. Although positive judgments don’t cause us the same kind of emotional suffering. It’s more to stick with the facts and not kind of add or embellish.
Ed Fowler
Yeah, I think that, for me, the way I think about nonjudgmentalness is getting factual. Making an effort to get factual and put aside opinions, interpretations, assumptions, generalities, and just try to get factual, because for me, when I think about judgments, I consider them to be like fuel to the fire of distress. So if I’m feeling frustrated with myself, because I’ve made a mistake, and then I add on top of it, you always do this, you’re never going to grow out of this, then the frustration with that mistake is now intensified.
Ed Fowler
And so that’s the value of trying to notice judgments and practice getting factual is we can get into the facts of I made a mistake, I’m feeling frustrated with that mistake, as opposed to I made a mistake, and I always do it, I’m never going to change, which then the distress is just going up. And we’re out of Wise Mind, more in Emotion Mind, and it is harder to deal with what we’re struggling with.
Marielle Berg
Yes, and some ways to help you just stick with the facts, is to describe the facts of a situation or event. By focusing only on what you’ve observed with your senses, so what you see what you hear, what you smell, taste and touch, that is a good starting point. To help you figure out: am I sticking with the facts?
Ed Fowler
Another way to think about it is looking for the who, what, when and where, and not the why. Because the why can veer into judgments, right? But just who did what, when and where. Again, like with, you know, attending to what did I observe with my sense is, what are the facts who, what, when and where that gets us into the details, without anything extra.
Marielle Berg
And when you’re doing this, you can also think about describing the consequences, the consequences of the event of something you did or something that happened, and again, keeping to the facts.
Marielle Berg
So when we’re talking about being nonjudgmental, it doesn’t mean that we don’t acknowledge consequences. And it also doesn’t mean that we don’t acknowledge emotions. So you can describe your own feelings in response to the facts. So remembering that emotions aren’t judgments.
Marielle Berg
So for example, if you say to yourself, I’m such a slob. So it’s an intense judgment, it doesn’t give us a lot of information. But if we want to just describe the facts, you might say, I leave my dirty clothes on a pile on the floor. So that could be factual. And then you can describe the consequences. That makes it hard to find things in my room, or to find clean clothes when I need them. And you can also describe your feelings in response to that behavior. And the feelings might be I feel scattered, or disorganized or kind of down about myself. So those that’s very different. And I hope listeners can hear the difference between that versus I’m a slob.
Ed Fowler
I think of an example for me recently was that I scraped my car against a post in a parking garage.
Marielle Berg
Ooh, I’ve done that.
Ed Fowler
And because I wasn’t paying close attention, and my first thought was, you are such a terrible driver, you never pay attention to what you’re doing, you should have. And for me, should is a big indicator, oop, I’m in judgments. You should have been paying closer attention. Why don’t you ever pay attention to what you’re doing? This is so stupid, this is going to be horrible. You’ve ruined the car.
Ed Fowler
And I think that that’s a natural reaction to something shocking, and frustrating, legitimately frustrating. And I was able to pretty quickly come down from that and refocus, look at actually what happened and get into something more factual and less judgmental. I scraped paint off of the side of the car, and there’s a small dent that I’m going to have to get checked out. And I feel a lot of anger at myself for not paying attention.
Marielle Berg
Such. Sorry, there’s such a difference, right?
Ed Fowler
Exactly. You hear the difference? Now, I’m not gonna tell how long it took to get from A to B. But it happened. And part of it for me is my own practice of DBT skills is I felt a lot of distress from like, I’ve ruined the car, I never pay attention. I’m so stupid. And I was like, Oh, I don’t want to feel like this. It’s like, hold on, what are the facts here, I scraped the car, there’s a small dent, I’m gonna have to get it checked out. I’m mad at myself.
Marielle Berg
And so it really helps bring down the distress level. And I know it took some time, which makes sense, because it is very jarring. Of course, if you hit something with your car and it is upsetting, and it might be expensive, all of that.
