In third-wave CBT, self-distancing involves taking an outside perspective on one's own thoughts and emotions. Decentering is the related metacognitive capacity to observe internal experience with less identification and reactivity. Both reduce immersion in thoughts and emotions, while emphasizing different aspects of this perspective-taking process.

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Third-wave CBT cultivates an enhanced, decentered sense of self through concepts such as the observing self, self-distancing, and decentering. These practices increase a person's capacity to take perspective on their own thoughts and emotions rather than being fused with them, which supports improved conscious experience and psychological flexibility.

Third-wave CBT utilization of self

Decentering is the ability to focus on the present and achieve a level of nonjudgementality about one's thoughts, feelings, and emotions. It can reduce depressive rumination by changing a patient's attention to their thoughts.

Decentering

Self-distancing and decentering in third-wave CBT

Cognitive Defusion and Decentering are very similar ideas. Both take an objective approach to thoughts and try to alter the effects of those thoughts on a person. Some articles say they are synonymous for each other except that one is used in ACT and the other in CBT. 

Decentering vs Cognitive Defusion

Decentering — particularly when utilized in mindfulness-based interventions — represents a metacognitive capacity thought to reflect three processes that are interconnected: meta-awareness, disidentification from internal experience, and reduced reactivity to thought content. These three neurobehavioral processes have been found to reliably increase with the use of MBI.

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