Sociological Approach to Reducing Risk and Increasing Resilience Addiction Certification Exam Review

 This episode was pre-recorded as part of a live continuing education webinar. On-demand CEUs are still available for this presentation through ALLCEUs. Register at ALLCEUs.com/CounselorToolbox. I’d like to welcome you to today’s presentation on the sociological approach to reducing risk and building resilience. As I was putting together This presentation it was kind of like right in the wake of when Harvey hit. And then you know recently we’ve had the shooting in Las Vegas, and some of the counselors, especially counselors in training that can’t be practiced independently yet that are in some of my social media groups and in my professional groups have been talking about how frustrating it is and even some of us who are licensed but just can’t wake up and go help the Red Cross right now about how frustrating it is not to be able to help and how much we want to help so what I usually do because you know I I’m generally not upwardly mobile where I can just drop everything and go to a crisis what I did after 9/11 was look at what things in that situation could I positively impact and how could I do it in a way that made sense but you know for my life because I can’t you know at that point I for 9/11 I had an infant at home and you know other stuff so we’re going to look when we’re talking about addressing issues like the opiate epidemic or the major problem of depression almost I guess anxiety almost one in four people has anxiety issues and we’re gonna look at some of that and try to figure out what can be done what can we do from where we are in a way that makes sense because yes we can influence politics and advocacy but what can we do with small chunks of time that are beneficial to helping the cause as well as you know could help the clients we have currently so we’ll define the socio-ecological not model which is Broth and Brenner’s model we’re going to apply it to addiction and mental health issues and explore different variables in this model and then discuss how this framework can be used in prevention and treatment of co-occurring or independently occurring disorders so we’re going to talk about how it may sense to conceptualize not only the development of addiction but also the development of things like eating disorders and mood disorders in terms of a socio-ecological model and even some things like bipolar and schizophrenia can be a person being genetically predisposed or whatever but there could be certain environmental factors that could you know trigger that first psychotic episodes so we want to look at what might be going on and how can we help prevent or treat now prevention can take the form of three different activities if you will prevent the problem so helping people not get depressed at all ever so starting to provide those skills and tools when people are knee-high to a grasshopper hopefully preventing worsening of the problem so people don’t get severely clinically depressed where they can’t get out of bed so the early intervention services and effective you know frontline resources and preventing associated fallout okay the person gets to press gets clinically depressed well let’s see if we can help them avoid losing their job because they can’t get out of bed to go to work develop additional health problems from being depressed or developing an addiction in order to self-medicate that depression so we’ve there are three different methods or avenues we can take in prevention and you know we want to look at them all because when you’ve got somebody who’s becoming clinically depressed you know they’re depressed you know situationally whatever something happened and it started to turn into something more than just a couple of days it’s going to start having associated fallout early and you know it’s not going to be huge they’re not going to lose a job right off they’re not going to start having major family problems right off but they are going to start having little hiccups because that depression causes an imbalance in their in their environment and we know environments like to maintain homeostasis and you know the kids are gonna be like well Mom why aren’t you getting up and doing these things and what’s going on and you know things are going to start changing and the person will need to be able to deal with that so the socio-ecological model explores and explains human behavior as the interaction between the individual and environmental systems there’s a fifth one that is more of your longitudinal but we’re going to talk about the four main ones today the micro the meso the EXO and the macro systems the microsystem involves well let’s start before that the individual if you look at the model is sort of the bull’s eye here and the individual is not considered a system but it involves all of the things about the individual including biology and personal learning that make people who they are okay so this person exists within a microsystem and that micro system is their family peers School Church synagogue whatever and health services things that they probably interface with regularly work should also be on that but it’s for some reason it’s not on this diagram anyway the mesosystem is the interconnection between microsystems so how do family and peers interact I don’t know about you thankfully my family might be very accepting of most of my peers but I know other friends of mine who brought home peers who were not as well accepted by their family so there was some conflict between the the family and the peers and we know how much peer pressure and peer relationships are important in an adolescents’ lives which creates conflict and consternation how does the family interface with school how does Pierce how does your peer group interact with school and do they see it as a good thing to do they see it as worthwhile you know etc so when we’re talking about the microsystem and the mesosystem we’re talking about things that people interface with daily so I want you to think about how the mesosystem and you can feel free to chime in on the chat room if you want how does the mesosystem family peer school church you know recreational activities health services impact the development of mental health or illness now you notice I’m trying to kind of switch ears for health because we want to promote health and we can look at the opposite for mental illness but you know if you have positive family peer interactions it’s probably going to support mental health it’s probably going to support decision-making in the adolescent it’s probably going to I mean and I’m thinking adults and adolescents here but family and friends you know if you want to think about you know how do you get along with your significant others peer groups and do they interface well or is it kind of like oil and water how does the how does your family interface with your work how do they deal with how many hours you have to work whether you’re getting called in at night or getting emails or text messages at 8 p.m. or you know what are their expectations and how does that influence if there’s a conflict you know if the family doesn’t like what’s going on at work or the fact that you know your boss is emailing you at 8 p.m. then it can create conflict within the environment which can lead to increased anxiety and depression and Yabadabadoo now how does mental health or illness impact the mesosystem so again thinking about how if someone is clinically depressed how does it impact their family how does it impact their peers and if you have a family member who has you know clinical depression or generalized anxiety how does it impact how your family interfaces with everything else because you know you end up having somebody or somebody in the family who may be caretaking for the person who has depression or anxiety or whatever the mental health issue is who’s not able to do the stuff that they were able to do so the rest of the families kind of pick slack so how does that affect how they interface you know the rest of the family members interface with school and work you know maybe they end up showing it more exhausted so it’s important to look at the mesosystem the exosystem involves links in a social setting in which the individual does not have a direct active role so for example how would I impact my spouse’s work and again if I am the identified patient and I’ve got clinical depression and I’m calling my spouse to come home because I just can’t be alone or my spouse is late to work or unproductive because he’s always exhausted when he gets to work because he has so much to do since I am you know not able to do as much right now then it could negatively impact his work and so we want to look at how that impacts how the home environment impacts work and how work impacts the home environment the macro system describes the culture socioeconomic status poverty ethnicity etc so what we’re looking at in the macro system is really the larger you know not just within your city maybe or even closer to your neighborhood we’re looking at what you see in the media what you see on national TV your your statewide elections your national elections your state laws and culture and what’s being communicated if you are a religious person what your religious culture communicates because you know religion generally is not just in one little area it’s international or national so what types of things does that communicate to to the person and how does that influence the development or not development if you will of depression anxiety or addiction so again think about how the exosystem of the social setting in which the individual doesn’t have a directive or an active role think about how much people were influenced after the elections I mean yeah we had a role if you went out and voted you had a role but you don’t decide the election so once that happens how do you know the exosystem impact you know your your emotions your other community events employment etc and how those things impact the family I know you know there was a lot of consternation and concern among some of my friends who are Jewish after the last election so their families experienced a high ink or a great increase in anxiety development of mental health or mental illness how does all this stuff that’s going on in the exosystem and stuff that you don’t have direct control over how does it impact the development of mental illness you know or mental health and we’re going to talk more specifically in a couple of minutes and again likewise how does mental illness or mental health impact the exosystem if you have a healthy workforce if you have healthy people who are actively participating in work and going to community activities voting to participate then you’re probably going to have a healthier outcome than if you have people who are not able I mean they’re so depressed they’re not able to even get out and participate so we want to look at the reciprocal nature it’s not one way the community doesn’t just affect us you know it may affect us but then how we react affects the community how does the attitude of the culture impact the community if you’ve got a a culture that is accepting of certain ideologies they’re accepting of LGBTQI they’re accepting of people who are Muslim in their religion they’re accepting of people who are Christian and their religion they’re accepting of you know fill in the blank if the culture is accepting of that how does that affect the community and those people within the community who might you know otherwise not have been accepting does it kind of pressure them in or does it cause anxiety and consternation in those people how does the attitude of the culture for example about premarital sex and marriage affect the family how does it affect the development of and again we’re thinking about anxiety depression and addiction so how does it affect the development of stress which may lead to mood disorders or problems and how did the community families and individuals with mental health or mental illness impacts the culture you know so we have an impact on our culture we get together we see you know we have Generation X Generation Y but the baby boomers all had their sort of or we all have our sort of unique cultures and things that we bring to the table and things you know that was given to us we said no we don’t want to thank you very much so there is a give-and-take among the individuals within the culture and that’s good because that means we can start small you know start in our locale and create this positive mesosystem and then build from there if If you have a positive community then that’s probably going to spread think about when a company goes and dumps fertilizer for example into a waterway it doesn’t just stay there over time that fertilizer bleeds out and you start having algae blooms everywhere things don’t stay I mean in our society things don’t stay in one place for very long they tend to move they tend to migrate so positive will migrate that’s awesome negative can also migrate so we want to look at how can we enhance the positive migration and keep down the negative if you will so now let’s start talking about what can we do and how can we operationalize all of this we realize that if we affect the individual it’ll have a positive effect on the meso system which can have a positive effect on the exosystem Yabadabadoo so great we also realize that one of the only things we have a lot of control over is the individual ourselves so a lot of people come to counseling individually score so this is where we’re going to start so what things contribute I start by listing risk factors for the development of mood disorders and addictions and then we talk about capital you know what you have in order to you need to have to prevent these things and then prevention strategies so that’s kind of how we’re going to go it’s not going to stay depressing individuals with chronic pain are at higher risk of mood disorders or addiction addiction because of the pain management you know drugs that are out there and you know once they start taking payment management drugs opiates a lot of times the brain quits producing endogenous opioids the natural painkillers so when they first come off the body doesn’t automatically pick up so it takes a little while for the person’s pain tolerance to build back up which keeps some people from wanting to get off the medication among other things but chronic pain can also be debilitating it can make people lose some abilities that they used to have or crush some dreams if you will you no, I think I’ve told you before that I have a bad shoulder and carpal tunnel so I can’t garden the way I used to you know I still go out and do it but I’ve got to pay attention and only be out there for an hour too instead of spending six hours out on the farm which is frustrating to me it was only mildly frustrating but my grandfather when he started developing Parkinson’s couldn’t make his miniatures anymore and he made gorgeous miniatures and I know that’s not chronic pain but it’s kind of the same thing if you’ve got rheumatoid arthritis he couldn’t make his miniatures and he became devastated and became withdrawn so understanding that pain has multiple influences that can cause depression that may trigger a grief reaction that we need to help people address now the things I put in bold are things that we as clinicians can easily help people prevent or/or address chronic pain we can help For people with low self-esteem that’s a no-brainer if people don’t feel good about themselves and they’re looking for external validation they’re going to be at a higher risk for anxiety fear of abandonment fear of not being good enough fear of failure and depression a sense of hopelessness and helplessness substance use especially early substance use can cause changes in the prefrontal cortex leading to problems with impulse control and decision-making but it can also disrupt the balance of neurochemicals leading to symptoms of depression and/or anxiety so it’s important to understand that especially the earlier the substance use starts the greater the chance that it’s going to cause some sort of brain changes and we’ve also found that a lot of people, not the majority but there is a percentage a significant percentage of people that when they start using early they kind of quit developing coping skills after that they find something that works they’re like oh I like this I think I’ll use that from now on when we start talking about people who started drinking or smoking marijuana when they were you know 9 10 11 12 you might see more mood issues or addiction issues in those people than people who didn’t start using mood-altering drugs as early as a history of abuse can contribute to the development of PTSD but not everybody who is abused develops PTSD but there can be episodes of anxiety and depression as well as it increases the chances of the development of addiction genetic vulnerability we know that mood disorders and addictions tend to run in families and they’ve done studies that have shown that there is a genetic component doesn’t mean it’s going to happen it just means you have this gene there that could be triggered so we don’t want we want to make sure that clients know that they are not just doomed you know they can prevent triggering that but they need to be aware that they may be more vulnerable inappropriate coping responses if we are not born with coping skills so if somebody doesn’t know how to cope with life on life’s terms because either because they’ve always been shielded or because they’ve never had anybody helped them maybe they were kind of on their own from the get-go so they learned to lash out and get angry or withdraw and get depressed but they never really learned how to deal with the stuff they’re gonna be at higher risk of mood and addictive disorders we can help people develop coping responses are one of the things you want to look at when people are using seemingly unhelpful behaviors is to remember to ask what is the cause of this so we want to look at what is the root cause of what is prompting this behavior and what is the benefit of the current behaviors and I’m going to keep reminding you of that as we go through this violence and aggression you know again what’s the cause of the violence and aggression did people do this person learn that’s how you cope with distress in their family of origin is it a protective mechanism because they’ve experienced situations where that has helped them deal with conflict before what prompts this and what the benefit to it when they act out when they’re violent and aggressive what is the benefit it gives them power it pushes people away they just enjoy hurting people hopefully that’s the minority but we want to ask that because we can’t figure out an alternative until we know what the function is same thing with risk-taking and impulsivity there are certain theories that says some people need more stimulation than others they get bored easily so they tend to be higher risk-takers and maybe more impulsive than you want to ask if this person doing this you know I have a friend who is an adrenaline junkie you know skydiving rock climbing you name it he’s done it and you know more power to him I don’t see a purpose of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane but he he thrives on that and when he can’t get out and do those sorts of things he feels good so what is it about this risk-taking and what kind of risk-taking it risk-taking as in holding a balloon liquor store or is it risk-taking as in doing something like skydiving which is theoretically safe and what’s the benefit it makes gives them a rush makes they feel good helps him you know escape or whatever great that’s fine the rebellious nests you know again what is and this is a key for adolescents especially but even if you’re a supervisor working with employees if they’re being rebellious you want to look and say what’s the point what’s the benefit to being rebellious what are they holding on to and refusing to let go of that you want them to let go of or what are they refusing to do that you want them to do and what’s the benefit to it if they are being rebellious and they’re staying like think again adolescents staying out all night OK well what’s a motivating factor is it to get under their parent’s skin probably not is it to conform to peer pressure you know oftentimes that’s maybe the case but you have to look at the individual and say ok how can you do this in a way that helps you move forward rejection of pro-social values if the people who espouse the pro-social values are the people that the person rejects then they’re probably going to reject those values so we want to look at you to know if you’re rejecting those what values are you espousing and why are those important to you and why are you rejecting these over here you know not saying it’s right or wrong I’m just trying to understand where you’re coming from and you know that’s something that we’ve got to be sensitive to and different people are going to hold different values lack peer refusal skills to stay out late to get into trouble to use drugs to have early sex whatever it is those things a lot of times indicate poor communication skills and low self-esteem need to be accepted you know all that stuff that’s challenging during during teen and early adolescent years those are things we can help with being bullied you know that’s a risk factor when people are bullied they tend to get depressed and when they’re bullied they may turn to substances to try to make themselves feel better to numb the pain they make self-injure there’s a lot of different things might happen we can help people develop skills to deal with being bullied since we don’t understand a hundred percent why people bully we need to help the victims become survivors we need to help them have the tools to be able to deal with it and understand why it happens without letting it hurt them early and persistent problem behaviors that’s just so broad but again look at why the person’s child acting out an early sexual activity could be a history of sexual abuse could be a dysfunctional family of origin and the child is trying to get out I worked with a 14-year-old who once told me she was gonna get pregnant as soon as she turned 15 because that’s when she could get into housing on her own so she was intentionally going to get pregnant at 15 and there was a reason for it she was very clear about her logic a lot of times it’s peer pressure and acceptance but uh asking what is that what is the cause and is this cause going to