Ed Fowler
Right.
Marielle Berg
But you you kind of really help kind of bring down your distress and get yourself more into Wise Mind and think about okay, let me look at it. Let me assess the damage. Let me make a plan potentially on how to deal with this. And just to go with your example which is such a good one. And I think such a common one, and I have done that too, although thankfully, it’s been a long time. A place where someone could go is certainly judging themselves. But you could also go to the place of judging others or the parking lot.
Marielle Berg
Like this parking structure is so stupid, how many cars do they try to shove in here with how they put the parking lines? And how come there aren’t, you know, those rubber things around the poles, which maybe you’ve seen which some places have, they should have known and this is you know, I hate city parking,
Ed Fowler
Right.
Marielle Berg
Like you could go down that road too, which also will raise your distress and pull you out of Wise Mind and not give you a plan on how to move forward. Or you could you know have a double whammy of both. You hate the parking structure. And you also think you’re an idiot driver. I mean, so people can go
Ed Fowler
And again, I think that for me I’m I’m quicker to judge myself than others. And so I have a feeling I did that to this stupid pole. Why was this pole in the way? And but then also went into, well, you shouldn’t have parked in this spot because there was a pole there and you should have known. And for me where again, like I really hear that should. Should, should.
Ed Fowler
Should according to who like it’s a parking lot with a parking space that has a pole next to it. People park in it all the time. I’ve parked in spaces with poles that I never scraped many, many times. There’s no should here. I wasn’t paying close attention. And I didn’t notice the pole and I scraped my car period. That’s nonjudgmentally what happened.
Ed Fowler
As opposed to all this extra stuff that you can hear the intensity of my voice and Marielle getting into it and like yes, the parking garage! You hear how the intensity of emotion increases. And again, if we we probably many of us had that experience where we go too far down that road. And now I’m like, miserable, I’m yelling at people, I’m tense, I am just going to throw away the keys to this car, I don’t even want this car. And now it’s so intense and so much harder to deal with, where just getting back to, like, I scraped the car, I’m so frustrated with myself, is very different. And I’m not like saying, no big deal. Anyone could make this mistake, like, those are also judgments. Like, yeah, anyone could make this mistake. But it’s like I scraped the car, I have to deal with it, I’m frustrated with myself. That’s the facts.
Marielle Berg
You’re allowing for that emotion to be there, the frustration or the kind of the shock of it, and just having that simmer, versus that spike of intense, you know, emotion when we’re judging ourselves or the parking lot. So, such a relatable example, there.
Marielle Berg
Some other things to think about. And it kind of kind of came out, and what we were just talking about is observing your facial expressions, your posture, your voice tone. So I think people probably heard our judgmental voice tones, as we were talking about this parking incident that all these things go into, and can exacerbate our judgment. So trying to notice that in ourselves.
Ed Fowler
And also try maybe try to change it, you know? So for me in this situation, I had to like take a breath, quiet my tone of voice with within myself, um like, relax my muscles a bit. And that helped move along the movement towards less judgement. That if I stay really tight and tense and my brow is furrowed, and I’m like, talking very intensely, I’m probably more likely to stay in the judgments than like really trying to make an effort to relax my shoulders, relax my face, quiet down the tone and say I scraped the car and keep it more factual.
Marielle Berg
I’m also thinking about the voice tone that we can adopt in our head. For example, when we’re reading an email or a text, which you know, the tone you take, as you’re reading it yourself, are – let me say this differently. The tone you take as you’re reading it yourself really affects how you experience whatever message you’re receiving, and it pulls you away from the facts.
Marielle Berg
So you can read a text where someone is canceling plans, just as you know, I’m so sorry, I can’t make it to dinner tonight. That’s just you know, the fact of whatever was written, versus I’m so sorry, I can’t make it to dinner tonight. I mean, there’s a lot of different ways, you know, something that’s more sarcastic or not genuine. And I notice myself doing that. And I hear people around me doing that, too, when you’re receiving something that’s written, adopting a voice tone in your head that is making a lot of assumptions and kind of adding to the facts, which will just increase the emotional reactivity. So noticing that as well.
