Check the Facts
The six-phase audit, run on the emotion as if it were a case.
5 to 7 minAbout today
Where Naming Emotions identifies the feeling and Describing Emotions walks through its structure, Check the Facts is the audit you run between the feeling you have and the facts you actually have. This session runs the audit as a six-phase case file: the emotion is the case, the senses are the evidence, the interpretations are witness statements, the verdict is whether the feeling fits.
A common mistake is using this skill to talk yourself out of every uncomfortable feeling, including ones that fit. Some emotions are accurate readings of accurate situations: grief about a real loss, fear of a real threat. The case file confirms those just as often as it releases the ones that do not fit. The verdict can go either direction; the skill is the procedure, not a preference for one outcome.
What's shared here stays here. Names, stories, details, all of it is protected. The only exception is safety.
You can pass at any point. No explanation needed. If something doesn't fit right now, say "pass" and we move on.
5 to 7 minLand in the room first
Share your name, then take these two. Pass on either. The point is to arrive before we start working.
8 to 10 minThree questions toward the skill
These ask where Check the Facts applies in your own week. Take them one at a time. You can pass on any.
Three patterns surface across the bridge questions: members whose default is to over-react and second-guess afterward, members whose default is to override the feeling and find out later it was real, and members whose gap between feeling and reacting is essentially zero. Each pattern needs a different emphasis. The first wants more time on steps 5 and 6. The second wants more time on the "does it fit" affirmative case in step 5. The third wants the regulation-scale conversation in Big Picture before the steps make sense at all.
Where this skill sits on the map
Check the Facts is the audit step in Linehan's Emotion Regulation module. It comes after you have named the emotion (Module 1) and described its structure (Module 3), and it decides what to do next. If the audit confirms the emotion, you honor it. If the audit releases the emotion, you run Opposite Action (Module 5) — the same module's tool for the unjustified case.
Linehan ranks behaviors by priority. Check the Facts sits in the skill-deficit tier, alongside the other emotion-regulation foundations. The skill is not crisis-management; it is the everyday audit that prevents emotional reactions from compounding into the higher-tier problems. Run it routinely on small things and the bigger ones rarely need it.
- 1 Life-threatening behavior
- 2 Therapy-interfering behavior
- 3 Quality-of-life-interfering behavior
- 4 Skill deficit Check the Facts works here
- 5 Goals and values
Check the Facts is a thinking skill. It needs the prefrontal cortex online enough to separate the fact from the interpretation, which means the nervous system has to be regulated enough to slow down for the audit. Below -2 the body is in collapse and the steps will not register. Above 4 the activation overruns the audit, and step 2 (the facts) gets fused with step 3 (the interpretations) automatically. Outside the working band, run a body-first skill — TIPP, paced breathing, self-soothing — until the system returns, then run the audit.
Polyvagal-informed regulation scale. Check the Facts works inside the window of tolerance and into low activation, where there is enough prefrontal bandwidth to keep facts and interpretations separate.
Tracked between sessions: yes or no for whether you ran the audit that day, an effectiveness rating from 0 to 7, and a one-line note on which step did the most work. A "no" with a one-line note about why the audit did not happen is more useful than a "yes" with no detail.
| Day | Used Check the Facts | Effectiveness 0–7 | Note (one line) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | Yes | 5 | Caught the catastrophizing in step 4 about the supervisor's tone. |
| Tue | No | — | Too activated. Ran TIPP instead. Will audit tomorrow. |
| Wed | Yes | 3 | Audit confirmed grief about Dad. Stayed with it. |
Effectiveness is not "did the emotion go away." Effectiveness is "did the audit help me know what to do next." A confirmed emotion you honored is a high-effectiveness day.
8 to 10 minTwo failure modes the skill is built for
Check the Facts solves two opposite errors. The first is reacting to a story the mind built on top of the facts. The second is overriding a feeling that was actually telling you something true. Both failures look reasonable from the inside. The audit makes the difference visible.
Something happens. The mind builds a story about what it means. The feeling that follows is in proportion to the story, not the event. You react to the story. The reaction makes the situation worse, which then makes the story feel more accurate.
The supervisor's tone in the meeting was clipped. You read it as cold. You spent the afternoon catastrophizing about being demoted. By evening you were rehearsing the resignation email. The next morning the supervisor mentioned a headache. The audit, if you had run it, would have stopped at step 2: the fact was a clipped tone; the rest was construction.
An emotion shows up. The reasoning brain knows it is uncomfortable and runs an audit to try to make it go away. The audit ends with a verdict: this emotion is irrational, I should not be feeling this. The emotion does not go away because it was actually telling you something true. You spend the rest of the week carrying both the original feeling and the new shame about having it.