keep the person from developing healthy coping skills and being happy is potentially going to lead to depression peer rejection you know that hurts so helping people figure out how to navigate peer rejection because you’re not going to be liked by everybody academic failure we can help with now not necessarily as clinicians but we can advocate for the person we can help them find tutors resources etc lack of information on positive health behaviors put it out there most of the time youth these days have a pretty good idea of what’s healthy and what’s not they just aren’t motivated for it they’re motivated for something else when addictive behaviors are you used to cope with stress or unpleasant feelings I said coping skills may fail to develop or when they’re used to enhance self-confidence such as drinking before going to a party then they may start to develop anxiety and self-consciousness when they don’t have a drink on board so it may start prompting the development of some mood disorders in addition to the fact that repeated use especially in a young brain can cause some neurotransmitter imbalances using addictive behaviors also to enhance other experiences ties it to those experiences making them person more likely to use those and similar situations desensitizing the brain’s pleasure centers so what am I what do I mean I mean if you typically drink when you are watching football then you’re going to be more likely to drink every time you watch football it’s just one of those things you do when you watch football if you’re one of those people who eat when they watch TV then when you watch TV you’re more likely to eat when you go to the movies because that’s a similar situation you’re more likely to want to have popcorn or eat so it’s important to understand that with addictive behaviors if you have something that produces pleasure it can be triggered you know the person can start thinking about it in a similar situations using repeatedly can cause neurochemical imbalances in genetics you know you can’t be born with a neurochemical imbalance not enough serotonin too much whatever and poor health behaviors as I’ve talked about a bunch of times not enough sleep quality poor nutrition and high stress can also cause neurochemical imbalances so we can educate people about some of the things that can cause depression and anxiety so they can prevent it we can educate parents so they can start coaching their kids from the get-go so personal recovery capital to develop what we need to be happy and healthy human beings we have to have certain things to help us along the way we need to have the things to enable us for physical health think about Maslow’s pure hierarchy bottom level is all your health and biological needs we need to have our physical health and that includes nutrition Slee and you know not being in pain all the time sometimes you’re gonna feel pain that’s being human that’s being alive but we need to have our health for the the most part we need to have financial assets to get our basic needs met you now get that food keep clothing on our back transportation roof over our heads health insurance and access to medication and there are two different things health insurance covers theoretically going to the doctor and the mental health counselor etc access to medication is not covered under a lot of insurance so remember that most pharmaceutical companies have patient assistance programs that can help clients access their medication if they can’t afford it because some medication is a really expensive safe housing conduct that’s conducive to recovery and that’s not just addictions if you’ve got somebody who is clinically depressed or highly anxious living in a radically dysfunctional household where there’s lots of yelling or arguing or other people who are similarly dysfunctional it’s probably not going to prompt those positive cognitions and mindfulness and everything that we’re trying to establish doesn’t mean they can move unfortunately a lot of people can’t so we got to talk about how can you create an area in your housing environment that’s safe people need to have adequate clothing to stay warm to be able to dress for work and you know go to their job and be dressed appropriately and transportation to get their needs met most of us don’t live in a city where we can just walk but walking I guess is a form of transportation we need to be able to access the resources that are out there whether it be food or going to work so we can pay our light bill or whatever it is values awareness people need to know what’s important to them to figure out what they need to do to be happy a sense of purpose helps people keep going and we can help people with this I mean these are easy exercises when you give them a values activity worksheet you know what are your top five values when you look at the sense of purpose what is your purpose in life and a lot of us don’t know but we know what we want it to be or we can start theorizing about what is the purpose of what I do as a job on a day-to-day basis, what is the purpose of this activity that I’m doing so they can start to see some meaning in the stuff they do we can help people develop hope and optimism and we’ve talked about that one people need to have a perception of their past present and future they need to be able to look over the past and it may suck or it may be great but they need to be able to look back over it and go yep that’s it they need to be able to look at their present and realistically assess what they’ve got and maybe what they don’t have but realistically assess what they’ve got and look at their future and go where do I want to go from here because you’re here and you don’t want to stay here forever you can’t stay here forever because times gonna move on what next people need to be able to see but understand that they’re not necessarily controlled by their past or stuck in the present that they have the ability to make choices every single moment to work toward what they want for the future education training and job skills people need to be able to make a living that’s just the way it is you need to be able to feed yourself and put a roof over your head so we can make referrals to job training agencies we can make referrals to social service agencies problem-solving skills interpersonal skills and self-esteem are all things that we are super skilled at teaching and we can teach these in chunks they don’t have to be these long groups don’t have to be big drawn-out sessions we can provide people snippets you can provide somebody with the concept of distressed tolerance and the improve acronym in a handout and have them look at that or in an email you know if you email your clients once each day or on your blog there are a lot of different ways, you can just get that information out there and in front of people so I can look at it I call I tell my clients it’s bathroom reading you know I usually give them a handout or two and I just put it on the back of the toilet and when you’re in there you know take a look at it if it’s useful great if not bottle it up and throw it in the the trashcan I’m good with that but there’s no pressure and I’m not putting extra assignments on them I’m just providing information about a skill and then if they want to pursue it further when they come back to counseling we can talk about it so what can we do we can promote positive health and wellness behaviors by educating people about why they’re important and what to do and where to find more information you know because some of these things like nutrition we can’t be prescriptive but we can point people in the direction of where to get good advice and information and we can also model this you know in our treatment plan at least in mind I try to make sure that people are putting a print emphasizing getting enough quality sleep eating well and maybe exercising at least moving around if they don’t want to call it exercise but taking care of themselves and getting some relaxation and recreation in their bonding to a pro-social culture is difficult for us to do for people or do with people we can talk about what are your hobbies what are things that you enjoy doing and encourage people to try out volunteering or get involved in meetups to engage in activities with other people but that’s something that they’re going to have to do on their participation in extracurricular activities again kind of the same thing we can point them in the right direction of volunteerism meetups things through their through their church or their synagogue or their you know whatever clubs that they’re involved in positive relationships with adults now obviously this is more important if we’re working with children or teenagers we want to help children and teenagers kind of see where adults don’t have their head that far in the ground but we also want to help adults learn how to more effectively communicate with teenagers because a lot of adults lecture at and I know this and you’ll you’ll understand when you’re older and you know lots of that kind of stuff so things that we can do to enhance relationships with adults is to educate people about you know how to effectively communicate with teenagers for example who are trying to find their way and trying to assert independence and resisting some rules how do you deal with that how do you communicate with them in a way because a lot of parents have difficulty navigating that boundary between friend and parent so we can help with that active workshops in the community workshops you can do at churches at libraries those are things you can do there you can put them on for like an an hour once a month it’s good if you’re it’s free but it’s a good promotion for your practice if you know you go out and do it and people come to learn something from you, they’re like hey that might be helpful social competence it’s another one of those things that we can do in little snippets we can provide tips and tips and tools whether infographics on an Instagram page are really useful for a lot of teenagers they want something that’s you know in a picture and fast it’s a snapshot so social competence checklists are another really good thing if you’re teaching different types of skills for communication or how you’re supposed to use different forks I know the first time I went to a formal dinner I was looking at all the silverware going I have no idea what to do with this stuff the sense of well-being and self-confidence we can help people develop this by encouraging them to focus on what they do well we want to make sure they have plans well that means goal setting and since a lot of people don’t know how to goal-set they don’t have goals, so they’re just kind of floating out there not looking at the future we want to help people look at the future and figure out how they’re going to get there so they’re like wow this is doable this is attainable this is another thing you can put work put worksheets on your website you can do short workshops to help people figure out how to look at how to define or learn how to define a rich and meaningful life and figure out how they’re going to define their goals and achieve their knowledge about risks associated with addictive behaviors now a lot of kids you know think back to the old dare programs I had a lot of clients tell me that those programs only taught me how to you safely I was like well that’s not what they were intended for but we do want to educate youth about you know still about the risks of some of those drugs and even adults not just youth educate people about how dangerous or how potentially addictive opiates for example can be after three to five days your body has already started to build up a tolerance that’s kind of scary so helping people understand that but also addictive behaviors like pornography a lot of teens don’t think about it a lot of adults don’t think about it until they’re stuck in it or online gambling you know those are some things that can kind of catch people unawares because they didn’t think about it wasn’t a substance we typically think of addictions as substances since it’s not a substance they didn’t think about the effect that the pleasure from those activities were going to have on our neurochemicals and create a a situation where they didn’t feel okay they didn’t feel normal they didn’t feel happy without having that in their life because their dopamine receptors had been blunted individual prevention strategies the big summary is we want to promote attitudes beliefs and behaviors that ultimately provide the person with healthy coping skills whether it’s through health class whether it’s through workshops I know at organizations I’ve worked at before the Jaypee would come in and do periodic workshops that’s a great way to connect with people and reduce utilization if you do psycho-educational prevention group because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure we want to make sure that they’re aware of positive health behaviors and how to access those resources in Gainesville I don’t know about up here but I know in Gainesville the mall used to open at six o’clock in the morning so people could walk inside in a safe place and you know be out of the elements and yadda-yadda so just letting people know that that existed was a big step because they were like well I don’t want to join a gym and go to the mall with effective interpersonal skills we want to make sure people know how to effectively communicate set boundaries all that stuff that we talked about this can be taught it’s nice if your local news is willing to use you to do you know wellness minute I find one of the best places to do that is either right before or right after the weather because most everybody Tunes in for the weather, I may not stick around for the animal of the day or whatever well I always do but I’m always tuned in for the weather so if you get either right before or right after that you tend to get higher viewership and reach more people and a minute gives somebody a chunk of something that they can use today-specific approaches may include education and life skills training in schools you know is provided to the kids and have them share it with their parents through the media and community center or library workshops those are all great ways to get stuff out I encourage you if you want to get into providing prevention and helping to help your community helping people to prevent getting depressed or anxious or developing other problems to look at doing some of these very time-limited things because you don’t want to lose a lot of billable hours but we still want to be able to do more than we’re doing at least that’s what a lot of a lot of us tend to feel like the mesosystem so we’ve been talking about the individuals so far because that’s where we can have the greatest effect the mesosystem examines close relationships that may increase the risk of experimenting with high-risk behaviors or developing mood disorders people’s closest circle of peers partners and family members influence their behavior and contribute to their range of experience if you’ve got a child that grows up in a household where the parent or parents are clinically depressed they’re not able to model effective coping skills where they model cognitive distortions guess what jr. Is gonna pick up if you are in a household where you know you’re in college and you’ve got four other roommates and all of your your other roommates tend to be negative and naysayers you’re either probably going to move or you may that might start wearing off on you a little bit likewise if they are you know all kinds of go-getters that can wear off on you too so you know there’s going to be an impact risk factor is peer and family reinforcement of negative or unhealthy norms and expectations so if your family says you know people suck they’re always going to take advantage of you what are you going to take away from that and is that going to contribute to you probably having difficulties with trusting and maybe developing depression possibly so we want to look at what kind of messages is the peer group or family sending to the individual that may contribute to the development of mood or anxiety disorders early sexual activity among peers could communicate that well this is the norm so everybody’s doing it ties to deviant peers and gang involvement you know especially at that particular group there’s a lot of pressure to conform or there’s a negative consequences family members who don’t spend much time together and this could be because parents work a lot this could be because everybody’s you know involved in all kinds of other stuff but they found that when families are disengaged the parents tend to miss out on subtle cues when families are disengaged even if they don’t have children in the mix that there tends to be a weakening of those bonds supportive bonds so people are at higher risk for development of depression and anxiety because they don’t have that you know everybody’s behind me sort of feeling parents who have trouble keeping track of youth can indicate that the youth may be at risk for developing substance or more mood disorders lack of clear rules and consequences you think about even just being at work when there’s a lack of clear rules and consequences you don’t exactly know what you’re supposed to do I know for me that creates doodles of anxiety I like manuals and to date pretty much every job I’ve ever taken I’ve walked in and there hasn’t been a manual and I’ve been like okay there must be a manual written and that’s been my first thing now I’m kind of on the structured side so I don’t expect everybody is that way but most of us tend to experience a little bit of anxiety about failure about acceptance if we don’t know what’s expected so it’s important whether it’s a family or a job situation to make sure there’s clear rules and consequences you know what’s expected and what’s going to happen if you mess up or if you don’t meet this expectation there also needs to be consistent expectations and limits you know when people especially children but a lot of us tested our limits when we were kids and even as adults you know I know you know going back to working in organizations I would have staff who would test limits and see how long they could go without turning in a progress note before I’d be knocking on their door going paperwork it’s natural for people to kind of test limits especially with stuff they don’t want to do stuff that’s not rewarding family conflict and abuse can cause a high risk of depression and anxiety whether adults or children I mean if there’s a a lot of conflict and chaos it’s exhausting and it can cause a lot of dysphoric emotions and loss of employment that’s kind of self-explanatory protective factors close family relationships so as clinicians we can encourage people to identify who they consider their family it may not be their blood relatives or their family who are there for them who can they call it 2:00 in the morning and how can they nurture those relationships encourage people to develop relationships with peers that are involved in pro-social activities like hiking or volunteering in the community consistency of parenting is important in terms of producing children who are who are stronger healthier more resilient encouraging education and parents who are actively involved can help prevent future depression because they’re creating children who can join the workforce and have that individual capital to prevent depression and anxiety and cope with stress positively and this is a family protective factor and a peer for protective factor why because we learn from observation so if our peers cope with stress positively by prayer or exercise or whatever it is they do and our family has other positive ways of coping with stress and we’re going to have a greater venue of stuff to choose from supportive relationships with caring for adults beyond the immediate family is encouraged so we want children to grow up being able to interact with teachers coaches with you know Scout leaders whomever and start seeing that people outside of the nuclear family are trustworthy sharing and family responsibilities including chores and decision making and that’s true for children teenagers and even adults you know if you’re living in the same household it important that everybody feels like they have a say in what’s happening and participates in the upkeep of the family environment and family members are nurturing and support each other and this is one where I tend to stop and I do a love languages little mini class to help people remember that we don’t always experience nurturance in the same way so understanding one another’s love language is really important to be able to nurture in a way that’s meaningful to that other person peer and family interventions are designed to identify norms goals and expectations in the family foster family problem-solving skills so there’s not just one person always fixing it develop structure and consistency within the family unit promote healthy relationships and engage peers and family of choice in the recovery process so if somebody’s already depressed we need to be able to hopefully engage everybody that’s involved in this person’s immediate environment in helping them move towards recovery and you know preferably not dragging them back down so we want to engage them and make sure that people have a supportive others school and work risk factors lack of clear expectations both academic or performance-wise and behavioral lack of commitment or sense of belonging at school or at work if you just kind of go and you feel like a number you punch in punch out that may not make you feel appreciated which can contribute to depression and you know just bad feelings high numbers of students failing academically at school and work translates to high amounts of turnover if you never know who’s going to get laid off it increases stress and anxiety and parents and community members who are not actively involved in keeping kids in school and helping make sure that the workforce workforce is strong but we want to make sure that people have access to how when it’s needed we want to make sure that people have access to tutoring in school if they need it to prevent failing school they have access to transportation to get to work now those are things those are meta concepts that are more on the community level but it’s important that as a community member you know we look at different things that we may be able to participate in advocacy and say you know it’s really important to get a bus system going I live out about 30 miles