Check the Facts Worksheet: See If Your Emotion Fits the Situation

About this tool

Check the facts is an emotion regulation skill from dialectical behavior therapy, and it usually comes before opposite action. Emotions are not caused only by events. They are caused by our interpretations of events, our assumptions, and our predictions about what will happen next. Often the interpretation, not the event, is what drives the emotion, and the interpretation may not be accurate.

The skill is to slow down and sort what actually happened from the story you added on top of it. You describe the prompting event in plain, observable terms, then notice the interpretations, assumptions, and worst-case predictions you layered onto it. From there you can ask the key question: given the facts, does my emotion fit the situation, and does its intensity match?

When an emotion does fit the facts, that is useful information and you can act on it wisely. When it does not, or when it is far more intense than the situation warrants, that is your cue to change it, often with opposite action. Either way, checking the facts replaces a reflexive emotional reaction with a clear-eyed look at what is real, which is one of the most practical skills DBT teaches.

Check the facts comes from Marsha Linehan's emotion regulation module in dialectical behavior therapy, which treats emotions as having a function and a built-in action urge, rather than as random noise to suppress. The module distinguishes justified emotions, ones that fit the facts of the situation, from emotions that formed around an inaccurate read of what happened. Checking the facts is the step that tells the two apart, before you decide whether to act on the emotion or work to change it.

A completed worksheet is most useful when you look across several of them rather than judging any single entry. If the same interpretation keeps appearing, such as assuming other people are annoyed with you or predicting the worst outcome by default, that pattern is worth naming on its own, since it will keep generating emotions that do not fit the facts until you address it directly. If checking the facts consistently feels impossible in the moment, or the same painful pattern keeps repeating despite your best efforts, a therapist trained in DBT can work through it with you; you can search the Psychology.com therapist directory to find one.

Reviewed by Michael Callans, MSW
Reviewed the worksheet for fidelity to the DBT check the facts skill.

References

1. Linehan MM. DBT Skills Training Manual. 2nd ed. Guilford Press; 2015.
2. Linehan MM. DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets. 2nd ed. Guilford Press; 2015.

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