🎯 What Is Functional Analysis?
Functional analysis is a method for understanding and modifying unhelpful habits—mental and physical—by identifying the underlying psychological need they serve.
đź‘€ Examples of Functional Analysis
- Overeating. Suppose you struggle with eating too much at night. It might be that this habit of overeating at night serves the function of temporarily relieving stress built up over the course of the day.
- Revenge Bedtime Procrastination. If you struggle with staying up well past your bedtime doing trivial things like watching TV or scrolling social media—despite knowing you’ll be worse off for it—it might be that this habit serves the function of giving you a period of time where you have complete control and autonomy over your schedule, which you crave because you lack this so much in your job and other aspects of your life.
- Nail Biting. Many people—including children—get in the habit of biting their nails as a form of anxiety relief. Because it gives you something immediate and distracting to do, it can serve the function of temporarily alleviating stress and anxiety. And because it is something you can do any time and just about anywhere, it’s especially compelling—and therefore, hard to stop.
- Trauma Fetishizing. Trauma fetishizing refers to the mental habit of ruminating on or over-processing traumatic events from your past. Many people get into this habit because it serves the function of distracting them from their anxiety about making significant changes in their life that would move them into a better future.
- Health Anxiety. Often people get stuck in a habit of chronic worry about their health (despite an absence of evidence for pathology) because it gives them a superficial sense of control in the face of life circumstances where they feel as though they lack agency.
đź’ˇ Key Insights About Functional Analysis
- Bad Habits Stick Around for a Reason. No matter how bad a particular behavior is for you in the long run, and no matter how senseless or irrational the habits appear, there is always a reason why it persists. Almost always, that reason—the function the bad habit serves—is some form of relief or escape from a difficult emotion. In other words, despite the long-term side effects, bad habits stick around because we get some emotional relief in the very short-term.
- Functional Analysis Fosters Self-Compassion. While nearly every bad habit you can think of involves some choice on our part—and as a result, we bear some responsibility for it—taking an overly moralistic view of bad habits is rarely helpful and usually counterproductive. Functional analysis is effective in large part because it encourages people to take a mechanical rather than moral perspective on their bad habits. Instead of describing the why behind a bad habit as some version of “Well, I’m just a lazy/bad/selfish/weak/etc. person,” functional analysis encourages us to describe it as an understandable response to a perfectly legitimate need, which, however unhelpful long-term, does make sense in some way.
- The Secret to Undoing Bad Habits Is to Put Them Out of a Job. If bad habits stick around because they serve some psychological need—that is, they have a job—often the best way to eliminate them is to get that need addressed in a healthier way—one with fewer side effects. For example: If you drink too much before social gatherings, you might start a scheduled worry habit as a way to reduce the chronic worry that drives your social anxiety. In other words, by learning to manage your worries better, you’ve lowered your anxiety and therefore put alcohol out of a job.
🛠️ Tips for Doing Functional Analysis
- Adopt a Mechanic Mindset Whenever you find yourself thinking about a bad habit—your own or someone else’s—try to shift your mindset out of a judgmental or moral one which sees the behavior as right/wrong or good/bad, and instead, practice thinking about it mechanically or functionally by asking this question: What job is this behavior doing? What psychological need is it addressing? To be clear, this doesn’t mean you can’t believe that an action is good or bad, right or wrong. It just means that you’re choosing to view it through the lens of psychological mechanics because that’s almost always more helpful when it comes to creating lasting behavior change.
- Clarify Your Emotional Landscape. When you’re engaging in—or reflecting on—problematic behaviors, it’s natural to stay focused on the behaviors and what their consequences might be. But if you really want to understand those behaviors and change them, it’s important to get clarity about the emotional antecedents that drive them. So, when you find yourself engaging in a bad habit or reflecting on one from the past, ask yourself: What emotions were present immediately before that behavior or habit kicked in? Because once you understand the emotional triggers for your behavior, you’ll be far better positioned to identify and implement alternative, less destructive, behaviors.
- Brainstorm Alternative Behaviors. Ironically, most people stuck in unhelpful patterns or bad habits don’t actually spend much deliberate and creative energy trying to generate alternative behaviors. So, as a final step, once you’ve identified a possible need your problematic behavior is addressing, make some time to brainstorm other alternative behaviors that might address that need at least as well and also have fewer side effects.
- Practice on Other’s People’s Bad Habits First. If you’re having trouble doing functional analysis on your own bad habits, practice applying the method to other people’s bad habits. To be clear, this doesn’t mean you are judging them; it’s about understanding their behavior compassionately so that you can eventually do the same for yourself.
🥜 Functional Analysis in a Nutshell
If you’re struggling with any kind of bad habit or self-defeating behavior—including mental behaviors like worry, rumination, or self-criticism—ask yourself these four questions:
- What exactly is the problematic behavior I want to change? Describe it as specifically and clearly as you can.
- What emotions immediately precede that behavior? Listen carefully for all your emotions, including “quiet” ones.
- What psychological need might my behavior be addressing? Look specifically for very short-term benefits the problematic behavior confers—no matter how negative or destructive it is long-term.
- What are some healthier alternative ways to get that same need met? Brainstorm as many possibilities as you can think of, then experiment with implementing the most likely candidates.