east of Nashville and we must have the the train that goes from my city out to Nashville so people have access to more jobs so that was important for us to get past the City Commission protective factors school and work positive attitudes gotta find a reason why you’re doing this you know and sometimes it’s hard to find a reason for algebra but we need to help kids find a reason for that we need to help adults find a reason for why they’re going to work why are they doing what they’re doing regular attendance shows you know it is associated with higher mood less less risk of mood or addictive disorders because you’re able to get up and do it and interface with people and get that social support hopefully from your colleague’s high expectations are communicated effectively in setting and positive social development is encouraged you know whether it’s at work or at school, there are goals there are things you’ve got to accomplish there are performance objectives but we also want to encourage morale and positive social bonding whatever the setting having a positive instructional climate again whether at work or school, I know we learn things when we’re on the job we learn things and I don’t want people to feel like they’re having difficulty like they’re stupid I want people to feel like anything that we teach them as a challenge and something that may be beneficial down the road leadership and decision-making opportunities are really important again for students or employees to prevent burnout keep morale up reduce anxiety and increase a sense of personal empower and connection and active involvement for everybody is fostered and the school or organization is responsive to the student’s needs making sure that in school in the case of school they have access to tutoring resources it’s a safe environment for them to be in and the children that are going to that school have enough food in their bellies you know they can’t learn if they’re hungry all the time workplace is a little bit different but we still need to be responsive to people’s needs in terms of you know family requirements whether they need to if they’re going back to school shifting schedules a little bit we need to try to work with people instead of being completely rigid and it’s my way or the highway when possible to promote the best mental health characteristics of settings in which relationships are often associated with the development of mood disorders and addictive behaviors so we want to look at the characteristics of schools that are they safe are they positive environments are they cheering squads or are they places where people know they’re gonna go and get thrown under the bus same thing with workplaces you know when you walk into a place you get most of we get a sense and you’re either like oh this is a cool place to work or oh I can’t wait til I can get out of here you know we want to go toward the other end and neighborhoods when you go into a neighborhood – people take care of their environment do they or do they have trash strewn all over their lawn all of these things communicate how people feel about their environment and generally how they feel about themselves and whether they have the energy to take care of stuff or they just feel completely disenfranchised and don’t care more about community risk factors no sense of connection to the community neighborhood disorganization rapid changes high unemployment a lack of strong social institutions lack of monitoring of youths activities imbalanced media portrayals of safety health and appropriate behavior misleading advertising and alcohol or drugs readily available a lot of stuff we do we’re not going to be able to affect on the community level so much but we’re gonna hit them real quick we want to improve the climate process and policies within community schools and workplaces to make it safe and promote positive health behaviors prevention strategies are designed to reduce social isolation reduce and address stigma increase awareness of local recovery models you know who’s out there that has recovered and can serve as a role model improve economic and housing opportunities so people have a house a safe roof over their head and they can you know earn money and feel good about themselves increasing the accuracy and improving the positivity of media messages and increasing physical and financial ability availability of recovery so like I said I live in a little town so it’s nice that we have a community mental health center here so people don’t have to rely on going into Nashville but also making sure that services are financially available whether you have a free clinic once a month or you know make sure you’ll you take Medicaid but there are still a lot of people who have no insurance so where do they go the socio-ecological model identifies how the end the individual impacts and is impacted by not only his own characteristics but also those of family peers community and culture prevention takes the form of preventing the problem preventing the worsening of the problem and preventing associated fallout like I said as clinicians a lot of what we’re going to do is target the individual providing them with resiliency skills to deal with some of this adversity that might be around them and to help them sort through some of those media messages and go yeah that’s not even true you know if I drink this vodka I’m not suddenly going to have 14 supermodels hanging on me or whatever it is that’s being communicated so encouraging people to be informed and Wylie consumers any change in the the system will affect other parts of this system so if it’s a positive change is probably going to have positive changes negative has negative changes addressing addictive and mood disorder behaviors require a the multi-pronged approach we need to look at the individual and you know provide provide as many skills as possible there because that’s where we’re going to have a lot of our impact especially in prevention but we also need to realize that this person resides within a family you know whether they live alone which sometimes is less problematic or they live in a household with other people, we need to make sure that where they lay their heads at night where they spend their non-working hours feel safe and is conducive to recovery where they work or go to school also needs to feel safe and be conducive to recovery and that’s part of the community so we need to kind of look at these areas and if they aren’t safe or they don’t feel safe or aren’t conducive to recovery, we need to help people how to figure out how they can fix that or address it like I said they may not be able to move so what can you do to set some boundaries to create as much safety as you can how can you do this and there are a lot of different techniques that I’m sure you already have that you used to help people but it’s important again not to just focus on the individual because they don’t live in a bubble we need to look at everything right and are Are there any questions now we have or I have added a Wednesday class, so you don’t don’t have to come but if you have unlimited membership same time same station Wednesday so Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday we have a class from noon. CST 1 p.m. EST 2 for an hour all righty I will talk to y’all maybe tomorrow maybe on Thursday have a great day if you enjoy this podcast please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube you can attend and participate in our live webinars with Doctor Snipes by subscribing at all CEUs comm slash counselor toolbox this episode has been brought to you in part by all CEUs com providing 24/7 multimedia continuing education and pre certification training to counselors therapists and nurses since 2006 use coupon code consular toolbox to get a 20% discount off your order this month.As found on YouTubeI thought my anxiety disorder was for life… $49.⁰⁰ But I Discovered How Hundreds Of Former Anxiety Sufferers Melted Away Their Anxiety And Now Live Relaxed, Happy Lives – With No Trace Of Anxiety Or Depression At All! http://flywait.anxiety4.hop.clickbank.net We’ve seen so many people go anxiety-free that we have no hesitation in guaranteeing this program. So… If at any time within 60 days of you purchasing ‘Overthrowing Anxiety’, your anxiety hasn’t completely evaporated then you can have all your money back. No questions asked! You can do this for yourself today. You can start making a difference in your life right now. Click on the button below and you’ll receive your copy of Overthrowing Anxiety in just a few minutes. It’ll be one of the best decisions you’ve ever made – guaranteed! http://flywait.anxiety4.hop.clickbank.netOIP-29

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Skills and Counseling Techniques with Dr. Dawn-Elise “Doc” Snipes

 CEUs are available for this presentation at AllCEUs.com/CBT-CEU Hi everybody and welcome to today’s presentation on cognitive behavioral therapy skills. Like the other The presentation we did on assert not assertive community treatment acceptance and commitment therapy, which is also based on providing information about skills that can be used not providing an evidence-based practice We couldn’t cover that in a full hour or just an hour so over the next hour we’re going to define cognitive behavioral therapy and its basic principles a lot of us are familiar with this but it’s going to be a good review and it also may highlight some nuances that you didn’t know about will identify factors impacting people’s choice of behaviors explore causes and impact of thinking errors and identify common thinking errors and their relationships to cognitive distortions so why do we care well as therapists we want to help people figure out the best way to live a happy healthy meaningful goals-driven life for some people that’s going to mean using some cognitive behavioral interventions that can be in addition to mindfulness that can be in addition to a lot of other things but it’s important to help people understand that the way we believe things to be the way we interpret things is going to affect our reactions so for example think about a situation you know you’ve walked into and maybe you walked into it with a small child and it was a different situation it was a new situation but you know it was no big deal you walked in it was not a threatening situation to you because you were like hey I got this the little kid walks in and goes oh wow there are a lot of people walking around here, this is really scary same situation as two different perceptions you probably didn’t have much of a stress reaction going on whereas the little child probably had this fight-or-flight thing going on grabbing onto your hand like please don’t let go Atlanta Airport is a perfect example if you’ve ever taken a little kid through Atlanta Airport it gives you an idea about how People can perceive things differently and when you enact that fight-or-flight reaction you’re going to have all those stress hormones you’re going to have all either anxiety or anger or whatever that goes with it it may serve to exhaust the person and leave them feeling hopeless and helpless so what we want to do is help people see that but we also want to help them see that when They’re depressed when they’re tired when they’re sick things are going to seem a lot worse a lot of times because they don’t have the energy to perceive it differently I mean when you’re sick it’s overwhelming to think of going through Atlanta Airport so this is what we want to help people start understanding is it’s two sides of the same coin they interact if one is you know kind of going wonky is going to affect the other one the good thing is If one’s going really well the other one’s going to go well if you’re Having positive thoughts you’re probably going to feel pretty good there’s an activity and I think we’re going to talk about it later it’s called the coin flip activity and I asked client clients to flip a coin in the morning and in the morning if it turns heads then they have to be the most positive Pollyanna all day long look for the silver lining and everything smile walk with their head up hold those nonverbals up and see how they feel at the end of the day besides a little sore because there are muscles they’re using they haven’t been used in a while if it lands on tails they can just be their normal selves which generally if they’re seeing me means that they are depressed anxious stressed out angry about something in the negative realm then we Talk about how things seemed different on the days when you were feeling better when you were walking taller when you were smiling even our nonverbals it doesn’t even have to be sickness it can be our nonverbals that can make us feel or make our body feel heavy and tired and make it seem like it’s a whole lot harder to deal with life as a person who perceives the world generally good and believe they can deal with challenges as they arise that good old self-efficacy will be able to allow their stress response system to function normally so if they’re like you know what I can deal with whatever life throws at me I’ve got it and maybe I need help with it maybe I’ll need to ask for support but I’ve got it it’s not going to completely overwhelm me with people who see the world as hostile unsafe and unpredictable You know for a variety of reasons whatever happened to make their scheme as such that they don’t believe that people or the world is trustworthy are predictable They are always on guard they’re always kind of like a hamster in a cage that has Have you ever had a hamster hamsters doesn’t recognize you and goes Hey that’s my own Or human contact score hamsters go run under their little house And you just kind of open the cage and stick your hand in there and flip over their house and you’re like come here and give me cuddles and you’re like you know 200 times bigger than they are so the little hamster is like freaking out this is what it’s like for people and obviously, I’m exaggerating but this is what it’s like for people who have a negative perspective a negative view or a hostile view of the world so kind of keep that little hamster in your mind cognitive behavioral therapy we have core beliefs those things that are in our hearts when I talk with my clients about honesty step one and that’s what they’ve got to do to start recovery is get honest with themselves first and then other people we talk about head heart and gut honesty do you think it’s right does it seem like the right thing to do does it feel right in your heart you know does it make you happy it doesn’t make you feel good and then the Spidey senses is your gut saying and or Is your gut fine if one of those is saying this might not be the right choice and we need to think about what’s going on so we have those core beliefs and I put them in the heart just because that’s the middle of the head heart and gut but you have core beliefs about yourself whether you’re good with You’re bad whether you’re effective at certain things yadda You have core beliefs about other people same thing good bad effective predictable and you have core beliefs about the future and a lot of that goes with locus of control but also your past experiences if the world in the past is seemed unfriendly and uncontrollable and you’ve perceived it that way then you’re going to expect the future to be uncontrollable so what we want to do is help people look at their schemas and their core beliefs about themselves others in the future and figure out kind of what they want it to look like these schemas are going to affect your behavior your thoughts and your feelings and you know you can pick wherever you want to start it doesn’t matter because all three interfaces with one another so if you haven’t let’s Start with negative thoughts If you have negative thoughts then you might feel anxious angry stressed dysphoric which will affect the behavior you’re going to do different things than if you have positive thoughts about something you feel excited and energized you’re going to have different behavior the best thing example I can give you is if you’ve ever done public speaking or had to present something Some people detest public speaking it’s just terrifying for them to get up in front of a group of people so their thoughts are I’m going to trip up I’m going to forget what I’m going to say I’m going to make a fool of myself I’m going to you know it can go on forever that when you get on a roll you can get on a negative roll and go on forever or positive hopefully get on that roll with those thoughts you start holding onto Those thoughts remember as we talked about in a CT the other day when you hold those thoughts and you kind of mush them around in your mind and you come to believe them that you’re going to make a fool of yourself and it’s going to be awful you’re going to start feeling terrified which is going to likely affect your behavior if you go out on the stage and you’re terrified You’re going to probably stutter you’re probably going to get foggy-headed You’re going to have that fight-or-flight reaction so there’s an adrenaline rush and you start sweating and you can’t focus and you can’t concentrate you want to away as opposed to somebody like me who loves public speaking and I’m just like cool I get to go out there and try to engage however many people are in the audience it’s a game for me because when I can see your faces I enjoy trying to figure out and make eye contact with people and figure out what it is that they’re there for what is it that’s going to make them tick what resonates with them so my behavior as You can kind of see right now when I go out there I’m excited and I want to engage people and it’s a fun experience for me again just like the airport the same experience for two different people and two very different interpretations and reactions to it so what effects I don’t like the term rational but when We’re talking about CBT irrationally comes up a lot I like to replace it with helpful because every behavior in its weird sort of way is or probably was rational at one time that being said we’re going to get back to that stress affects our behavioral choices if we’re under stress we can have negative emotions negative emotions will affect our thoughts if we’re feeling sad we’re probably going to look at the dark side if we feel sad we’re going to look at the bottom falling out if we’re happy we’re probably going to look for that silver lining physical factors if you’re in pain sick sleep-deprived poorly nourished so your body can’t produce the neurotransmitters it needs to or heaven forbid intoxicated you’re probably not going to make the same decisions as you would if you were comfortable healthy well-rested nourished and not Intoxicated any of those things can impact how you perceive a situation or how you react in a situation, especially the intoxication whereas in your intoxicated State in your sober state, you may think that you want to do something but then you’ve got that filter that does not not a good idea in an intoxicated State or even in a manic state if you’re you know if you have somebody with bipolar that filter kind of goes away so the behaviors that someone may normally not do because they have a rational filter That goes you know punching this guy out is probably not the best idea right Now the filter goes away when you’re sleep-deprived you’re less generally People are less patient generally people don’t have as much of a filter thing about watching your children if you have children or your grandchildren or even yourself I know myself when I’m sleepy I am giddy as all get-out and things I wouldn’t normally say because they’re you know stupid I’ll just come out and say anyway and my kids just roll their eyes or the mom you’re overtired could go to bed, uh but that’s okay You know I’m okay with that In that situation now if I acted that way at work it would be a worse thing environmentally if you’re introduced to a new or unique situation and you perceive it as stressful because the unknown we know can be stressful then you may not make as rational of a choice or as helpful of a choice because you Maybe trying to escape the same thing as exposure to UNPROFOR bellowing for a word here but UNPROFOR ball is the best I could come up with we all prefer certain situations some people like I said would rather do just about anything then get up in front of a lecture hall of a hundred and fifty people and talk but if they have to do it then they’re going to be under stress which may affect how they do things so we want people to understand that their perception and their feelings are affected by a lot of other things not Just you know an emotion here or a particular memory there’s a lot that goes into it and social if peers your family convey irrational thoughts as necessary very standards for social acceptance people may tend to cling more to it to those unhelpful thoughts and unhelpful behaviors you know in CBT they say irrational because quote nobody wants to associate with those people you know who are those people and why can’t we associate with them there are a lot of things if you think back think high School you know high school is pretty rough if we’re going to talk about having irrational thoughts and cognitions if you have to be part of this particular group to be accepted you have to do this you have to do that but do you do you do those kinds of all-or-nothing statements are cognitive distortions and while they may have served a purpose in some way shape or form in the past we need to encourage our clients to take a look at them now and go are they still helpful ways of thinking is it still helpful for me to think that I am only successful if I live in a million-dollar house in a gated community and do this that and the other or can I be can I define success as a different way or do I define success differently and lack supportive peers to buffer stress so we had those peers who caused stress by talking about the half dues and categorizing and lots of attributions but then there’s Also not having somebody to go you know does this make any sense because sometimes we are our own worst enemies and if we go to a friend and we go you know this is what I’m thinking and I think I have to do this in order to be acceptable to be loved or you know whatever the case may be Most people are not going to use those exact phrases A good friend is probably going to listen and go yeah you’re right or no that’s way off so supportive peers are essential to reminding us to consciously regularly check in with our cognitions to make sure that they are hopeful and rational so a note