Hunger is not irrational. Exhaustion is not irrational. Grief about a long loss is not irrational just because the loss was years ago. Anger at a person who is treating you badly is not irrational just because you have decided to keep the relationship. Check the Facts in these cases confirms the emotion, and the next move is to honor it. The skill is not an exit from feeling.
Both failures skip the audit. In the first case, the audit gets skipped because the story feels too certain to question. In the second case, the audit gets done in name only, with the verdict already decided before step 5. Running the six steps deliberately — out loud or on paper, slowly, with someone else if possible — is the practice that gets between the feeling and the reaction long enough to know what is actually there.
Linehan organizes the emotion-regulation module in a sequence that builds on itself.
- Naming Emotions identifies what is there. Frustration, not shame. Jealousy, not fear.
- Emotion Myths clears the beliefs about emotions that make the rest of the work impossible.
- Describing Emotions walks the structure: prompting event, interpretation, body sensation, action urge, expression, after-effects.
- Check the Facts audits the named, described emotion against the actual facts to decide whether to honor it or release it.
- Opposite Action handles the release case: when the audit says the emotion does not fit, this is how you act counter to the action urge.
- ABC PLEASE reduces vulnerability before the audit even has to run, by addressing the body's baseline.
Most reactions that look like overreactions are reactions to a story the mind built on top of the event. Most overrides that look like maturity are overrides of a feeling that was telling you something true. The audit separates these. Running it changes which problems you have to solve in a given week and how big they get before you notice them.
15 to 18 minSix phases, in order
Tap any phase to open the detail. The first time through a case, run them in order: each phase produces input the next phase needs, and skipping ahead usually produces the verdict you wanted before you arrived at it. After a few cases, the order compresses and the audit runs faster.
Identify the emotion under investigation. Anger, fear, shame, sadness, guilt, joy, jealousy, disgust, love. Rate the intensity on a 0 to 100 scale. The naming and the rating are not optional. An unnamed emotion cannot be audited, and the rating is the baseline that tells you later whether the audit moved anything.
Record what you observed: what you saw, heard, read, or felt in the body. The text contained these words. The face moved this way. The room was empty when you arrived. The scale read this number. Strip the absolutes (always, never, again) and the judgments (rude, dismissive, selfish) out of the record. Evidence is what a security camera would have captured. Anything beyond that goes to Phase 3.
Collect every interpretation, assumption, and appraisal you made about the evidence. They are angry at me. They are about to leave. This means I failed. This is happening because I deserve it. Witness statements are subjective by definition. List them as statements, not as facts, no matter how certain they feel. Certainty does not promote a statement to evidence.
Name the threat you are scanning for. The relationship will end. I will lose the job. I will not be able to handle the feeling. Then write the realistic worst case alongside it: what would actually happen if your prediction were correct. The gap between the catastrophic version and the realistic version is where the case usually breaks open.
Run the emotion against the criterion for its function. Fear fits when there is a real threat to life, health, or wellbeing. Anger fits when a goal is blocked or you are trespassed against. Sadness fits when something or someone is lost. Shame fits when an action would, if known, cause rejection by a group whose acceptance you need. Guilt fits when you violated your own values. Joy fits when something good happened. Apply the criterion. Two verdicts are legitimate: fits the evidence, or does not.
An emotion can fit the evidence at one intensity and overshoot at another. Real annoyance at an interruption does not require rage. Real grief at a loss does not require the entire day to go dark. Compare the Phase 1 rating against the actual size of the situation. If the rating runs ahead of the situation, the surplus is usually about something else — accumulated context, vulnerability factors, an older case the current one is sitting on top of.
What each emotion is for
Step 5 checks the emotion against its function. Linehan's list, short form. The full version with body sensations and action urges is in the Skills Training Manual.
One. Two answers in step 5 are both legitimate. The emotion fits, in which case honor it. The emotion does not fit, in which case run Opposite Action next session's skill. The audit is not biased toward the release.
Two. If you cannot get past step 2 because the body is too activated to separate facts from interpretations, stop and regulate first. The audit is not a substitute for distress tolerance, and forcing it under high activation is what produces the wrong verdict.
15 to 18 minOpen a case
Two options in this section. The interactive case file widget below lets you run a real audit on a current emotion, in the room. The three sample case files after it are facilitator-led: pair up, run the six phases out loud on a scenario, partner listens for which phase carries the most weight and where the verdict lands.
