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Many of us resonate with the concept of the Self being fragmented into parts that hold different values, beliefs, behaviors, and even symptoms. This is such a helpful conceptualization gaining traction in popular psychology that there's an entire therapeutic modality dedicated to it: Internal Family Systems. But that's not what this blog is about. "Parts of self" is just a convenient shorthand to describe an adjacent phenomenon: zooming in and out. This is more complex than it sounds on the surface. We're going beyond "detail-oriented" vs. "big-picture" thinking.
Before I knew I wanted to be a therapist, I briefly studied photojournalism. My photo professors taught me to be intentional about my distance from the subject I was capturing, that we tell an entirely different story close up than we do far away from the same thing. When you zoom in tight on a person in a crowd, for instance, not only can you see every detail, but you can't see anything else, so you have to guess. If the picture is close enough to give a detailed look at the pattern on the person's shirt, the viewer—only having so much content to work with—is more likely to use their imagination, to wonder what it would be like to touch the shirt, to wear it, get curious about the fabric, assess the color, wonder why the person chose that color, imagine what weather would have led the wearer to choose such a shirt, etc. They're going to create more content because there is so little offered. Conversely, if the image is zoomed out to include the shirt-wearer and a dozen other people, not only won't the viewer have the information about the pattern to focus on, but they will have much more contextual data to keep them occupied; they won't even realize they're missing the info about the shirt. It won't matter. While it might seem like zoomed out is "better" because the info it gives matters more and the viewer should be inspired and excited to dig into meaning-making, there might be so much that they are overwhelmed and paralyzed. This will depend on a number of factors, including their mood, capacity, and interest.
Now apply this logic to your life. When you’re zoomed in, the world becomes personal—every interaction, every pleasure or distressing moment feels magnified. This makes life feel immediate and important, but also potentially overwhelming because of how much weight everything carries. When you zoom out, you gain a sense of perspective that allows you to detach from personal struggles and imperfections, but that detachment can sometimes slip into nihilism. There’s meaning and clarity in the zoomed-out perspective; it’s where the intellectual and creative drive may be more accessible, but it can also make personal-level concerns feel trivial in a way that distances you from others. Let's take a closer look at what these experiences may be like, keeping in mind that they'll vary person-to-person.
The Zoom-In Experience
When we are zoomed in, we:
Engage with personal emotions and immediate experiences
Focus on relationships, day-to-day interactions, and individual pleasures or stressors
May have more access to empathy
Have greater motivation for action in our personal lives
The pros:
A sense of importance and investment in life
Deepened relationships through emotional attunement
Personal meaning in daily experiences
The cons:
Potentially-small issues may feel overwhelming
Over-identification with struggles can increase felt stakes and emotional reactivity
Systemic issues feel distant because we are lacking broader perspective
The Zoom-Out Experience
When we are zoomed out, we:
View life through a philosophical, systemic, or global lens
Identify large-scale patterns and causes
Create intellectual and existential meaning
Allow for emotional detachment from personal struggles
The pros:
Provides clarity and perspective, reducing distress over "small" problems
Feeds intellectual and creative inspiration
Helps us tolerate imperfection and miscommunications
The cons:
Can slip into nihilism and detachment, which can be difficult to emerge from without the brute force of crisis, especially for those of us who experience inertia or hyperfixation in our mindsets
Makes personal and interpersonal concerns feel insignificant (and thus we are more likely to treat them as such)
May create frustration or ego-dystonic judgment and impatience toward those focused on individual experiences ("zoomed in" when we're "zoomed out")
What Triggers the Toggle Switch?
The answer to this is as unique as a fingerprint, and you'll have to reflect and notice your patterns to get the most accurate perspective on your own trigger blueprint, but here is a non-exhaustive list of possibilities to consider:
Emotional intensity triggers a zoom-in: A strong personal experience, like a high-level pleasure or distress, pulls us tighter into the immediate reality. A close interpersonal interaction may require emotional engagement. Someone else's strong emotions or needs demand your attention.
Intellectual or systemic reflection triggers a zoom-out: Engagement in deep thinking, analysis, or political/philosophical discussions requires a broad lens to capture nuance. You may experience something that reminds you of the vastness of the world (e.g. news, art, or nature) and lends a reminder of just how small you are relative to every other entity. You may feel emotionally exhausted from personal concerns and are seeking detachment for relief.