about irrationality and this is mine this is not from CBT the origins of most beliefs for rational and helpful given the information the person had at the time and their cognitive development their ability to process that information so concepts schemas and core beliefs that people formed when they were five are probably going to be very egocentric you know the person is going to feel like everybody sees it my way because this is how I see it you know just like A five-year-old does A five-year-old doesn’t think Well you know let me take Johnny’s perspective is no he assumes that Johnny sees it the same way so it’s going to be egocentric It’s probably going to be focused on only one aspect of the situation because small children can’t focus on multiple aspects and it’s probably going to be dichotomous it’s all-or-nothing Mommy loves me mommy hates me and it could be personalized you know Everything a lot of kids think that everything has to do with them so if something happens something bad happens many times Children will take it personally or be afraid it’s going to happen to them Again you know if Hurricane Katrina hurricane Andrew those sorts of things you know we saw a lot of trauma in children and they developed very real fears about thunderstorms and hurricane season And if you’ve watched Florida hasn’t had a notable hurricane in years now but There’s a lot of stuff that goes into that but young people During some of those really bad hurricane seasons perceive those situations differently okay so we need to help people understand that if we especially if we use the term irrational those thoughts you form when you are knee-high to a grasshopper and they made perfect sense to you back then but now that you’re an adult you’ve got more experience and you’re able to take different perspectives your brain is more developed Let’s take a look at it and see if you can look at different perspectives and Come up with something a little more helpful maybe a different way of perceiving this situation the irrational irrationality or unhelpful Nosov Fox comes when those beliefs are perpetuated without examination so something a the belief that you formed when you’re five you’re still holding when you’re 35 and you’ve never questioned it you’ve never gone you know does this make sense is This is helpful to getting me toward where I want to be Most of us don’t know We form these attitudes and beliefs when we’re you know growing up when we’re in elementary school middle school high school from watching TV to being around our peers from being around our family in our community and we get all This input of the way things should be and a lot of times people don’t stop to question and go and go Well does this make me happy Is this really what I want and they can be irrational if they continue to be held despite causing harm to the person so the person continues to hold this belief even though it is causing them general emotional cognitive harm is making them miserable we need to look at what’s motivating them to hold on to that belief why is that belief so important and how can we make it so they can live a happy values-driven life with an emphasis on the harness and how can we make it less harmful sometimes it’s more productive for clients to think of these thoughts as unhelpful or helpful instead of irrational sometimes when I say irrational to clients and you know I’m the same way if somebody says you’re being irrational I’m like oh I’m not it elicits this instantaneous defensive reaction it’s like when you tell them they’re being resistant they’re like I am NOT resistant so helpful or unhelpful and then we talk about why it is unhelpful in getting them toward their goals basic principles of cognitive behavioral therapy we teach or help clients learn to distinguish between thoughts and feelings I can think something is scary I’ll probably feel it but if I have an automatic you know feeling I walk into Atlanta Airport and I see yeah I went to an airport in New York I can’t even remember which one it was because my plane was diverted and I got off and I walked out there and I have never seen so many people packed in his place like sardines before in my life I was just completely overwhelmed that was kind of an automatic feeling now that was a feeling based on you know who knows it was overwhelming to be surrounded by that many people so then I had to separate the thoughts and go Okay what am I thinking that’s making me feel so overwhelmed and at that point you know I didn’t know how to get to my gate and all that other sort of stuff with traveling I don’t travel well but encouraging clients to stop and go okay why am I feeling this way what are my What thoughts am I having that are contributing to these dysphoric feelings CBT helps people become aware of how thoughts can influence feelings in ways that are sometimes not helpful We have hecklers in our gallery the automatic tapes that we plaything memories that we have whatever you want to call them when you try something When you are just going through daily life you hear these voices in the back of your head and not real voices but that is saying you’re never going to make this or if you would have just blah blah blah then you’d be a better person helping clients become aware of those thoughts and how they’re Negatively influencing their feelings and keeping them kind of stuck is a huge part of CBT we help them learn about thoughts that seem to occur automatically without even realizing how they may affect emotions again those thoughts from the they’re saying you’re not good enough You’re not smart enough and nobody’s going to like you Where did that come from and do you believe it you know maybe it came from somebody When you were in high school so was that a valid was that a valid source Maybe it came from somebody yesterday on Facebook was that a valid source taking in those thoughts and then figuring out is something I’m going to hold because it makes me happy or is this something that I’ve got to deal with because I’m having a negative reaction constructively evaluate whether these automatic thoughts and assumptions are accurate or perhaps biased the other thing to remember is a lot of our clients not all of them but a lot of them hold themselves to a standard there’s like up here and they hold everybody else to a standard that’s down here so they are a failure if they don’t achieve this but Everybody else is successful as long as they achieve this so encouraging them to take a look at how accurate and biased or unbiased are the thoughts and like I said they may be their thoughts they may be telling themselves these things evaluate whether the current reactions are helpful and a good use of energy or unhelpful and a waste of energy that could be used to move toward those people and things important not impotent important to the person road-rage you’re In the car you’re driving somebody cuts you off Okay natural reaction fight or flight reaction you’re just like slam on the brakes and do whatever you got to do aversive maneuvers you’re good so you could let it go at that point ago got Lucky on that one and keep driving most people not all but most found that 80% of drivers have reported incidences of road rage which is a high number but most people will start getting all fired up and irritated and grumpy and we and just rageful and so my question would be I hear that and I hear that it made you angry In retrospect did screaming at the person as you pass them at sixty miles An hour in your car with the windows rolled up does any good Did it Did any good at all what else could you have done with that energy if you wouldn’t have expended it all yesterday we had to wait for the vet to come by and my daughter just completely wore herself out worrying about when the vet was going to get there what he was going to say about her donkeys and was beside herself so by the time it got to evening and it was time for her to go to her martial arts class she didn’t have the energy to go she’s like um wiped out I just want to go to bed in retrospect we’re looking back and saying okay now Tell me what it was that you were so stressed out about and let’s talk about whether that was a realistic and helpful line of thought to perseverate on all day long and what could you have done differently because she didn’t bother to mention any of that to me yesterday and then developed the skills to notice interrupt and correct these biased thoughts independently causes of these thinking errors information processing shortcuts when we form schemas and we encounter a situation that reminds us of something in the past like when I go to my grandmother’s house I have a schema I have a belief system I have you know stuff that I know about my grandmother’s house so when I go to my grandmother’s house it’s kind of a shortcut to knowing what to expect when I walk in and how to behave how to do different things and it helps me plan and predict if you’re Using outdated or dichotomous all-or-nothing schemas may cause thinking errors because you may be now incorrectly processing current events mental noise some of us have it a lot of us have it Not everybody thinks about trying to focus and study for a final exam in the middle of a really busy sports bar okay this is a cause of thinking or you’re going to miss important things you’re not going to be able to focus you’re not going to necessarily attend to the correct things because there’s just so much else going on your attention is drawn in 17 different directions and or the brain’s limited information processing capacity due to age we talked about that before young kids think all or nothing they think dichotomously egocentric ly middle school-aged kids and older start developing the ability for abstract thinking, by the time we get older, you know as adults theoretically We’re able to you know think pretty well and think pretty clinically about different events but if we’re in crisis when someone is in crisis it could be like what we think of clinically as a crisis or it could be they’re just completely overwhelmed and burned out and have been burning the candle at both ends for three months they’re not going to process information quite as well They’re not going to take in all this stuff because they’re just like shell-shocked have you ever seen teachers in the hallway of like an elementary school Oh at the end of the second nine weeks they just kind of stand there with this blank look on their face they’re not processing as much as they were the first day of school and you know God loved them they have a lot to deal with but we need to help our clients understand that there are some times that they are going to have to really stop and focus write things down so they can remember or they can make decisions A little more my guess is most of us have times in our lives when we’ve been able to think through complex problems but then there are other times where you just can’t keep it all in your head and you’ve got to put it on a Whiteboard maybe that’s just me but we want clients to understand that they are not broken they’re not faulty they’re doing the best they can with the tools they have and the knowledge they have and our job is to help them see where some of this might have gone a little awry other causes of thinking errors and emotional motivations I feel bad therefore whatever I’m thinking must be bad if I’m scared that means whatever it’s coming on the other end of the phone is bad news moral motivations I did it because it was the right thing to do and that can be an excuse for doing wrong behaviors as well it can also be you know you can argue on The moral one social influence well everyone else is doing it so it must not be bad set that again a lot of times and this is where the frames approaching the Motivational interviewing is helpful It stands for feedback about the reality of what’s going on is everybody doing it let’s look at statistics you know not subjective information let’s look at objective information so the impact of these thinking errors makes people want to fight or flee when they get upset and we use upset as a kind of this all-encompassing garbage term emotionally they get depressed or anxious we don’t want to feel that way Anxiety and anger are flee or fight fight or flee it’s our body saying there’s a threat you got to do something depression is your body going I give up I just don’t I don’t even have the energy to do it anymore behaviorally some people withdraw because they Shut down We all know people get frustrated when they get overwhelmed When they start feeling hopeless or helpless they just kind of withdraw from Everything and everyone’s addictions numb that out so they don’t have to feel the dysphoria sleeping problem and changes when we start being on that constant fight-or-flight hyper-vigilant sort of thing going on in the body is always sort of turned on which means you’re not going to sleep as well then The circadian rhythms get messed up which starts causing exhaustion and lethargy and then everything seems harder because you’re sleep-deprived and then you start thinking more negatively and more hopelessly you see where this is going it’s a downward spiral and eating changes some people eat a lot more because they’re eating comfort foods some people eat a lot less because Their stomach is so torn up from the stress they can’t even think about holding anything down physical stress-related illnesses fibromyalgia gastrointestinal problems headaches neck aches backaches you know the whole the gamut of it when you start feeling bad when you start hurting generally it gets frustrating after a while and that frustration makes it kind of raises the bar brings you up a little bit so you’re That thatch closer to kind of just kind of being overwhelmed as you do You have as much of a cushion as you would if you were happy healthy well nourished not in pain and socially a lot of times we will get irritable or impatient with other people or withdrawal when we’re having these negative cognitions these thinking errors that are keeping us in a dysphoric state these effects of thinking errors contribute to fatigue a sense of hopelessness and helplessness which intensifies thinking errors This is an important concept that I want my clients to understand and I want to drive home in this presentation so thinking errors what are they emotional reasoning feelings are not facts and we want to help people learn to identify feelings and separate them from facts so if somebody says I’m terrified okay that is a feeling what are the facts supporting that feeling why are you are terrified what is the evidence that you are in some sort of danger Right now you know that danger may not be the right word for your client at that a particular point in time but what’s the evidence that there’s a threat in what ways is this similar to other situations maybe it’s triggering something from the past that was scary or you know you were too little to be able to handle it but you can handle it now and how if you dealt with similar situations Like in the past, we wanted people to just step back and get some distance between their feelings and their thoughts and try to figure out you know which thoughts are helpful and productive and even if a sought makes people anxious or angry it can be helpful it may be telling them hey dude you need to get your butt up and get out of there if it’s helpful it means it’s moving them toward where they want to be happy healthy safe and values-driven life so happy and helpful developed a stress tolerance skills when people use emotional reasoning they feel emotions which then they start attributing finding the facts to support those emotions instead of looking at all the facts we want to help them learn to tolerate their distress so they can kind of let that subside for a second they can accept their feeling they can name them They say I’m scared I’m stressed I’m angry and whatever but they don’t have to act on it right then they can tolerate the distress for a minute without having to try to make it go away and emotional regulation skills they can feel a feeling without having to make it go from zero to 120 You know if they feel sad they go I feel kind of sad instead of grabbing onto it and going I wonder what I feel sad about I must feel sad about all these sad things now I’m going to be sad and devastated so we want to help people learn how to regulate their emotions identify them accept them Whatever word you want to use tolerate them because feelings are there for a reason they’re there to tell you your brain thinks something’s going now thankfully we have that higher-order cognition stuff going on so We can contradict our brain and we can go you know maybe that’s not true in this situation cognitive bias negativity mental filter whatever you want to call it people who focus on the negative they walk in they get up in the morning and They look outside and it’s partly cloudy They get to work and they say instead of saying there was it was very light traffic they said there was a fair amount of traffic everything is always the flip side of what somebody who’s optimistic would say so asking them what’s the benefit to focusing on the negative in what ways is this helpful to you know some people say Well it keeps me from getting disappointed because I know It’s going to end up negative anyway so we can trap challenges that know that whatever it is they think they know and see if there have been exceptions when It hasn’t turned out that way What are the positives to this situation I give the example a lot of you know I wash my car or it rains and maybe I wanted to go out on a run that day but I can perceive it I can look at the positives you know the rain washed my car for me so I don’t have to do it now score it watered my garden all the better it knocked down some of the pollen out of there even better I can find and I can encourage people to find positives in a situation yes there are negatives there are negatives to every situation if you want to find them you’re going to find them but if you want to find the positives you can too which takes us down to what are all the facts there’s the positive and the negative and the neutral I told you Earlier about the coin toss activity having people toss a coin on the heads days they act like it is just the greatest day to be alive and see how Things are different when they do their journal because you know I have my clients do I’m sort of a mindfulness check-in in the morning and in the evening and preferably at lunchtime how are they feeling what’s their emotional state what’s their energy level on the happy days a lot of times it can be less and sometimes they need a little coaching throughout because some of those old patterns kick in but I want them to start challenging some of their automatic thoughts that we’re going to talk about in a minute disqualifying or minimizing the positive most of us can probably say we’ve had a bunch of clients that do this they are more than happy to tell you about all the things that they mess up but then when they do something right they minimize it encouraging people to hold themselves to the same standard they would hold everyone else to and I know I talked about that earlier ask them things like would it minimum would you minimize this.If it was your best friend’s experience your best friend came to you and said I just got into such-and-such college would you say awesome or would you say anybody can get in there how would that go ask them what is scary about accepting these positive things that you might have had an accomplishment for some people it means that it might mean other people expect more of them for other people they just don’t know how to accept the positive They don’t know how to accept compliments they don’t know how to be the center of attention and they don’t like it and then we want to look at why that is sometimes we disqualify the positive because it fails to meet someone else’s standards so as people might that be true here you know I know When I was growing up and going through college and going through school and everything got my doctorate but I will always not being not a real doctor because a Ph.D. is not an MD and I’m like really So is it somebody else’s standards or can I feel good about having a Ph.D. egocentrism My perspective is the only perspective I’ll being egocentric but it doesn’t work most of the time so encouraging people to take alternate perspectives Maybe you’re texting with someone and they say something that is not what you interpret as not the nicest thing and this happens in text messages a lot and they get upset now an egocentric thinking error would say that purse is just grumpy today Someone who’s taking other perspectives would stop and go back and read the text and go I wonder if maybe this could have been taken some other another you know obvious reaction is not what I intended So egocentrism if you hold on to that I don’t understand anybody else because You know I don’t see a problem with anything personalizing and mind-reading This is when you assume that everybody’s frowning because of something you did your boss walks down the hallway and looks at you and grimaces and continues to walk on oh I must have done something wrong No maybe he just got out of his senior management meeting that was five hours long and he’s got to go to the bathroom you know there could be a hundred different explanations for why that happened so encourage clients to ask themselves what some alternate explanations for this event that are doesn’t involve me you know why this might have happened if they hold on to that, I must have done something wrong but as soon as their boss calls them up and goes hey can you come to my office for a second you know where their thoughts are going to go I’m getting fired I’m going to get laid off I don’t know what it was that I did wrong but he walked by me two weeks ago in the hallway and grimaced and I’m just I’m the worst person in the whole world But where did that come from so encouraging people to not necessarily assume they know what’s going on in someone else’s mind and not automatically attributing every person’s negative behavior to something they did How often and then ask them how often has it been about you now think about the last 10 times you’ve taken something personally how many of Those 10 times has it been about something you did versus something with the other person then the availability heuristic remembering what’s most prominent in your mind so asking clients what the facts ah the most obvious One that we talk about is plane crashes You know it is very dangerous to fly on a plane because