Mindfulness "How" Skills: Part One - Nonjudgmentally.
Good morning DBT-ers,
I finally managed to write the next installment of the DBT adventure - yay! In the last couple of installments, we've been looking at the mindfulness "what" skills of observing, describing and participating. You can read back over those posts here and here. In today's post we are looking at HOW to observe, describe and participate. There are three how skills: nonjudgmentally, one-mindfully and effectively. We will look at the first of these this week and then the remaining two next week time my brain is functioning enough to write about them. Ready? Let's go... 
Nonjudmentalness
I'm going to preface this section by saying that I don't understand some of this stuff so I'm super hoping someone can help me out. Nonjudgmentalness involves letting go of evaluating and judging reality. According to Linehan (2015, p. 200), there are two types of judgments: those that discriminate and those that evaluate.
Judgments that discriminate.
To discriminate is to discern or analyze whether two things are the same or different, whether something meets some type of standard, or whether something fits the facts. For example, a jeweler discriminates whether a stone purported to be a diamond is really a diamond or not, and a judge discriminates whether an action is against the law or not. Discriminations are necessary.
Judgments that evaluate.
To evaluate is to judge someone or something as good or bad, worthwhile or not, valuable or not. Evaluations are something we add to the facts. They are based on opinions, personal values, and ideas in our minds. Evaluations are not part of factual reality.
Our aim in nonjudgmentalness is to let go of judgments that evaluate as good or bad, and to keep judgments that discriminate and see consequences.
According to Linehan (2015, p. 200), the terms "good" and "bad" are sometimes used as shorthand for describing consequences. For example, if a piece of fish is all slimy and stinky we often say it is "bad." Similarly, if it is raining on a special day such as New Year's Eve, we often say the weather is "bad." Alternatively, if it is nice and sunny on a special day such as a public holiday, we often say the weather is "good." Given that we use the terms "good" and "bad" like this so often in every day speech, it is easy to forget that we are making a value judgement based on consequences, rather than stating a fact. That is, the reason rotten fish is considered "bad" is because eating it would make us sick. The reason rain on New Year's Eve is considered "bad" is because it makes for a soggy fireworks display. The reason sunny weather is considered "good" on a long weekend is because it makes BBQs, camping trips, and visits to the beach more fun than if it is raining. However, there is actually nothing intrinsically "good" or "bad" about any of these things. For example, if my favourite thing to do is to splash around in puddles, then for me, a rainy long weekend would be "good." Do you see? The goodness or badness is an evaluative judgement that we place on something - the thing itself has no inherent goodness or badness, it simply is what it is.
Judgments that evaluate as good or bad are in the mind of the observer. They are not qualities of what the observer is judging. "Good" and "bad" are never observed.
The nature of nonjudgmentalness.
Nonjudgmentalness is describing reality as "what is," without adding evaluations of "good" and "bad" to it.
Why be nonjudgmental?
⦁ Judgments can have damaging effects on relationships.
⦁ Judgments can have negative effects on emotions.
⦁ Changing the causes of things works better than being judgmental.
Nonjudgmentally: How to do it.
According to Linehan, the aim is to let go of "good" and "bad". For example, avoid saying that a person or their behaviour is either "bad" or "good" and avoid calling yourself a "bad person" or a "good person." The aim is NOT to replace "bad" with "good." That is, the aim isn't to shift from calling yourself a bad person, to calling yourself a good person. The aim is to ditch the terms "good" and "bad" altogether.
Now this is the bit where I get stuck. When I was reading this idea of ditching the terms "good" and "bad," the thought crossed my mind as to whether this means that telling someone they did a "good job" is unhelpful. Then I discovered that Linehan actually answers this question in the very next paragraph (which I suppose means I'm not the only person who has wondered about it).
Right after telling us to drop the terms "good" and "bad," Linehan argues that it is fine to use positive terms such as "good job." This makes no sense to me at all. She says; positive judgments have far fewer negative consequences than do negative judgments. In general, once we reduce our internal judgmentalness, we can go back to using the phrase "good job" and the like to mean specific things. So...it seems to me that after presenting a whole argument for why we should not use the terms "good" and "bad," Linehan backflips and says that it is ok to tell someone they've done a good job. To me this negates her whole prior argument.
To me, this whole idea that things are not inherently good or bad is a philosophy that I do not totally subscribe to. I believe there is good and bad in the world. I believe that acting in a caring way towards others is a good thing, and that doing harm to others is a bad thing. I will be super interested to hear what others think about this whole idea.
Let go of "should."
According to Linehan, when being nonjudgmental, we let go of saying and thinking that things should be different than they are. We also let go of saying that we ourselves should be different than we are (Linehan, 2015, p. 203). What do people think about this???
What nonjudgmentalness is not.
⦁ Being nonjudgmental does not mean we approve of something. Instead, it means recognising that things are as they are, and that everything has a cause. We have a much better chance of changing things we don't like by figuring out what causes them rather than simply declaring them bad.
⦁ Being nonjudgmental does not mean denying consequences. Some behaviours lead to outcomes that we want and some behaviours lead to outcomes that we don't want.
⦁ Being nonjudgmental does not mean keeping quiet about preferences or desires. Asking for change is not being judgmental.
⦁ Values and emotional responses to events are not judgmental. For example, I don't like eating vegetables, but that doesn't mean that I believe eating vegetables is "bad." Similarly, I super like eating chocolate, but that doesn't mean that I believe eating chocolate is "good." Wanting, desiring, or admiring something is not judging. Hating or feeling disgusted by something is not judging.
⦁ Statements of fact are not judgmental, but judgments often go along with the statements of fact. For example, the statement "I am fat" could simply be a statement of fact. However, if (by thought, implication or tone of voice) it is added that being fat is bad or unattractive, then a judgment has been added.
So...what do people think about this whole idea of being non-judgmental? Personally, some of this makes a lot of sense to me and some of it doesn't make any sense at all, so I'm super interested to hear what others think. Linehan says that this concept of being non-judgmental is tricky to get your head around, so maybe I just need to think about it more. On the other hand, maybe it takes time to get your head around because ultimately it is nonsensical. I'm not sure right now.
Here's an exercise from the manual that I thought would be cool to try...
Describe a disliked characteristic of yourself or another person. Aim to describe it without using judgmental words.
I'll go first...
I often get into muddles because I hear words differently to the way most people mean them. I tend to hear the literal meaning and often this is not what the speaker is trying to convey. This doesn't make me stupid or bad, it just means I spend a lot of time being a muddled little turtle.
I wonder who else wants to have a go???
Happy DBT-ing.
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