About this exercise
This exercise will help you get a clearer sense of your abilities to mentalize about yourself, other people, and your relationships.
Rate each statement on a scale from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 7 (Strongly agree). Don't overthink your answers—your first instinct is usually the most accurate.
1. People's thoughts are a mystery to me.
2. I often find my own thoughts confusing or hard to explain.
3. I often hold back in relationships because I can't tell what others are thinking.
4. I rarely know why I do what I do.
5. Sometimes I'm confused by why people do what they do.
6. I can't explain my actions and that makes it hard to trust myself in relationships.
7. When I get emotional, I say things without really knowing why I am saying them.
8. When emotional, people speak without understanding their reasons.
9. When I am emotional with someone else, I hear us saying things neither of us seems to mean.
10. When I get angry, I say things that I later regret.
11. I find it hard to make sense of other people's anger.
12. My anger creates a terrible distance between me and other people.
13. If I feel insecure I can behave in ways that irritate people.
14. People who are insecure behave in ways that annoy me.
15. When I feel insecure, I often misread the other person and things go wrong between us.
16. I always know what I feel.
17. Others know exactly how they feel.
18. I sometimes feel out of step in relationships.
19. Strong feelings often cloud my thinking.
20. When I get emotional in relationships, I feel confused and I'm not sure who said what or what's me and what's them.