Apathy, burnout, or frustration force you to zoom out: Personal struggles or emotions start to feel like too much, and your mind flips to detachment as a defense. Frustration with others' focus on personal concerns makes you retreat into a broader perspective. Overwhelming situations can lead to emotional shut-down, making the rest of the world feel insignificant.
The Potential for Integration
Meaningful connection may bring brief moments when both the zoomed out and zoomed in perspectives co-exist, like when personal experiences resonate with larger themes. Engaging in creative or intellectual work that also feels personal and emotionally relevant can get us the best of both worlds, too. For example, when I'm working on an Instagram post about an existential theory, I'm trying to get the language "right" both to be accessible to my followers (zoom-in) and to most accurately capture a potentially very important, novel concept that has sweeping implications for how brains work (zoom-out). Having conversations with someone who validates both micro and macro-level views at the same time can bring about a sense of balance as well.
If you are someone who struggles with object impermanence (the "out of sight, out of mind" phenomenon) to any degree, you may face a "rapid toggle" experience when you think about the version of yourself you are not currently in. That is, if you are zoomed out and feeling like things that matter when zoomed in don't matter anymore, the fear of being unable to choose to move out of apathy ever again can lead to panic and a "forced" zooming back in. Another object impermanence-related issue is one of protectiveness over your zoomed in self: sure, I don't care about this thing now, but when I do, it's really going to hurt. What if the only way to cope is to stay zoomed out, and I miss out on all the pros of zooming in? For example, someone with an eating disorder may be able to access unconditional permission to eat as long as they're zoomed out and address body discomfort or negative thoughts about their weight by directing attention to something else, but the knowledge that they will eventually return to "zoom in" and feel overwhelmed (or even betrayed by themselves, like a dissociative experience akin to someone else invading the body without their consent) may foster anxiety and keep them from leaning into the pros of zooming out altogether, contributing to paralysis, neither zoomed in nor out but a third purgatory-like state.
If we subconsciously toggle the switch between zoomed-in and zoomed-out states too quickly, we may end up with whiplash. This is a trigger for autistic shutdowns and meltdowns I've seen in myself, in friends, and in clients, most often for those who are also gifted (or "twice exceptional") and/or struggle with existential anxiety. If it's happening subconsciously, can we do anything about it?
Anticipating and Softening the Switch
The short answer: yes.
Sometimes, an automatic "re-centering" between extremes may happen, as if the mind has a built-in balancing mechanism, but because it happens unconsciously, it doesn't feel like you're choosing it - it happens to you, and if you're someone with a trauma response to demands or a nervous system that experiences loss of autonomy as a threat, something happening to you, even a theoretically positive "re-centering" can feel intrusive, confusing, and dysregulating. Whether your mind doesn't seem to have this re-centering function or it does but the cons of being out of control outweigh the pros, you might benefit from some strategies to put yourself in the driver's seat:
If you're reading this, there's already a good chance you have a relationship with patterns, either as a recognizer or a seeker. Tracking patterns in when you switch between zooming in and out and what precedes the switch can give you useful data to help feel more prepared for the transition in the future. You might also choose to create a transitional ritual. If you feel a shift coming, engaging in something grounding (breathing, journaling, movement, etc.) could help ease into it rather than feeling jerked between states. Additionally, practicing dual awareness by reminding yourself that both perspectives are valid and serve a purpose (see list of functions and pros above), even when you're in one mode. Lastly, consider self-compassion for both selves. For example, if you tend to judge zoomed-in you as petty and zoomed-out you as wise, recognize that both perspectives contribute to a full and meaningful life.
The Escapism Function
Zooming in and out can both be tools for either meaningful engagement or avoidance, depending on what you're trying to get away from.
Escaping to zooming in by focusing on personal experiences may help you to avoid existential overwhelm, systemic distress, or meaning-heavy engagement. For example, on my occasional escapes to Disneyland, where I shut out all the political horrors of the world for eight hours or so, knowing they'll be there when I return, I can better appreciate and savor the taste of a Mickey Mouse-shaped pretzel, but a 90-minute wait for Space Mountain feels like torture. I might cope with the zoomed-in experience of the line by zooming out momentarily and reminding myself that 90 minutes isn't that long and that it's a privilege to get to wait in the line at all. Hopefully, I can zoom back in by the time I get on the ride so I can be present for the sensory bliss of the wind whipping my hair; otherwise, riding it zoomed out might feel hollow and pointless.