Ed Fowler
I’m remembering a comedy sketch that I really related to, of two people texting each other, and one to cancel plans and one person saying, or no to make plans. One person saying, Hey, do you want to get together and the other person saying, Sure. And like, sure? Like that’s kind of dismissive. And you know, it escalates and escalates. And like no big deal. No big deal? Of course, this is a big deal! And it ends with a person with a baseball bat showing up to the get together. Because they’re so angry and upset and the other person is totally casual, no big deal.
Ed Fowler
So tone can be hard to read in text or email. And so being careful of the judgments. Now, we’ve had it all had experiences where Oh, no, they meant to be dismissive. And they’re not saying like, Oh, no one has ever dismissive No, sometimes it is, but being careful to notice do we have particular assumptions around tone that we may assume when it’s not necessarily there? And being careful and taking it slow?So much of nonjudgmentalness is slowing down.
Marielle Berg
I think I’ve seen that that’s skit too. Was it Key and Peele?
Ed Fowler
It’s Key and Peele, yes.
Marielle Berg
Okay. Now, we have to link to that in the show notes. It’s so perfect for this.
Ed Fowler
Exactly.
Marielle Berg
So what not to do.
Ed Fowler
What not to do.
Ed Fowler
So another thing that will is suggested in the DBT workbook as a way to practice nonjudgmentalness, is to write out a nonjudgmental description of an event that prompted an emotion. Or write out a judgmental description and then a nonjudgmental description.
Ed Fowler
And if you’re really struggling with judgments in general, or judgments in particular situations, this can be a helpful way to slow down, to write it out. So write out and what we often do, Marielle, in our group is we’ll do, you know, ask people to practice nonjudgmentalness take something that was difficult or frustrating. Write out a judgmental description and let the judgments fly, put all the judgments in there, and then rewrite it as factually and nonjudgmentally as possible to get a sense of what it’s like to be, embrace the judgments. And then to let them go.
Ed Fowler
And every time we do it, people are like, Oh, wow, I had like, seven sentences for the judgmental one. And it was like one very short sentence for the nonjudgmental description. Where we get to see how much we’re adding to the picture with the judgments and get it down to just the facts. So if you struggle with judgmentalness, and want to practice, writing it out can be a helpful way to make it more concrete, and really see what’s it like to slow this down and write it out?
Marielle Berg
To see on paper, all the judgments that you have, that are running there, like a, you know, the background noise that you don’t even notice, and how much that’s affecting how you feel.
Ed Fowler
And I did that just now in my own description of my car scrape up, and I find it really helpful to dialectically be able to be judgmental, and not say don’t be judgmental, stop being judgmental, which tends to not help, it’s a different kind of emotional intensity. And so to like let myself be judgmental, and then slow it down and redo it.
Ed Fowler
So I don’t feel like I’m denying myself, or censoring myself. It’s like, yeah, I scraped the car and it was so stupid, and I should have known better. And I scraped the car, and I was frustrated. And I have to deal with it. And so doing that side by side, whether just in your mind or writing it down, I think can be helpful to recognize judgments and start to move towards letting those go.
Marielle Berg
And this is a practice. Most of us are judging things all the time, we’re not even aware of it. So as you just said Ed, we don’t be don’t want to judge ourselves for judging. But the hope is that we’re catching ourselves more often. And especially if we’re feeling emotionally distraught to be thinking about, am I judging myself a lot? Or am I judging a situation? How might I be making what’s actually happening worse, by adding a whole bunch of judgments on top of it?
