Putting our experience under the microscope - The Five Factor Model

When we start counselling we are asked to pay more attention to our thoughts and what’s going on, but this can be quite a tricky thing to do. We can pretty objectively say that we feel rotten because something is happened, but what do we mean by that? Is there more information that would also be useful?

The Five Factor Model is a really useful way of looking at what is happening and I use this when starting with a client to help give us a common language.

The model has five interconnected elements; the environment, our thoughts, our feelings, our physical experience, and our behaviour. The environment is the situation where this happens, and the four other elements interact with each other, bouncing off each other like a pinball.

We can sometimes confuse what we’re thinking with what we’re feeling, as in conversational English these are used interchangeably: “I feel that X” when what we really mean is “I think that X.” In counselling, we want the difference to be very clear. When we say what we’re feeling we mean, for example, “anxious”, “low”, “scared” etc. Our physical experience is what’s going on in our bodies, like tension in our neck, butterflies in our stomach, an increased heart-rate etc. Finally our behaviour is what we do as a result; what we do more of, do less of or stop doing altogether. For example we might snap at someone or we might go straight home and avoid people.

Let’s use the old favourite of someone seeing a friend walking down the other side of the street. They wave at their friend, but they don’t respond. In a session they tell us what happened, that they “felt like sh*t” and went home. Now let’s look at the model…

The situation: I was walking down the street and waved hello to my friend, but they didn’t respond.

Thought: “I’ve offended them somehow and they’re annoyed with me.”

Feeling: Anxiety, Embarrassment.

Physical experience: Tension in the neck, flushed, heart was racing.

Behaviour: I didn’t do what I was planning to do in town and I went straight home.

The model helps us appreciate the different elements of our experience and gives us lots of useful information to work with in counselling. We can take action regarding our thought process (am I working with the facts or is there an unhelpful thinking style happening?). Recognising what is going on in our bodies when we feel anxious can prompt us to take action to calm down (eg start breathing exercises or grounding exercises) when we first start to feel it rather than feeding the anxiety and making ourselves feel worse.

It all starts with the Five Factor model; an excellent tool in CBT and an essential part of my own work with clients.

If you would like to talk to me about working on your mental health, you can complete the online submission form or contact me directly at: mckellarCBT@gmail.com