I sometimes incorporate ten scales into therapy. I ask clients to rate the event, and their reaction, from one to ten. When the scales appear tipped to opposite extremes, we may have found an area to work on.

Take road rage, for example. How upsetting is it when another drive cuts you off? We may need to set your scales for perspective first. Perhaps you said it was level ten annoying right away, but now I’m asking you to recall a time where you were really level ten angry. We’ve likely hit on a far more personal interpersonal interaction to represent ten on the scale. One on the scale may be a very mild annoyance that at face value is unlikely to be worth much reaction on your part. Now we can scale the event: a driver cutting you off in traffic, maybe we come to agree it’s really more of a two; frustrating, but not worth writing home about, and your recent reaction to the event was an eight; yelling, and cussing, and flipping the bird, then arriving home with a bad attitude. These numbers might be different for each person, but the discrepancy between them can indicate some struggle to regulate emotions such as anger.

Ideally, our reactions are proportionate in scale to the events that triggered them. It’s also important to point out, that some may struggle with underreacting rather than over. If the way another party in an argument behaved was a level eight offense and the offended party reacted as a level two, it might indicate that person is making a reasonable decision to intentionally deescalate the altercation, or it could possibly indicate the person does not feel comfortable advocating for themselves or setting healthy boundaries. The context in which I use the ten-scaling in sessions depends upon the person I am working with, but I find that the technique can help identify and clarify relevant therapy goals.