Self-Focused Attention
I would like to also briefly touch on the concept of self focused attention. Self focused attention (which was first coined by Duval & Wicklund, 1972) describes a tendency to focus on self-referent information that are internally generated, as opposed to focus on externally generated information that are received through sensory receptors. There is a growing body of literature demonstrating associations between excessive self focused attention and a wide array of clinical disorders (refer to Ingram, 1990 Self-focused attention in clinical disorders: Review and a conceptual model. Psychological Bulletin, 107(2), 156–176. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.107.2.156 for a review).
Some examples of self focused attention include thoughts around:
Things you like about yourself
Things you don’t like about yourself
How other people view you
How you compare to other people
Your success or failures in life
Whether you are a good person/bad person
Your identity
How worthy you are as a person
Self focused attention and self compassion can be considered as transdiagnostic measures of mental health. Meaning that by observing these factors during our assessment of a client, we may develop an understanding of how they may be impacted by a cluster of mental disorders. What would a client with excessive self focused attention present like? They may spend a large portion of their time with you speaking about things that they like or dislike about themselves or about how others view them. Or they may tell you that they spend a lot of time thinking about these concepts when alone. They may tell you that they spend a lot of time in front of the mirror and so on. This can be contrasted with a client who spends more time discussing matters not related to their self image, or with greater attention on their surrounding environment, empathy towards others and so on.
Fount mental health model and screening tool takes advantage of our growing understanding of the correlation between self focused attention and mental disorders by including this measure in the screening tools which we will learn about shortly.