you hear about all those plane crashes well yeah you hear about the airlines crashes but don’t hear about the 20,000 every day that land safely so you remember it and it seems more dangerous because that’s what is in your mind that’s what is available to you that’s what you’ve based your thought processes on because maybe you didn’t know that 20,000 planes or more fly and land just perfectly every day this can also be true with people remembering what’s most prominent in your mind sometimes and this can be very very true in domestically violent relationships if somebody falls in love with someone and that person is just the greatest person since sliced bread for the first four months and then the cycle starts and there’s this little tiny a sliver of the honeymoon period after the battering cycle and the person’s like That’s the person I fell in love with that’s what I remember and they try to focus on that that’s most prominent in their mind and they ignore the rest of the stuff so we need to encourage people to look objectively at the facts magnifying high and low probability outcomes what are the chances that this is going to happen how Many clients have worked with have gone to the doctor and gotten into a physical or get a test run and then the doctor had to call them back and This could be true for you too and the doctor had to call them back two or Three days later when the tests came back from the lab and that whole three days they were just in a panic because they were afraid they were going to get some terminal diagnosis so thinking about high and low probability outcomes another instance or example of magnification is somebody that thinks this is the end of the world whatever it I think I’ve told you before my little story about um tripping when I was walking down the hall at work and falling and yeah it was embarrassing my folders went everywhere and yeah but in that big scheme of things will it matter That much from now you know are people going to think Oh she is such a clutch she must be a ditz too no I mean they may have thought that at that time I don’t know but you know in six months nobody’s going to remember and then ask them in the past when something like this has happened when you’ve had to get a test done and you’ve had to wait on results or if you’ve done something that was embarrassing and you didn’t think you thought everybody was going to remember it forever how did you tolerate it how did you learn to deal with it building on those strengths that they already have all-or-nothing thinking errors These are things like love versus hate I love them or I hate them it’s all or Nothing she does this all the time or she never does it if I’m going to do it I’m going to do it perfectly or I’m not going to do it at all thank you all good intentions or all bad intentions you know sometimes we do things with good intentions that have some bad repercussions so did we do it with all Bad intentions are all good intentions and the answer is neither most of the time life is kind of in that middle-ground gray area encouraging clients to Look and find examples where something hasn’t been one of the polls when have they done something that they’re proud of that wasn’t perfect or when again When has somebody else done something that they were proud of that wasn’t perfect remembering that with availability heuristic remembering how often something happens and how long it’s been since you’ve seen that behavior and remember that sometimes good times are amazing but how frequent are they compared with the bad times another thinking error is a belief in a just world or a fallacy of fairness I just asked clients to identify for good people you know who’ve had bad things happen and in in reality we all have bad things happen good people do bad people do in between people do attributional errors and this is a pet of mine you know labeling yourself is not a behavior so global versus specific and I am stupid versus I’m stupid at math I don’t have good math skills it’s not about me it’s about the skills I can change skills stable I am and I always will be versus it’s something I can change it’s something I can learn internally It’s about me as a person versus it’s about a skill deficit or something I could learn or change and there’s you know lots of information on attributions out there on the internet if you need a refresher on it but we find that a lot of people who have dysphoria have negative global stable internal attributions so questions for clients remember the beliefs equal thoughts and facts plus personal interpretation another way of saying it is reality is 10% perception is 10% reality and 90% interpretation so what are the facts for and against my belief is the belief based on facts or Feelings Does the belief focus on one aspect or the whole situation Does the belief seem to use any thinking errors what are alternate explanations what Would you tell your child or best friend if they had this belief how would you want someone to tell what would you want someone to tell you about this belief so If you’re telling somebody about this what are you hoping they’re going to say in return and finally, how is this belief moving you toward what and who is important to you or moving you away from what or who is important to you now they can do a worksheet and have all of these or you can pick one or two of these questions that are most salient for your clients but they can have kind of at their fingertips so as they’re going through the day and something happens They can ask themselves ok what’s an alternate explanation Or you know Whatever it is this salient for that client’s irrational thoughts how do these thoughts impact the client’s emotions health relationships and perceptions of the world you know this is what we want to ask them How is this thought impacting you globally how may this thought have been helpful in the past Where did it come from How does it make sense from when you formed it in the past when you’re dealing with it ask the person if the thought is bringing you closer to those that are important Are there any examples of this thought or belief not being true and how can the statement be made less global less all-encompassing so it’s about a specific incident a specific situation less stable which means you can change it and less internal which means it’s not about who you are as a person but maybe something that you do or a skill that you have so we’re going to go through some of these thoughts real Quickly here mistakes are never acceptable and if I make one it means that I’m incompetent well never is kind of stable and I am incompetent is kind of global, that’s also that extreme all-or-nothing thinking so you can see where these cognitive distortions end up leading to unhelpful beliefs When somebody disagrees with me it’s a personal attack Well there’s Personalization If I ever heard it before maybe it’s not about you may be They’re having a bad day and you just happen to be the unlucky target or maybe they’re disagreeing with you because they have a different point of view and It’s not a personal attack it’s just their point of view If someone criticizes or rejects me there must be something wrong with me personalization all-or-nothing thinking global stable and internal something wrong with me as a person to feel good about myself others must approve of me Now this is one we’ve talked about external validation before and we can’t control other people to feel good about yourself how can you do that Besides necessarily requiring other people to approve of you to be content in life I must be liked by all people Wow I’ve never met anybody who’s liked by all people I’ve never even met anybody who’s been hated by all people but it’s important to help clients see how this is dramatic to say all people and for them to be content everybody has to like them I mean I like to be liked but if everybody doesn’t like me you know That’s pretty understandable My true value as an individual depends on what others think of me I would challenge this one this is all you know Also very personally I would challenge people to look at and say it so your child’s value as an individual depends on what other people think of Most people would say no but the perspective thing nothing ever turns out the way you want it to okay all-or-nothing thinking and probably availability heuristic if something bad just happened then they may be focusing on that which causes them to focus on all the other bad things in the past that have happened not to focus on that is okay you know bad thing happen but look at all these good things I won’t try anything new unless I will be good at it this fear of failure fear of rejection It just really paralyzes a lot of people when they get stuck with that thinking the area that they have to be perfect I am in total control of anything bad that happens is my fault well that’s egocentric and personal if They think they’re in total control that’s their perception of how the world Do they think if they’ve got everybody on marionette strings anything bad in the world that happens is their fault how powerful are they I feel happy about uh if I feel happy about life something will go wrong It happens sometimes but let’s look at times when you’ve been happy that something hasn’t gone wrong you know let’s get rid of that all-or-nothing thinking it’s not my fault my life didn’t go the way I wanted could be true but it seems like that’s making you unhappy so what do we do about that if I’m not in an intimate relationship I’m alone No, again that’s pretty extreme I’m either in an intimate relationship or I am alone and a loner and you know it’s just me and my 17 cats which follows with there’s no gray area so encouraging people to look at what these beliefs are saying important thoughts impact behaviors and emotional and Physical reactions emotional and physical reactions impact thoughts and interpretations of events so if you do something and it’s pleasurable and you have a great physical reaction you know let’s take bungee jumping or Skydiving if you go out there and it’s scary but you do it and you’re just like Whoa what a rush Your interpretation of that is probably going to be good which means you’ll probably do it again if you go out there and it’s just the most horrible experience you’ve ever had you’re probably not going to do it again and your interpretation of it is going to be not good which is going to make it hard to understand why other people would do it irrational thinking patterns are often caused by cognitive distortions so let’s just look back at some of those because there are a lot fewer cognitive distortions or general ways of thinking about the world then there are thinking errors because There are lots and lots of thinking errors Cognitive distortions are often schemas which were formed based on faulty inaccurate or immature knowledge or understanding and by identifying the thoughts of the hecklers you know the automatic tapes that maintain our unhappiness the person can choose whether to accept those thoughts or change them.As found on YouTubeNatural Synergy $47.⁰⁰ 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Addressing Vulnerabilities to Prevent Anxiety, Depression and Pain

 This episode was pre-recorded As part of a live continuing   education webinar on-demand CEUs are still available for this presentation   through all CEUs registered at all CEUs.com/counselor toolbox I’d like to welcome everybody to today’s presentation we’re going to return to   talking about vulnerabilities and this is a topic We’ve covered it before, but you know I don’t seem to   be able to say enough about it so we’re going to talk some more about it we’re going to define   what vulnerabilities are and you know I expand the definition more than what occurred in   dialectical behavior therapy because I think there are a lot of other resources or vulnerabilities   out there sorry I’m trying to read two things at Once anyhow we’re going to identify some of the   most common vulnerabilities as I define them so We’re going to go beyond sleep in nutrition and we’re going to look at environmental vulnerabilities…
 
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Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Qualified Clinical Supervisor. She received her PhD in Mental Health Counseling from the University of Florida in 2002. In addition to being a practicing clinician, she has provided training to counselors, social workers, nurses, and case managers internationally since 2006 through AllCEUs.com A direct link to the CEU course is https://www.allceus.com/member/cart/i…
#vulnerability #DBT CBT #somatictherapies #counselingtechniques AllCEUs provides #counseloreducation and CEUs for LPCs, LMHCs, LMFTs, and LCSWs as well as #addiction counselor precertification training and continuing education. Live, Interactive Webinars ($5): https://www.allceus.com/live-interact…
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Nurses, addiction and #mentalhealth #counselors, #socialworkers, and marriage and family therapists can earn #CEUs for this and other presentations at AllCEUs.com #AllCEUs courses are accepted in most states because we are approved as an education provider for NAADAC, the States of Florida and Texas Boards of Social Work and Mental Health/Professional Counseling, the California Consortium for Addiction Professionals and Professions.
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Best Practices for Anxiety Treatment | Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

 This episode was pre-recorded As part of a live continuing   education webinar on-demand CEUs are still available for this presentation   AllCEUs.com/Anxiety-CEU I’d like to welcome everybody to today’s presentation on best practices for the   treatment of anxiety I am your host, Dr. Dawn Elise Snipes now not too long ago we did a presentation on strengths-based biopsychosocial   approaches to addressing anxiety while Those are wonderful you know I thought maybe   we ought to look at you know what’s some of the current research so I went into PubMed which is   I don’t know it’s a playground for me it’s where You find a lot of journal articles and you   can sort I sorted by articles that were done and meta-analyses that were done within   the past five years so that gives us an idea About current research I mean there’s a lot   of stuff that is still the same like some of The medications that were known to work ten   years ago are still known to be you know good first-line treatments but there are also some   newcomers that we’ll talk about and there are also some changes that we’re going to talk about so we’re going to explore some common causes for anxiety symptoms in order to treat it, we   really need to and of course, this does play into the biopsychosocial aspect we really need to   understand kind of what causes it because anxiety that’s caused by for example somebody having a   racing heart may be different than anxiety that’s caused for somebody who has abandonment issues so we’re… …It can be incorporated in a lot of various places   again where they’re not applying it or ingesting it in any way all they’re doing is smelling it   they’ve used it in defusing aromatherapy in hospital emergency rooms and they found that it   reduces stress and irritability the people in emergency rooms and I’ve been to enough emergency   rooms over the course of the years to know that People who are in emergency rooms typically are not in the   best mood so if it can help those people then It’s probably going to have some sort of an   effect so psychologically helping clients realize that their body thinks there’s a threat for some   reason that’s why it triggered the threat response system which is what they call anxiety, so they   need to figure out why is there really a threat You know sometimes it’s like the fire alarm going   off in my house it just means that the windows are open and there’s a strong breeze there is no fire   there is no problem there’s just a malfunction It’s a false alarm A lot of times clients get this threat reaction they get this stress reaction and it’s not a big deal right now so they   can start modifying what their brain responds to and again, those basic fears that a lot of people   worry about failure rejection loss of control the unknown and death and loss distress tolerance is   one of those cognitive interventions that has taken center stage in anxiety research and   it isn’t about controlling your anxiety you know helping people recognize their anxiety acknowledge   it and say okay I’m anxious it is what it is How can I improve the next moment instead of   saying I’m anxious I shouldn’t be anxious I hate being anxious and slang with that anxiety let it   go just accept it is what it is have the client learn to start saying I am feeling anxious okay so distracted don’t react because I explain to them The whole notion of feelings comes in crest and go out   in about 20 minutes It’s like a wave so once they acknowledge their feeling if they can distract   themselves for twenty or thirty minutes you know Obviously, they figured out there’s no real threat if they can distract themselves for twenty or thirty minutes those emotions can go down and then   they can deal with it in their wise mind and encourage them to use distancing techniques instead of   saying I am anxious, or I am terrified or whatever Have them say I am having the thought that this   is the worst thing in the world I am having the thought that I could not handle this because thoughts   come and go and that comes from acceptance and commitment therapy functional analysis makes it   possible to specify where and when with what frequency with what intensity and under what circumstances   the anxious response is triggered so it’s important that we help clients develop the   ability to do functional analyses on their own so when they start feeling anxious, they can stop and   say okay where am I what’s going on how intense Is it what are the circumstances, and they start   really trying to figure out what causes this for them so they can identify any common themes from   their psychoeducation about cognitive distortions and techniques to prevent those circumstances or   mitigate them can be provided so if the client knows that they get anxious before they go into   a meeting with their boss and it’s usually a high intensity of anxiety okay so we can educate them and help them identify what fears that may be related to techniques to slow their breathing calm   their stress reaction and help them figure out times in the past when they’ve handled going in   and talking to their boss and it really wasn’t the end of the world you know there’s lots of   different things we can do there for them there but the first key and it gives them a lot of   a huge sense of empowerment to start becoming detectives in their own life and going okay now   under what situations does this happen positive Writing this was another really cool study each   day for 30 days the experimental group and this was high school-aged youth in China but you know   the experimental group engaged in 20 minutes of writing about positive emotions they felt that   day so they’re writing about anything positive that make them happy that made them enthusiastic give them hope whatever long-term expressive writing positive emotions so after 30 days it   appeared to help reduce test anxiety by helping them develop insight and use positive emotion   words so it got them out of the habit of using the destruction and doom words and encouraged them   to get in the habit of looking at the positive things and being more optimistic it’s a really cool activity that clients can try it’s…The Market WeekSign Up For The Free Newsletter No nonsense, no spam, unsubscribe anytime You can unsubscribe at any time. Read our privacy policy. Financial disclaimer: The Market Week is a general interest newsletter that is not liable for the suitability or future investment performance of any securities or strategies discussed. Readers are advised that the material contained herein should be used solely for informational purposes. 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Best Practices for Anxiety Treatment | Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