- 01The Subject
- 02The Evidence
- 03The Witness Statements
- 04The Threats
- 05The Verdict
- 06The Calibration
Three cases the room can run together
Pair up. For each case, run the six phases out loud on the supplied facts. The partner listens for which phase carries the most weight and where the verdict lands. After the run, partner shares one observation. Switch.
Your partner has not texted back in four hours. The last message was about a logistics question for the weekend. By hour two, you started checking your phone every few minutes. By hour three, you were building a story about what their silence meant. By hour four, the anxiety has settled in your chest and you are about to send a follow-up text that you know will not be the right move.
Run the six phases. What is the verdict on the anxiety? On the intensity?
Step-by-step. 1: The emotion is anxiety, rated 65. 2: The fact is no text back in four hours. 3: The interpretations are they are upset with me, they are pulling away, the relationship is in trouble. 4: The catastrophic prediction is the relationship ending; the realistic worst case is one awkward conversation about the weekend logistics. 5: Anxiety fits when there is a real threat — has the audit surfaced one? No. The partner's silence has many explanations (work, phone dead, just busy) and the relationship has no other current signs of trouble. The emotion does not fit. 6: Intensity is irrelevant when the emotion itself does not fit.
What to do with it. Run Opposite Action — do not send the follow-up text, do something that occupies the body until the partner gets back to you. Or, if it is now genuinely late, send a normal text that does not encode the four hours of spiraling.
From a previous session: you asked your dietitian for an adjustment to the meal plan. The ask was clean, at the right intensity. The dietitian declined. By the time you got home, shame had set in: I shouldn't have asked. I'm being difficult. She thinks I'm not trying. The shame is sitting at 70 and you are about to skip the afternoon snack.
Run the six phases. The shame might fit, or it might not. Find out.
Step-by-step. 1: The emotion is shame, rated 70. 2: The facts are: I asked, she said no, she explained briefly, she went to her next appointment. 3: The interpretations are I am being difficult, I am not trying hard enough, she will document me as non-compliant. 4: The catastrophic prediction is being labeled as resistant and losing the treatment relationship; the realistic worst case is a brief note in the chart and a normal next session. 5: Shame fits when an action would cause rejection by a group whose acceptance you need. Has the audit shown that asking the dietitian for an adjustment would cause rejection? No. The dietitian's role is to negotiate the plan; an ask is part of the working relationship, not outside it. The shame does not fit.
What to do with it. Run Opposite Action — eat the snack on schedule, stay in contact with the treatment team, bring the actual material to the next session. The shame is running on an old training, not on the present situation.
Someone you loved died seven years ago. The anniversary was this week. You are sad. The sadness is sitting around 55. The voice in your head says you should be over this by now, and you have been trying to argue yourself out of the feeling for two days. The argument is not working.
Run the six phases. This one is the affirmative case. The point is to see what it looks like when the audit confirms the emotion.
Step-by-step. 1: The emotion is sadness, rated 55. 2: The fact is the anniversary of a real loss. 3: The interpretation is I should be over this by now — a story imposed on top of the fact. 4: The catastrophic prediction is being "stuck" or "broken." The realistic worst case is a difficult few days that you have made it through before. 5: Sadness fits when something or someone is lost. The criterion is met. The emotion fits the facts. 6: Intensity at 55 for a seven-year anniversary fits the pattern of grief, which does not run on a schedule of decreasing intensity over time.
What to do with it. Honor the emotion. The work is not to argue the feeling away. The work is to make space for it — a slower day, a phone call to someone who knew the person, a walk in a place that holds the memory. The audit confirms what you already feel, and the next move is to stop fighting it.
Pair the scenarios deliberately. Scenarios 1 and 2 are the release cases, scenario 3 is the confirm case. If only the release scenarios get practiced, the group learns the skill as a way to talk themselves out of feelings, which is the failure mode the Why tab named. Run all three, and run scenario 3 last so the affirmative ending is the most recent in the room.
8 to 10 minSkill-anchored questions
Pick two or three. Answers can be one word, one step number, or a pass. The skill is the anchor.
Linehan's manual keeps skills-group discussion anchored to the skill being taught, with low-disclosure entry points (a step number, a word, a pass). The work stays in the skill, not in autobiographical material that needs more containment than a group can offer. Any one emotion someone names belongs in individual therapy if it wants the longer look.
3 to 5 minPick one
One concrete practice between now and next group. Small is better than ambitious.
One sentence
Each person, one sentence. Name the emotion you are most likely to audit this week, the step you tend to skip on it, and the day you expect to need it.
Push for specificity. "I will check the facts when I feel anxious" is a wish. "I will run all six steps on the anxiety I get every Sunday evening before the work week starts, paying extra attention to step 4" is a checkout. Three named pieces. The skill is the named sentence.