Escaping to zooming out is detaching into the big picture. For example, philosophical musings, nihilism, and seeing everything as insignificant, can help us to avoid the messiness and vulnerability of personal emotions and relationships. Fighting with your friend doesn't feel so bad when you can see the relationship as one piece in a thousand-piece puzzle, but the less you value it in the name of escape, the lower stakes repair feels and thus the less motivated you may feel to engage in that process. Staying zoomed out is safer and more predictable.
Might meaningful engagement in either mode require a sense of agency? That is, choosing to be there rather than feeling like you're being forced. Perhaps frustration comes when we feel stuck in a mode we don't want to be in, or when someone else's needs make us shift against our will. Notice whether one type of escape is more common for you than the other. Why might that be?
The Eating Disorder Connection
The zooming in and zooming out framework can offer perspective on how someone relates to their eating disorder, regardless of whether they are working toward recovery, because toggling the zoom changes our thoughts and feelings to such a significant degree. Consider how you feel toward your body, food, recovery, and other related themes when your concerns are immediate and detail-focused vs. when they are broader and more value-driven. This is how it might look:
Focus: When zoomed in, your thoughts are about the specifics of your body shape, weight, or appearance; day-to-day food choices, calories, macros, or meal plans; and immediate emotions like guilt, shame, pride, or control. When zoomed out, you may be prioritizing overall health and well-being over a longer period of time than just this moment. You might also be thinking about how food fits into relationships, culture, and joy and reflecting on broad systemic issues like weight stigma.
Emotional experience: When zoomed in, food choices may feel urgent and high-stakes. Small deviations can trigger intense guilt because you've tied your self-worth to the outcome. When zoomed out, you are more likely to feel detached from immediate emotional reactions and access a perspective that one meal or weight fluctuation does not matter in the long run. This can feel either freeing (i.e. acceptance) or nihilistic (i.e. "none of this matters"). For example, when so many of us were feeling despair in the aftermath of the 2024 election, I heard two themes at different extremes from my eating disorder clients: 1) It felt "silly" to care about calories when the world was on fire (zoomed out), and 2) They were counting calories more than ever because it was better than thinking about the fire around them. It felt safer to micromanage the body than to engage with bigger concerns (zoomed in).
Motivation for control: When zoomed in, focus is more likely to be on short-term gratification or perfectionism (e.g. hitting a goal weight, maintaining control), and weight loss can feel like a solution to personal problems. Efforts might feel manageable because they're detail-oriented, even if unsustainable. When zoomed out, a focus on long-term meaning and values (e.g. living a full life, relationships, experiences) is more likely available. Weight loss feels less urgent or trivial, so priorities shift to mental health, connection, and self-acceptance, among others. Think of the often-stated reductionistic-but-true Internet platitude "You can't fight the patriarchy on an empty stomach." This can feel overwhelming rather than or in addition to gratifying for people in larger bodies directly affected by systemic fatphobia that isn't within their personal control to fix.
Recovery implications: In recovery, zooming in might help us to access mindful eating and body neutrality, but it risks falling into old perfectionistic patterns. Hyper-focusing on "doing recovery perfectly" can create new forms of rigidity, as it is harder to tolerate imperfection when zoomed in. Zooming out can help contextualize setbacks as part of the process, increasing self-compassion. It can also help to shift focus to values rather than body image but not without the risk of nihilism: "If it doesn't matter, why try?"
As discussed above with a more general understanding of the zoom in/out framework, it's important to work toward recognizing your triggers for toggling the switch to avoid whiplash, overwhelm, and identity confusion. In your eating disorder, zooming out might happen during periods of high emotional stress that bring about a need for a sense of control. A common catalyst for this is body dysmorphia. Comments on appearance and social media triggers can also zoom us in. Zooming out may happen when the intensity of zooming in becomes too overwhelming. Notice whether you are removed from your personal relationship to food and your body the next time you are philosophically reflecting on diet culture, eating disorder discourse, or systemic oppression, and ask, "Can I allow myself to stay here and also get curious about how this applies specifically to me in this moment?"
Some other affirmations for intentional transitions that may help you to choose your perspective rather than feeling dragged into it:
"I’m focusing on this meal or this body feeling because I want to nurture myself, not because I need to be perfect." (Zooming in with compassion)
"I’m stepping back to see that one bad body image day doesn’t define me, but I’m still allowed to care about how I feel." (Zooming out with purpose)
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