Background: Over the last two decades, the relationship between distance and mental health and the role of distance in psychotherapy has generated considerable research interest. Up to date, operationalizations have primarily focused on verbal content whereas descriptions of distance on the level of communicative form are lacking in the psychological literature. Design and Methods: 5 open-ended narrative interviews with persons with an experience of psychotic (2) or depressive (3) illness were transcribed and systematically coded for characteristics of distance described in the psychological and linguistic literature up to date. Codes for further characteristics of distance were developed bottom-up from the data. Codes were then grouped into broader interpretative categories and these categories were again applied to the data. Results: Distance was displayed at the level of content and form. In total, 29 individual characteristics of distance could be identified, and three interpretative categories emerged: ‘detachment’, ‘balanced oscillation’ and ‘immersion’. Discussion: Our study provides an in-depth, nuanced and gestaltic description of distance and raises awareness for displays of distance at the level of communicative form in addition to content. Our results also support an understanding of distance as a continuous phenomenon and highlight its processual character. Possible connections between distancing and coping as well as implications for psychotherapy are discussed.