 this episode was pre-recorded as part of a live continuing   education webinar on-demand CEUs are still available for this presentation   AllCEUs.com/Anxiety-CEU I’d like to welcome everybody to today’s presentation on best practices for the   treatment of anxiety I am your host, Dr. Dawn Elise Snipes now not too long ago we did a presentation on strengths-based biopsychosocial   approaches to addressing anxiety while those are wonderful you know I thought maybe   we ought to look at you know what’s some of the current research so I went into PubMed which is   I don’t know it’s a playground for me it’s where you find a lot of journal articles and you   can sort I sorted by articles that were done and meta-analyses that were done within   the past five years so that gives us an idea about current research I mean there’s a lot   of stuff that is still the same like some of the medications that were known to work ten   years ago are still known to be you know good first-line treatments but there are also some   newcomers that we’ll talk about and there are also some changes that we’re going to talk about so we’re going to explore some common causes for anxiety symptoms to treat, we need to and of course, this does play into the biopsychosocial aspect we need to   understand kind of what causes it because anxiety that’s caused by for example somebody having a   racing heart may be different than anxiety that’s caused for somebody who has abandonment issues so   we’re gonna treat the two things differently so we want to look at some of the common causes we’re   gonna look at some common triggers for anxiety Do you know what are some of these common themes that   we see in practice I will ask you to share some of the themes that you see that underline   or underlie a lot of your client’s anxiety and identify current best practices for anxiety   management including counseling interventions medications physical interventions and supportive   treatments so we care because anxiety can be debilitating and a lot of our clients   have anxiety a lot of our clients have anxiety comorbid with depression and they’re looking at   us going how can I feel anxious and stressed out and like I can’t sit still and be depressed at the   same time you know when you’re depressed you’re supposed to want to sleep well a lot of times   people who have both issues want to sleep but they can’t so I want to help clients   understand that also sometimes anxiety when people are anxious for long enough the body   starts kind of holding on to the cortisol the body recognizes at a certain point this is a   losing battle I’m not going to put energy into this anymore so it starts withdrawing some of   its excitatory neurotransmitters so to speak and people will start to feel depressed the   brain has already said this is hopeless this is you’re helpless to change the situation so   then people start feeling hopeless and helpless which is sort of the definition if you will of   depression low-grade chronic stress and anxiety arose energy and people’s ability to concentrate   so if we’re going to help them become their uber selves we need to help them figure out how to   address anxiety not just generalized overwhelming debilitating anxiety but also panic social anxiety   and those minor anxiety triggers that come along that may not meet the threshold for diagnosis   anxiety is a major trigger for addiction relapse if you have a client who is self-medicated before   or had an addiction for some reason anxiety is a major trigger increased physical pain when anxiety   goes up people tend to tense their muscles when they tense their muscles they tend to feel more   pain I mean think about when you’re stressed you tend to have more pain like in your neck your   back and things that already hurt may hurt more why because serotonin which is one of our major   anti-anxiety neurotransmitters is also one of our major pain modulators so when serotonin levels are   too low because anxiety is high then our pain perception is going to be more acute and people   can have sleep problems if they’re stressed out your body thinks there’s a threat you’re not   going to be able to get into that deep restful sleep you may have you may sleep you may sleep   a lot but it’s probably not quality sleep which means your neurotransmitters may get out of whack   your hormones make it out of whack and your body is going to start perceiving yourself in a   persistent state of stress when you’re exhausted the body knows that we may be the weakest link   in the herd so it continues to secrete cortisol to keep you on alert a little bit so you   may again you may be resting kind of like when you have a new baby at home those first couple   of months that my children were home from the hospital I slept but I didn’t sleep well I mean   the slightest little noise and I was awake and I was looking around and you know I felt it I felt   exhausted and a lot of new parents do so triggers for anxiety abandonment and rejection and we’re   going to talk about ways we might want to deal with these things but some of the underlying   themes that I’ve seen in a lot of clients and when I do the research and a lot of what themes that   come out include low self-esteem if someone has low self-esteem they’re looking to be externally   validated oftentimes they’re looking for somebody else to tell them you’re lovable you’re okay so   that can lead to anxiety about not having people to tell them you’re okay which makes   their relationships tenuous and can make them dysfunctional irrational thoughts and cognitive   distortions may lead people to believe that if I’m not perfect for example I am not lovable so we’re   going to look at some irrational thoughts and cognitive distortions unhealthy social supports   and relationships when you’re in a relationship it takes two to tango and even if your client is   relatively mentally and physically healthy if they are in a dysfunctional relationship they can fear   abandonment and rejection if that other person is always saying if you don’t do X I’m going   to leave you or if that other person is always cheating on them or whatever so relationships   can trigger abandonment anxiety and ineffective interpersonal skills can lead to relationship   turmoil and social exile if our clients are in relationships even if they’re not completely   dysfunctional if our clients are not able to ask for what they need and set appropriate boundaries   and manage conflict effectively because conflict happens in every relationship then they may start   to argue more which may lead to fearing may lead to relationships ending in the past and them going   well every relationship I get into ends which means I must not be lovable so they start fearing   abandonment and rejection these are four areas that we can look at one more assessing clients   another issue is the unknown and loss of control a lot of times negative self-talk and cognitive   distortions can contribute to that if I don’t have control of everything then it’s all going to be a   disaster negative others when clients hang out or when people hang out with negative people it   kind of wears on you after a while you notice that people who tend to be more negative   pessimistic conspiracy-minded tend to hang out with people who are also negatively pessimistic and   conspiracy-minded so if you’re hanging out with somebody who tends to be anxious then the anxiety   can be palpable and it can kind of permeate physical complaints can lead people to be   anxious because they don’t know what’s causing it like I said earlier sometimes if your heart starts   to race if you don’t know what’s causing it you can start thinking I’m having a heart attack or   I’m gonna die when people have panic attacks for the example they truly think they’re having a heart   attack and it’s I’ve had them they are very very unpleasant experiences but when people   start having physical complaints and it can be you know they have a weird rash that they can’t get to   go away or whatever but when they don’t know what it is and they can’t control it they can’t   make it go away they start thinking about all the worst-case scenarios and going online and   getting on WebMD which usually gives you all the worst-case scenarios um so physical complaints   are important we need to normalize the fact that nobody’s pain-free all the time and you know the   fact that you may have an ache or a pain or a lump or a bump or you know a cough most likely you know   when we look at probability the probability of it being something significant is pretty small now   do you want to get it checked out probably but you know the probability that is anything to be   worried about is relatively small and a sense of powerlessness can trigger fear of the unknown   and loss of control for somebody who doesn’t feel like they have any agency in their life   if they have an external locus of control or if they felt victimized all of their life then   they may fear not being in control they may be holding on and saying okay this is the one area   of my life I can control when I grew up you know I grew up in a very chaotic environment I had no   control I was bounced around in the foster system yadda yadda yadda now that I’m an adult you know I   can control these things and I am going to hold on with white knuckles and if I can’t control   everything then that terrifies me to death and loss are other triggers for anxiety and it can   be people or pets and pets are important I don’t want to minimize pets because you know they are   little parts of a lot of our families so making sure we check that my daughter’s dog for example   is it’s getting old she’s getting older she’s 14 now I think and you know she’s in decent health   we took her to the vet and the vet said yeah she’s got a little heart murmur but that’s expected for   a 14-year-old dog and but when she goes out if she doesn’t come back when I call her I have this rush   of anxiety for a second oh my gosh I hope this wasn’t the day so anxious around losing people   and you know if she when she crosses the bridge she will and you know I’m okay with that I’m   I have a harder time dealing with my daughter’s emotional turmoil when that happens and because   she’s grown up with this dog so you know those are the types of things that we want to talk about   with our clients what things are weighing on you that you may not even be thinking about because I   know in the back of my mind there’s always that worry about one of our donkeys and her dog jobs   and promotions can trigger anxiety if people are afraid they’re gonna lose their job if they’re   always afraid that you know they’re gonna walk in and get a pink slip or get fired you know we want   to help them look at how realistic they are you doing what you need to do to achieve   and keep your job and sometimes it’s not easy to answer I mean the first thought that a lot of us   have is well you know if you’re doing the right thing so just do it but there are those bosses   out there and I’ve had some amazing bosses a lot of them and I’ve had two horrendous   bosses and those two bosses I could never I never felt like I was able to do anything right   and so going to those jobs there was always this anxiety about what I’m what am I going to get in   trouble for today so you want to talk with people about does your job cause anxiety what can you   do to moderate that anxiety the same thing with promotions people may get anxious about whether   they’re going to get promoted to safety and security you know when you lose safety and security you can   feel anxious so if there’s a break-in at the house next door or shooting down the road   or you start watching the news you can feel very unsafe and insecure quickly so we want to   help people figure out how safe and secure are you really and a lot of it goes back to really looking   at facts when people lose their dreams and hopes or fear that they’re going to lose their dreams   and hopes they can start to get anxious you know they have this dream that they’re going to be   a doctor or I just finished the presentation on helping high school students transition to college   and a lot of high school students for example start college with these wide eyes and hopes   to save the world and they want to be doctors and engineers and this and that and they get   into it and they realize that it’s a lot harder then they thought or they realize that you know   what I don’t like this but I’ve already committed to it so what do I do I want to help   people but I can’t I can’t cut it doing this you know for me I figured out in my second year that   I wasn’t going to medical school because I wasn’t going to pass calculus and that caused a lot of   anxiety it was like okay what am I gonna do now Do you know what career should I choose to help people figure out do they have dreams that have maybe kind of crashed and burned and you have to   find new ones you know okay that one we’ve got to accept it figure out that it’s not going to be and   what can you do now people may also have dreams about relationships, they get into relationships   and see themselves with this person forever and then this relationship ends and or starts to   get rocky and they’re like but that’s my dream what happens if that’s got to happen because   it’s my dream I don’t know how to function if that goes away we want to help people be able to   rewrite their narrative and then sickness spiders and other phobias kind of go in with death a lot   of times when people get sick they start getting anxious that oh my gosh what if this is terminal   oh my gosh what if this is you know incurable if I get bit by a spider it’s gonna kill me and   which is rare you know there are very few spiders that is that poisonous same thing with   snakes going over bridges I’ve shared with you all that is not one of my irrational fears you know I   am just terrified that you know something’s going to happen and I’m going to get pushed off the side   of the bridge which is completely irrational but we need to help people look at those and identify   the thoughts that they’re telling themself about those phobias and dealing with that anxiety failure   is another trigger for anxiety especially in this culture our culture American culture is   in large part puts a high premium on success and perfectionism so when people realize that   they’re not perfect they may start to get anxious because they feel like if I’m not perfect then I’m   a failure you know those cognitive distortions of all-or-nothing thinking and they start with that   negative self-talk you know you can’t do anything right so those are some of the issues that you   know we often see in counseling sessions so what do we do you know somebody comes in and is like   I can’t live this way doc anxiety depression and substance disorders as well as a range of physical   disorders are often comorbid so this is the first the thing we need to realize is that   we’re very rarely dealing with a very simple diagnosis you know when somebody comes in we need   to figure out you know if they come in and they’re presenting with depression all right let’s talk   about that and then we start realizing that there depression started to occur after a long period   of being anxious okay so we need to deal with that but we also need to help them   with their sense of hopelessness and helplessness we need to develop that sense of empowerment and   then substance disorders we know that substance use is often a way of self-medicating but we also   know that it monkeys with the neurochemicals in the brain and can contribute to anxiety and   depression the same thing to physical issues pain from physical disorders anxiety about having   physical disorders medications you’re taking for physical disorders can all contribute to anxiety   so we need to look at the person as a whole and go what are all the things that are contributing to   the anxiety and what are all the things that the anxiety is contributing to so we have started having this big list of stuff that needs to be addressed and then we can start figuring out okay   where we start so knowing that these things are comorbid helps researchers explore pathways   to mental disorders so they can start figuring out you know what little string can we pull to   unravel this blanket of anxiety so it doesn’t suffocate somebody and for us as clinicians it   provides us key opportunities to intervene in you know sometimes clients will come in and start talking about their anxiety and their physical issues you   know maybe their anxieties about you know heart palpitations and because that’s a common one we   may want to encourage them to go see the doctor to get that ruled out you know rule out anything that   has to do with hormone imbalances or you know heart conditions or anything else that might be   contributing to it which can help them address it and if they do have physical disorders let’s   go with hormone imbalances that are contributing to the heart palpitations then they can start to   treat that if they don’t start to treat that then no amount of talk therapy we do is going to get   them to the quality of life that they’re looking for because they’re still gonna feel those so   we want to make sure that we’re addressing them holistically anxiety disorders should be treated   with psychological therapy pharmacy therapy or a combination of both and what they found and this   is no surprise this is kind of old news is that counseling Plus pharmacotherapy tends to have the   best outcomes but separating the two have similar outcomes in many cases but that’s just   looking at and I hate to call it simple anxiety but we’re just looking at anxiety symptoms here   we’re not looking at the full quality of life and we want to make sure that we’re also including any   medical issues behavioral therapy is regarded as the psychotherapy with the highest level   of evidence, there are a variety of cognitive behavioral approaches ranging from acceptance   and commitment therapy to dialectical behavior therapy to CBT to debt you know any of those that   deal with the thoughts and the cognitions that fall in that realm and it is effective in the current conceptualization of the etiology of anxiety disorders includes an interaction of   psychosocial factors such as childhood adversity or stressful events and a genetic vulnerability   so the psychosocial factors and these are other things when we do our assessment we want to pay   attention to because our approach to treatment is going to be different for people for example   who have trauma-related brain changes maybe then for somebody who doesn’t so, we want to   look at childhood adversity and stressful events that it may have caused basically what I tell clients is like rewiring of the brain there are trauma-related brain changes in soldiers and   especially in children or in people who’ve been exposed to extreme trauma that is designed to   protect them but it also can cause complications kind of later on in dealing with anxiety coping   skills that were learned that are ineffective you know sometimes people grow up in a household or an   environment or a situation where they don’t learn effective coping skills so we need to kind of help   them unlearn those and learn new ones build on their strengths and trauma issues that may still   need to be dealt with such as domestic violence you know if they grew up a lot around a lot of   domestic violence they may think you know I’m out of that situation it’s over I don’t want to   think about it it’s not bothering me anymore or a parental absence and I put absence because it can   be death it can be a parent that just packed up and left it could be a child that got put up for   adoption whatever put the child in a position of feeling like they were rejected by a parent can   be very traumatic and bullying among other things but there are a lot of trauma issues that people   once they’re out of that situation often say you know I’m out of it it’s not a big deal I dealt   with it let’s move on and they don’t realize the full ramifications and how that’s contributing to   their current anxiety and their current self-talk and cognitions of current stressors if somebody has   a lot of current stressors that’s also going to impact whether they develop generalized anxiety   you know we’re kind of stacking the deck here and the current availability of social support if they   don’t have effective current social support then they’re gonna have difficulty bearing the weight   of everything on their shoulders so we want to look at all these psychosocial factors when   we do our assessment now going back to the trauma issues if you’ve taken the trauma courses at   all CEUs you know that some people are not ready to acknowledge that the trauma is still bothering   them or work on the trauma and that’s okay we can educate them that it might be an issue and   then let them choose how to address it but we want to bear in mind the fact that you   know this could be sort of an underlying force motivating some of the current cognitions and genetic vulnerability so you take any three people and you put them or 300 people and you   put them through roughly the same psychosocial situations they’re all probably going to react   a little bit differently based on their prior experiences but also because of their genetic   makeup there are certain permutations and they found four we’ll talk about later that make the   brain more or less responsive to stress and more or less responsive to serotonin which   is your calming chemical so brains that are less responsive to serotonin isn’t going to you know   send out as much or send out serotonin as easily so people can stay kind of tensed and wired that’s an oversimplified explanation but that’s all you need for right now so genetic   vulnerability impacts people’s susceptibility to the effects and development of dependence   on certain substances which can increase anxiety when people are detoxing from alcohol when they’re   detoxing from benzos when they’re detoxing from opiates they can feel high levels of anxiety when   they take opiates some people find that opiates have wonderful anti-anxiety properties not that   I am advocating for the use of opiates I’m just client experiences have shown that that   can be true so some people are going to be more susceptible to the anti-anxiety effects   of certain substances and some people are going to be Cerrone to become dependent on substances   where others may not and that part of that is genetic vulnerability and they estimate about   30% the predictability of the development of anxiety disorders is genetic and genetics   also impact which medications are effective if you have genetic makeup then SSRIs might   be helpful then atypical antipsychotics may be more effective   and SSRIs might not do anything which is why a lot of our clients get so frustrated because they know there’s no way to figure out exactly what I guess there is now that there’s genetic testing   out there but up until then it was harder to figure out which medications to start with and   most physicians matter of fact I don’t know of a single physician that starts by   saying well let’s do a genetic profile to see what med to start you out with most we’ll start with events as with an SSRI or some other anti-anxiety medication some sort of Benzo that’s been my experience so we may want to encourage clients to consider genetic   testing if they’re having difficulty finding a medication regime that works for them and they   are feeling like they have to have medication genetic vulnerability also affects what’s going   to make somebody more vulnerable now than all of you in class today you know thinking about sleep you   know sleep may not be a big deal for some of you I know people who can go days or weeks with four   or five hours of sleep and they feel fine it’s not a big deal, not me I need eight or nine hours   of sleep so genetically for whatever reason I am programmed to need a lot of sleep so when I don’t   get that much sleep I tend to be it tends to be harder for me to deal with life on life’s terms   and I know that that makes me more vulnerable to being irritable so genetic vulnerability affects   who can become addicted and affects what medications work best and affects what situations are going   to tend to make somebody more vulnerable to anxiety so our medications and I know the type   on here is small but we’re going to go through the first-line drugs are the SSRIs selective   serotonin reuptake inhibitors and SNRs is selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors   now the names are a little bit deceptive because selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors also   increase available serotonin but the mechanism of action is different the mechanism of action   for each SSRI is a little bit different as well which is why you can put somebody on Prozac and   they have an awful experience and you can put