Ed Fowler
I think nonjudgmentalness is very similar to the Emotion Regulation skill of Checking the Facts, which is basically, Checking the Facts is getting into the facts, not the judgments. Noticing assumptions and interpretations, and putting those to the side and trying to get back to the facts. And so those two really go together. And it is a helpful practice for reducing emotional intensity.
Ed Fowler
So another suggestion from the DBT workbook is, if you’re really struggling with judgments towards another person, try to slow it down and use your imagination to imagine what they did that’s making you so frustrated or angry. And then try to imagine it from their point of view. How does what they did make sense, from their perspective? Try to imagine where are they coming from, because this gets into more details, and it’s all using your imagination and using some assumptions.
Ed Fowler
But getting ourselves out of the just the the tight grip of judgments and being able to see that okay, there’s another side, where could they be coming from? How would this what they did make sense? So for instance, when I scraped the car and had to tell my husband about it, he had to do a little bit of imagining what it would be like if he had done the same thing instead of you never pay attention when you’re driving. And so I think that being able to, like do a little bit of, okay, I sometimes am short sighted, I sometimes don’t pay close attention, okay. That can release the judgments and seeing it from the other person’s eyes might be a helpful way to reduce judgments.
Marielle Berg
Yes, putting yourself in their shoes, so to speak. And it is such an easy place to go especially with the people closest to us. And I know I’ve done that kind of thing too when something upsetting happens. Well, you just you just messed up or there’s you know, you don’t pay attention or you’re too disorganized or whatever it might be. Or too forgetful.
Marielle Berg
And it just you know, it’s sort of like pouring salt in the wound. And it’s it’s not very factual. It’s kind of a, you know, as we were talking about earlier, blanket statement that doesn’t give you a lot of room to move. It doesn’t give you a lot of space to just kind of feel badly or sad about what’s happened. It keeps you very stuck.
Ed Fowler
So paying attention to where we tend to get judgmental towards ourselves or others, situations where we tend to get judgmental, and trying to slow it down, get into the facts, notice the judgments and put them to the side, trying to just look at, okay, what did I experience with my senses? What’s the who, what, when, and where, acknowledge our own emotional reactions, our own opinions, without taking them as facts, I should have. It’s like, I wish I had very different. And just really slowing it down and trying to practice noticing judgments and rerouting those in a nonjudgmental way can really reduce our reactivity, and help us be more in a problem solving mode, and able to deal with stuff that comes up, whether within ourselves or in relationships with others. And that’s what we’re going for. We want to be able to handle difficulties with wisdom, and perspective and not with reactivity.
Marielle Berg
Yeah, well said Ed. And this was, this was a great episode. Judgment!
Ed Fowler
I was gonna say, Well, okay, so let’s end with a judgment.
Marielle Berg
You know, positive judgment.
Ed Fowler
Wow. Marielle is super positive about this.
Marielle Berg
As we said earlier, the positive judgments usually don’t cause emotional distress.
Ed Fowler
No, they don’t.
Ed Fowler
That was pretty shocking, because I was like, Whoa,
Marielle Berg
I know, because we all –
Ed Fowler
Marielle loved that.
Marielle Berg
And, and if you you know, we’re in that evaluating kind of state of mind, then we can finish an episode and think, Oh, that was terrible.
Ed Fowler
Right, which we’ve done that.
Marielle Berg
Yes, we’ve done that.
Ed Fowler
That doesn’t make, that doesn’t make it into the podcast, but. But again, being able to notice even the positive judgments and rein it back and say like that had a lot of good material in it. And that feels better to have that more factual perspective.
Marielle Berg
Yes.
Ed Fowler
And you’ll have to let us know if we if you agree that this was great, and that we are great.
Marielle Berg
I didn’t add that one, but let’s put it there too. All right. Until next time.
Ed Fowler
Thank you.
Marielle Berg
Thank you. Thanks for listening to today’s episode. To learn more, or if you’re in the Bay Area and want to get started with therapy, you can find us online at bayareadbtcc.com. That’s BayAreaDBTCC.com