Term for emotional distancing? Is there a medical/psychological term for changing one's vantage from 1st person to 3rd person?
An example would be focusing one's eyes on an object while working out to partly  distract them from the pain – changing vantage from participant to observer.
I have heard this called 'emotional distancing' but it would seem such an important skill that I ask if there is a more formal term.
The term you are looking for is illeism: the tendency in some individuals to refer to themselves in the third person. It can be used as a literary device, but it is used to refer to when real people change vantage point and - through a mental condition or social context - refer to themselves in the third person, possibly after referring to themselves in the first person.