them on Zoloft and they have a much better experience like I said earlier a lot of the research pre five years ago had been done on medications and Zoloft paxil luvox lexapro celexa and their generics have all been found to be effective   at treating anxiety in certain people no one medication works for everybody in the last five   years effexor has come on the radar and it has been found effective according to the Hamilton rating scale for anxiety so that’s another one to consider if clients are not successful or getting   the treatment effect that they need for on some of the other medications obviously, none of us   probably are prescribers but we do need to educate clients about why the first drug or even the third   drug that the doc tries may not work so they don’t start feeling helpless and hopeless like   I said earlier there are at least four different genetic variations which are correlated with the   development of generalized anxiety disorder and different medications are more or less effective   depending on the genetic makeup of the person there’s a high mortality rate moving on to two   benzos the recommendation has switched to back off from the use of benzos now for   some doctors will prescribe an SSRI and for the first, four weeks while the SSRI is building up   in the system they will also prescribe a Benzo to be taken as needed to moderate the   anxiety and you know you could argue on either side of that, if somebody has a history of substance   use or substance dependence benzos are really a bad idea because they do have a high rate of   dependence but the other reasons that they are now cautioning against the use of benzodiazepines is   that there’s a higher mortality rate among benzo users compared with non-users there’s an increased   risk for dependence with use for more than six months and that’s a long time to be using Benzo and when we’re talking about dependence and six months we’re talking about somebody who uses it   like every four hours or every eight hours depending on your Benzo every single day, not   a PRN user if somebody’s using it at night to help them go to sleep or you know three or four   times a week when the anxiety gets high the risk of dependence is relatively low but a   lot of people with anxiety because if they find the right Benzo makes them feel so much better   they may not want to be off of it and for a lot of people when that benzo reaches its half-life and   starts getting out of the system even more their anxiety spikes you know they have rebound anxiety   which they want to medicate with more benzos that’s gonna be an issue for them to discuss   with their doctor there’s also an increased risk of dementia identified in long-term benzodiazepine   users again this is for the people who use you know throughout the day every day for six months   or relatively every day for six months or more and it doesn’t matter if it’s you know we’re   talking about somebody who’s 65 or somebody who’s 35 who’s been using Benzos for you know   six months a year two years the risk of later life dementia is greatly increased according   to the research benzodiazepines also don’t treat depression okay so if you’ve got somebody who has   concurrent anxiety and depression there’s a much higher suicide risk if they’re on benzodiazepines   so being aware and generally that suicide risk comes from overdosing on benzodiazepines but   not always other treatment options you know if the benzos aren’t something that people want to touch   you know they scare the living daylights out of I SSRIs and SNRIs don’t seem to be working   then tricyclic antidepressants can be tried on those your older generation antidepressant seroquel   is used a lot and there are some there’s some research that shows it can be effective   with anxiety like some of the antidepressants and depending on the person the benzos seroquel can   make people very very very sleepy so you know it may not be the side effects of the Seroquel   the weight gain and the fatigue and you know sleepiness may be an unacceptable side effect for   some clients and boosts perón is the third option boost Barone works more like an anti-depressive   serotonin reuptake inhibitor and that it takes you know four weeks or so to kind of build up in   the system studies have shown that there’s really no long-term benefit to taking it but after six months   to eighteen months of use it has been shown to be effective in talking with clients a lot of   clients report that boost bar when they take it doesn’t necessarily help them stop being anxious   like a benzodiazepine does but it helps them not go from zero to 200 in 2.3 seconds it kind of you   know keeps them from having this gush of a freak out reaction every time something goes wrong which   a lot of clients report helps because they feel more stable throughout the day after remission   medication should be continued for six to twelve months and during that last six months first six   months keep it as is last six months you know they say that tapering is best it’s best not   to stop somebody cold turkey on any of these but it’s important for people once they’re   in remission to not just suddenly go okay I feel better I don’t need any of this anymore they need   to work into it and make sure they’ve developed the skills and tools that they need to deal with some of the anxiety that is going to happen in life so physical signs and symptoms   of anxiety may include fatigue irritability muscle tension or muscle aches try laying feeling twitchy   being easily startled trouble sleeping nausea diarrhea irritable bowel syndrome headaches so the   first thing we want to do with clients when we’re talking to them well second thing first thing is   say get a physical let’s rule out physiological causes of this but we can also help clients   look at you know what might be causing these things that you can do to mitigate it what might   be contributing to your fatigue what might be contributing to your irritability and your muscle   tension or your muscle aches I mean let’s look at economics did you recently get a new bed or do you   need to get a new bed what about your desk chair I know you know I get more muscle tension and muscle   achy when I do a lot of mousing because I have deplorable posture being becoming aware of that   helps and then I’m like okay well I know it caused unfortunately, it’s unpleasant but it’s not a   big deal trembling or feeling twitchy you know that can be caused by low blood sugar that can   be caused anxiety that can also be caused by early onset Parkinson’s symptoms you know   there’s you know it can be worst case scenario or it can be something benign so we want   to have people figure out you know when you start trembling or feeling twitchy is there something   that it’s related to you know I know when my son gets excited he’s he just sits there   and you can see him almost shake because he’s so excited about something so we want to have people prevent misidentification we don’t want them to jump to that worst-case scenario we don’t   want them to go onto WebMD and go oh my gosh I’ve got cancer I’ve got this debilitating disease and   I’m going to die in six months probabilistic Lee speaking it’s not gonna happen yes get a doctor’s   opinion I’m certainly not going to tell them it’s all in your head I want them to get an   evaluation but I do want to in the meantime help them think about how likely is   this and other things for headaches and this is one another one of those that can be frustrating   as we get older our eyesight starts to go and you know there was a period there I did fine   and then after I hit 45 my eyesight just started to like steadily and kind of rapidly in my mind   decline so I have to get my eyeglass prescription changed every couple of years and that can cause   headaches so instead of starting to worry about oh my gosh I’ve got a headache all the time   maybe I’ve got a brain tumor you know I know that it’s probably my glasses or I’m grinding my   teeth so other biological interventions that have been evaluated there’s something called   the floatation rest system that reduced environmental stimulation therapy reduces sensory input into   the nervous system through the act of floating supine which is on your back in a pool of water   saturated with Epsom salt you know I’m looking at this going sounds good and you can’t   quite get the same experience in a bathtub because you’re not floating you’ve got pressure points and   you’re still hearing stuff clients can sort of simulate it with you know earplugs or whatever   but it’s if they can access this it’s been shown to be effective the float experience is   calibrated so that sensory signals from visual auditory olfactory gustatory thermal tactile or   tactile vestibular gravitational and preceptive channels are minimized which means you don’t see   here taste touch smell feel anything as is most movement and speech so you want people to lay just   like completely motionless and not talk which can be hard for some people with anxiety in the study   the study I looked at fifty participants reported significant reductions in stress muscle   tension pain depression and negative effects and it was accompanied by significant improvement in mood   characterized by increases in relaxation happiness and well-being I read the study I’m like where can   I sign up you know it sounds in looking at some of the research this was more effective for   addressing anxiety than something like a massage Tai Chi also produced significant reductions in   anxiety there was approximately a 20% treatment effect 25% treatment effect in patients with   anxiety and fibromyalgia who practiced twice a week for a year now you know we want to look at   the confounding things here is it the Tai Chi itself or is it learning to control the muscles   and becoming more in tune with your body and learning to control your breathing helps   people reduce their anxiety either way you know Tai Chi helps people do that and it was shown that   after a year after the first six months, there was a significant treatment effect but after a year   you know it kept growing and after a year it was about 25% so Tai Chi can be effective acupuncture at the HT 7 median Meridian can attenuate anxiety-like behavior induced by   withdrawal from chronic morphine treatment through the meditation of the GABA receptor system   what does that mean that means if you if the acupuncture is done in very certain places the anxiety behavior the GABA a receptor system GABA is your main calming relaxation   neurochemical that is triggered and causes your body to sort of flood that receptor system and   this research was done on people who were detoxing from morphine treatment but we can look at   generalizing the results and I would be interested to see further studies on it pain other things we   need to do to help people with anxiety when people are in chronic pain they often have anxiety that   oh my gosh this is getting worse or It’s never gonna get better or I just can’t take this pain   anymore or they may get anxious that they’re going to be rejected because they can’t do some of the   things they used to do because they’re in so much pain so there’s a lot of guilt and anxiety that   can kind of revolve around pain what can we do to help clients guided imagery is generally very   helpful if we can help them imagine you know if that pain in their shoulder imagine the pain is   like the color red flowing out of their arm or other focus mindfulness so you know when you   think about something you know when you get a shot if I don’t think about it it doesn’t hurt near as   much as if the nurse says okay now one two three and you know she’s counting down and I’m getting   prepared and I’m focused on it I had another nurse one time who she was just talking   to me and you know put the alcohol on my arm and just kept on talking and didn’t tell me she was   getting ready to give me a shot and before I knew it she had given me a shot and she was like okay   we’re done I’m like you didn’t give me a shot yet she said yes I did it’s like oh so not focusing   on it and next time you have an itch for example if you’ve ever been driving on the interstate and   you can reach on your foot I get those on the bottom of my foot sometimes and I’m like okay   I’m not going to pull over to each my foot if you focus on something besides the itch eventually, it   goes away I’m not saying the pain is gonna completely go away but the more people focus on it the more   it hurts physical therapy can help so encourage them to get a referral and encourage them to do a   self-evaluation if nothing else of ergonomics in their car at work where they watch TV and spend   most of their time at home and they’re sleeping so those are the four places that they spend most   of their time what do their ergonomics look like and that can help a lot of people mitigate   a lot of pain hormones are another thing that we need to look at imbalances of estrogen and   testosterone can contribute to anxiety symptoms heart palpitations fatigue irritability having   people get a physical we can’t as clinicians do anything about it but doctors can rapid heart   weight rate sweating palpitations are not uncommon in women in perimenopause or menopause so a lot   of women start feeling like they’re developing generalized anxiety and/or something’s going wrong   when they start reaching that mid-40s to mid-50s area and they start having some of these symptoms   again we’re not going to diagnose it but we do want them to recognize that it may not be anything   you know is catastrophic this is something that a a lot of women experience and help them figure out   how to deal with that supportive care biologically now you know this isn’t gonna treat anything but   we can help them minimize their vulnerabilities help them create a sleep routine so their brain   and body can rebalance this can help repair any adrenal issues that may be going on and improve   energy levels people with anxiety don’t sleep well so helping them figure out how to get some quality   sleep is important nutrition minimizing caffeine and other stimulants are going to be a big help   because those make people feel anxious and encourage them to work with a nutritionist to try to prevent   spikes and drops in blood sugar which can trigger the stress response when your blood sugar goes way   up or way down you can start getting kind of shaky and feel weird and that can cause people anxiety   because they might think oh my gosh I’m having a stroke or a heart attack or you know I don’t know   what these tremors are so it’s important that they don’t miss identify symptoms and encourage   them to drink enough water dehydration can lead to toxic Ardea which is increased heart rate   sunlight vitamin D deficiency is implicated in both depression and anxiety mood issues   vitamin D has been found in those main areas where serotonin receptors are found vitamin D receptors   are found so we know the serotonin and vitamin D have something going on sunlight prompts the skin   to tell the brain to produce neurotransmitters and set circadian rhythms which impact the release of   serotonin your calming neurochemical melatonin which is made from breaking down serotonin and helps you sleep and gaba so sunlight actually helps increase the release of GABA when it’s   time to start calming down and going to sleep exercise studies have shown that exercise can   have a relaxing effect and encourage clients to start slowly there’s not a whole lot of new research   on exercise and anxiety aromatherapy has been used a lot, especially in other countries in   the treatment of people with anxiety people with hospital anxiety people women who are giving birth   and they have some birth anxiety there they’ve been found to be effective in a lot of   those studies essential oils for anxiety include lavender rose Bedevere ylang ylang bergamot   chamomile frankincense and Clary sage encourage clients to just go to a health food store and   you know sniff some of these and see if it makes them feel happy and calm and content the aromatherapy   molecules enter the nasal membranes and they will start triggering neurochemical reactions   and so you don’t need to apply it you don’t need to ingest it all you need to do is so encourage   clients if they’re open to it to think about this because aromatherapy can be integrated into their bedroom for example with an atomizer or a Mr. It can be incorporated in a lot of different places   again where they’re not applying it or ingesting it in any way all they’re doing is smelling it   they’ve used it in defusing aromatherapy in hospital emergency rooms and they found that it   reduces stress and irritability the people in emergency rooms and I’ve been to enough emergency   rooms over the years to know that people who are in ers typically are not in the   best mood so if it can help those people then it’s probably going to have some sort of an   effect so psychologically helping clients realize that their body thinks there’s a threat for some   reason that’s why it triggered the threat response system which is what they call anxiety so they   need to figure out why is there a threat you know sometimes it’s like the fire alarm going   off in my house it just means that the windows are open and there’s a strong breeze there is no fire   there is no problem there’s just a malfunction it’s a false alarm a lot of times clients get this threat reaction they get this stress reaction and it’s not a big deal right now so they   can start modifying what their brain responds to and again those basic fears that a lot of people   worry about failure rejection loss of control the unknown and death and loss distress tolerance is   one of those cognitive interventions that have taken center stage in anxiety research and   it isn’t about controlling your anxiety you know helping people recognize their anxiety acknowledge   it and say okay I’m anxious it is what it is how can I improve the next moment instead of   saying I’m anxious I shouldn’t be anxious I hate being anxious and slang with that anxiety let it   go just accept it is what it is have the client learn to start saying I am feeling anxious okay so distracted don’t react because I explain to them the whole notion of feelings comes in the crest and goes out   in about 20 minutes it’s like a wave so once they acknowledge their feeling if they can distract   themselves for twenty or thirty minutes you know they figured out there was no real threat if they can distract themselves for twenty or thirty minutes those emotions can go down and then   they can deal with it in their wise mind and encourage them to use distancing techniques instead of   saying I am anxious or I am terrified or whatever have them say I am having the thought that this   is the worst thing in the world I am having the thought that I cannot handle this because thoughts   come and go and that comes from acceptance and commitment therapy functional analysis makes it   possible to specify where and when with what frequency with what intensity and under what circumstances   the anxious response is triggered so it’s important that we help clients develop the   ability to do functional analyses on their own so when they start feeling anxious they can stop and   say okay where am I what’s going on how intense is it what are the circumstances and they start trying to figure out what causes this for them so they can identify any common themes from   their psychoeducation about cognitive distortions and techniques to prevent those circumstances or   mitigate them can be provided so if the client knows that they get anxious before they go into   a meeting with their boss and it’s usually a high the intensity of anxiety okay so we can educate them and help them identify what fears that may be related to techniques to slow their breathing and calm   their stress reaction and help them figure out times in the past when they’ve handled going in   and talking to their boss and it wasn’t the end of the world you know there’s lots of   different things we can do there for them there but the first key and it gives them a lot of   a huge sense of empowerment to start becoming detectives in their own life and going okay now   under what situations does this happen positive writing this was another cool study each   day for 30 days the experimental group and this was high school-aged youth in China but you know   the experimental group engaged in 20 minutes of writing about positive emotions they felt that   day so they’re writing about anything positive that make them happy that made them enthusiastic gave them hope whatever long-term expressive writing positive emotions so after 30 days it   appeared to help reduce test anxiety by helping them develop insight and use positive emotion   words so it got them out of the habit of using the destruction and doom words and encouraged them   to get in the habit of looking at the positive things and being more optimistic it’s a cool activity that clients can try it’s not gonna hurt anything if you have them journal each day   for 30 days mindfulness also came up in the research and was shown to be effective in   a meta-analysis of six articles about mindfulness based stress reduction four about mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and three about fear of negative appraisal and emotion regulation were   reviewed all of these showed that mindfulness was an effective strategy for the treatment of   mood and anxiety disorders and is an effective in therapy protocols with different structures   including virtual modalities so you know if you’re doing it via teleconference mindfulness can still   be helpful mindfulness helps people start learning how to observe what’s going on and become aware of   what’s going on more aware of those circumstances which will help them complete their functional   analysis but it also helps them become aware of vulnerabilities and head off things in the past   and if they’re taking better care of themselves that they’re living more mindfully then they may   not experience as many situations that trigger their anxiety mindfulness also encourages clients   to learn acceptance that radical acceptance of it is what it is I’m not gonna fight it I’m angry   right now I am anxious right now however I’m feeling right now is how I feel and that’s okay it’s hard for clients to get to that but once they get a hold of that and they truly believe it   and they can say all right it’s fine I’m not gonna feel this way forever I’m gonna do something else   until the feeling passes it helps and that’s where the labeling and letting go comes in mindfulness   can also help them identify trigger thoughts what thought were you having right before you   started feeling anxious if people are mindful or let’s start back when people are not mindful they   often notice or don’t notice that they’re getting anxious until they’re like super anxious   when people are mindful they become more aware of subtle cues address unhelpful thoughts when they   say or believe it’s a dire necessity for adults to be loved by significant others for almost   everything they do always running gonna happen why is it a necessity what we can encourage them   to do is concentrate on their self-respect on winning approval for practical purposes you   know for promotions or whatever but it’s not about me being lovable it’s about me getting a promotion   and making more money and focusing on loving rather than being loved because when we give   love we generally get love back with unhelpful thought number two people feel they aren’t able to stand   it if things are not the way they want them to be or are not in their control so encourage clients   to focus on the parts that are in their control and other things in life which are going well and   to which they’re committed number three misery is invariably externally caused and is forced   on us by outside people and events just by reading that makes me feel disempowered so encouraging   clients to focus on the fact that reactions such as misery or happiness are largely caused by the   view that people take of the conditions so if you see it as a tragedy and devastating then   it’s probably going to produce misery if you see it as an opportunity and a challenge it’s   probably going to produce a different emotional reaction if something is or may be dangerous or   fearsome people should be upset and endlessly upset about obsessing about it a lot of   people with anxiety get stuck on this you know if I feel like it’s fearsome I need to worry about   it getting on a plane for example if I fear that that’s dangerous that I need to think about it   and worry about it that’s not going to do any good so encourage clients to figure out how to   face it and render it harmless if possible and when that’s not possible accept the inevitable   so looking at airplanes you know facing it means researching to figure out how dangerous   is it really and realizing that it’s not that dangerous so that helps render it a little   bit harmless in their mind it proves to them that it’s not as dangerous as it could be and when   it’s not possible accepting the inevitable you know you got a fly so getting on there figuring   out how you’re gonna get through it hurricanes are the same way people especially in places   like Texas Louisiana Florida may obsess as soon as it starts coming to hurricane season or if a   hurricane is spotted out in the Atlantic somewhere they start checking the weather every hour or more   wondering what the path is going to be and you know what there’s you can’t change the path of the   hurricane so all you can do is board up your house evacuate if necessary and deal with the fallout child driving is just another example I’ll give you know my children are learning how to drive and   that’s kind of scary and fearsome you know what’s gonna happen when they’re out there you know you   see crashes all the time well render it harmless by making sure they’ve got good training on how   to drive make sure they’re good drivers and then accepting that some things are just not within   my control it’s easier to avoid than face life difficulties and responsibilities Well running   from fear is usually much harder in the long run so encourage clients to look back at times when they’ve avoided difficulties and responsibilities and the eventual outcome you know what happened   there people believe they should be thoroughly competent in achieving in all possible respects   or they will be isolated rejected and failures we need to encourage clients to accept themselves as   imperfect with human limitations and flaws and focus on what makes them loveable human being   what qualities like courage and intelligence and creativity and those things that can’t be taken   away what inherent qualities do they have that make them awesome people because something once   strongly affected people’s lives they should indefinitely fear it if you got lost you know   when little kids get lost it’s terrifying when you’re grown up if you get lost you turn on the   GPS and you figure out your way but some people still, you know freaked out about getting lost if   they got lost once so we want to help people look back at past episodes that may be contributing to   the current anxiety and compare the situation’s you know are you the same person or is this not   a big deal now that you’re older wiser stronger encourage them to learn from past experiences   but not be overly attached to or prejudiced by them yeah you could have maybe got lost in the   past and it was a horrible experience well you were six I can see where that would be terrifying   and a horrible experience but it doesn’t have to continue to impact you that way now when you’re   you know 26 getting lost you know could be an opportunity to try a new restaurant or something   people must have complete control over things well this doesn’t happen so encourage clients   to remember that the past and the future are uncontrollable we can’t change the past it is what   it is we can learn from it so it doesn’t repeat but we can’t change it and the future is largely   uncontrollable I mean there are a lot of things I can do to stay moving toward a rich and meaningful   life but life is going to throw me curveballs sometimes and there’s nothing I can do to plan for   or control that we can control our actions in the present to stay on our preferred path and general   develop general skills to deal with adversity should it arise so we want to help clients   develop those general problem-solving skills and the general support system so when they are thrown   a curveball you know it doesn’t knock them upside the head people have virtually no control over   their emotions and cannot help feeling disturbed by things well encourage them to think about the   fact that they have real control over destructive emotions if they choose to work at improving the   next moment and changing inaccurate thoughts then they’re not going to experience the destructive   emotions as intensely or as frequently when you feel an emotion you feel how you feel but again   you don’t have to wrestle with it fight it and nurture it you can say this is how I feel how   do I improve the next moment when it comes to cognitive distortions encourage them to find   alternatives when they start to personalize things if somebody laughs when you walk out of the room   then the and the person starts getting anxious thinking oh they were making fun of me I wonder   what they thought I wonder if I had something stuck to the back of my dress and they start   getting all panicked about it that doesn’t do any good encouraging them to think you know what   our three alternate explanations that hadn’t but had nothing to do with you for why they laughed   magnification of the worst thing you know taking something and saying if this happens then it’s   going to be a catastrophe and minimization going along with that a lot of times when people magnify   and see a catastrophe they minimize not only their strengths and resources but all the   other stuff that they’ve got going for them all they’re seeing is this catastrophe so encouraging   them to focus on the facts of what is actually happening and what is the high probability   event and encourage them to get information and look at the broader picture you know yes you   got into a car crash and your car is totaled and that is unfortunate you know it sucks but   you know that is not going to cause you to lose your job and then become homeless and penniless   and yadda-yadda it might cause your insurance to go up but okay so you don’t have a car but what   are the resources that you have who can Who do you work with that might be able to give you a   ride to work you know let’s look at the resources you have and work around so problem-solving helps   with magnification and also focusing on you know let’s be grateful for what didn’t happen you know   you could have been killed but you weren’t the car was totaled it’s replaceable all or nothing   thinking again have them think about what else could have been happening like Brittney suggested   finding the exceptions instead of saying she always does this look for exceptions when has   she not done that what else has she done instead of this selective abstraction and filtering is   when people look for the good the bad and the ugly a selective abstraction means you kind of   see what you expect to see so if you expect something to be devastating you see only the   devastating aspects of it which kind of goes with the magnification and minimization you filter out   the stuff a lot of times when people are in a bad mood or are anxious they see the negative because   that’s the state of mind they’re in so encouraging people to complete the picture alright there’s   all this bad stuff now what’s the good stuff you know to encourage them to look at the good the bad   and the ugly so they get a wide view of exactly what’s going on and encourage them to remember   that hindsight is twenty-twenty when people have something embarrassing happens or they get anxious   about something that happened they look back and they go I should have or I could have or Oh I   wish I wouldn’t have when you were in that situation you did what you did and you know   maybe you may have had a reason for it or you know you may have not had other options or it may have   just been a bonehead thing to do but okay so you made one mistake hindsight is 2020 that’s gonna   that mistake is gonna stand out just like the great big letter on the eye chart because you’re   thinking back and you’re looking at it and that’s all you see but encouraging clients to remember   that other people are too busy worrying about themselves to remember what they did jumping   to conclusions encourages clients to remember to get all the data if your significant other male   significant other comes home and is smelling like perfume don’t just jump to the conclusion that he   was cheating on you maybe he went to the mall to get a new tie and walked through the   perfume area and got spritzed or bought you some perfume or who knows maybe the person sitting next   to him at work sprayed her perfume on the desk and some of it filtered on there are all different   reasons that that might happen so encourage people to get all the data mind reading we can’t do it   you know you can’t read somebody’s mind you don’t know what they’re thinking so ask them what you think about this don’t assume anything and emotional reasoning encourages people to step back   from a situation and ask themselves am I feeling anxious about this because I’m feeling anxious and   I’m looking for reasons that it should be scary or am I feeling anxious about this because it’s   really scary for some reason there are facts support my anxiety a lot of times when we go into   new situations we may feel anxious because it’s a new situation but when we step back we say you   know what there’s nothing to be worried about here you know no big deal I got this and   move on so instead of rolling with it and trying to figure out okay I feel anxious so there must   be a reason not necessarily very likely a false alarm other psychological interventions relaxation   skills encourage people to learn how to relax not only physically but mentally diaphragmatic   breathing helps encourage them to breathe through their stomach and put their hand on their   belly and feel their belly expand and contract slows breathing down which triggers the rest and digestion reaction in the brain which is calming meditation can be helpful for some people some   people find trying to quiet their minds too frustrating because they’ve got too much   monkey mind going on that can be later or maybe never for some people we don’t want to increase   their anxiety with interventions cute progressive muscular relaxation also has a lot of research   support and remembers with cute progressive muscular relaxation we’re Sakura getting them   to attach a cue AK you word like relax or breathe with the relaxation response so they tense their   muscles and then relax their muscles and as they relax their muscles they say their “querk”-word   like relaxed and they work from head to toe or from toe to head tensing and relaxing different   muscle groups so they become more aware of what a tense muscle feels like versus a reactive relaxed   muscle there are great scripts that are online that people have already recorded that can walk   people walk clients through CPM are I highly encourage it because once they get used to it   then they can just think that cue they can think relax and as they exhale they will start to feel   their entire body kind of relaxing because it’s trained when it hears that just like when you hear   the word pop quiz when you were in high school you had a stress reaction well we want to use   it in reverse and train the body so that when it hears a cue word relaxes helps them develop   self-esteem because fear of failure and rejection a lot of times come from needing other people’s   approval to help them develop a rational idea of their real self develops compassion self-talk   instead of saying I’m an idiot or I’m stupid or I’ll never measure up to anything encourage them   to talk to themself like they would talk to their child or hopefully their best friend and encourage   them to spotlight strengths whenever they feel like they’ve got an imperfection to identify these   three strengths that they have so they’re you know balancing out the imperfections and the strengths of cognitive restructuring reframes challenges in terms of current strengths, not past weaknesses   so if you’re going to give a presentation in front of 60 people and you hate public speaking instead   of thinking about you know this is terrifying because the last time I went up in front of people   I forgot everything I was going to say and drop my note cards well that’s a past weakness what   is your current strength you’re prepared you know the material you Jabba-dada so encourages people   to look at all the strengths and resources they currently have them develop an attitude of   gratitude and optimism because like I said with that the positive writing exercise when people   are in a grateful optimistic frame of mind they tend to see more of the good stuff they see the   bad stuff too but they can also see more of the good stuff and some of the bad stuff they see   opportunistically instead of as a devastation acceptance and commitment therapy says that some of the reasons that we’re miserable are fear we get fused with our thoughts we think I   am terrified well if I am terrified then I can’t I mean if I am I can’t get rid of anything I am   if I’m having the thought that I’m terrified well I can get rid of a thought I can forget   things easily encourage people to evaluate their experience and empower them to look at things as   challenges and opportunities instead of hardships encourage them not to avoid their experiences so   things that are scary gradual exposure and finding exceptions like for me bridges you   know I love public speaking so that’s not a thing but when I go to a bridge you know when   I Drive to the bridge you know when I’m on the bridge somebody else is driving I get used to   doing that when I Drive over a bridge than when I Drive over one of those bridges that opens up   I hate those bridges um I know y’all are just like oh my gosh yeah it’s an irrational fear I realize   that but instead of going straight for the bridge that opens up going for the little bridges first   and then thinking back over times that I’ve gone over bridges and there’s been no problem you know there are exceptions nothing happened it wasn’t a big deal Sometimes I didn’t even notice it until   somebody pointed out hey look down there at that pretty water and I’m like oh we’re on a bridge so   encourage people to not avoid their experiences get used to them embrace them and learn that they   have the power to deal with them and stop reason giving for behavior you know use the challenging   questions if something is fearsome let’s look for at the evidence for and against it instead   of you know making excuses for social interventions improve their relationship with their self which   goes with self-esteem improvement people are going to feel less anxious about getting their needs and   wants to be met if they know what their needs and wants are so part of that is becoming mindful cuz a lot   of our clients don’t know what they need and want they just want to feel better but they don’t   know how they don’t know what they need to feel better so helping them identify their needs and   wants to encourage them to be their own best friend you know when they get a promotion take themselves   out to dinner pat themselves on the back whatever it is don’t rely onother people to do it because   other people it’s not that they don’t care but other people are often very involved in thinking   about their stuff and they may not notice encourage them to develop a method of internal   validation so they can feel like they are all that ‘no bag of chips and they realize why they   are lovable human beings and they accept the the fact that everybody is not going to like them   and nobody is gonna like them all the time and that’s okay you know my kids don’t like me all   the time my husband doesn’t like me all the time I’m okay with that I know I can be challenging but   you know most of the time you know they like me and that’s okay and there are some people you   know who don’t like me at all and okay there’s nothing I can do about that helping our clients   develop an okayness with that helps relieve a lot of anxiety because a lot of people feel like they   have to be liked by everybody and if somebody doesn’t like them it’s like what did I do wrong   oh my gosh encourage them to develop healthy supportive relationships with good boundaries   develop assertiveness skills so they can ask for help when they need it anxiety a lot of times you   know that’s the body saying there’s a threat well if there’s a threat maybe you need some help you   know dealing with it so people need to be willing and able to ask for help and not feel like that’s   going to lead them to be rejected and allow them a certify this will allow them to say no to requests   again without feeling like that’s going to result in them being fully rejected describe the ideal   healthy supportive relationship and encourage them to separate the ideals from the reals you   know let’s look at if you had the best relationship what would it look like okay you know Warden June   Cleaver we got that now how realistic is that you know let’s look at you know rephrasing this   a little bit so it’s less extreme you know warden June Cleaver never fought their kids were perfect   you know all those extreme words let’s look at what’s real what happens in real relationships encourages people to identify who would be a good partner in supportive relationships   I’m not meaning necessarily romantic I’m meaning friends and where they can be found you know where   would you find people that you could be friends with and encourage them to play through what it means when gaming cuz a lot of times again this goes with my reading you know what it means when your friend doesn’t return your text right away what does it mean when your friend cancels   dinner on Friday night what does it mean when you see where I’m going with this and a lot of   times clients with anxiety and rejection issues and low self-esteem will go to the worst-case   scenario so encourage them to go back to finding the exceptions what else could have been happening   what else could it be that caused this and it’s not about you so anxiety is a natural emotion that   serves a survival function excessive anxiety can develop from lack of sleep nutritional problems   neurochemical imbalances failure to develop adequate coping skills cognitive distortions low   self-esteem and a variety of other stuff recovery Ambala involves improving health behaviors making sure your body’s functioning and making the neurotransmitters it needs and you know release   them as needed to identify and build on current coping strategies address cognitive distortions   and develop a healthy supportive relationship with self and others if you enjoy this podcast please   like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on youtube, you can attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr.  Snipes by subscribing at all CEUs comm slash counselor toolbox, this   episode has been brought to you in part by all CEUs calmly provide 24/7 multimedia continuing   education and pre-certification training to counselors therapists and nurses since 2006 have used coupon code consular toolbox to get a 20% discount on your order this month.As found on YouTubeBrain Booster | Blue Heron Health News ⇝ I was losing my memory, focus – and mind! And then… I got it all back again. Case study: OIP-73 Brian Thompson There’s nothing more terrifying than watching your brain health fail. You can feel it… but you can’t stop it. Over and over I asked myself, where is this going to end? What am I going to end up like? And nobody could tell me. Doesn’t matter now. I’m over it. Completely well. This is how I did it!

Addressing Negative Thoughts | Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with Dawn Elise Snipes

 CEUs are available at AllCEUs.com/CBT-CEU This episode was pre-recorded as part of a live continuing education webinar. On demand CEUs are still available for this presentation through ALLCEUs. ALLCEUs.com/CBT-CEU I’d like to welcome everybody today to cognitive behavioral therapy addressing negative thoughts. Now a lot of us took courses and cognitive behavioral therapy we’ve worked with CBP for many many years so some of the this is just going to be a refresher and others you know you may pick up a few new tips or tools as we go along so we’re going to define cognitive behavioral therapy and its basic principles just get a really basic refresher on what was that original CDP about well identify factors impacting people’s choices behaviors because you know they always have a choice we’ll explore causes and the impact of thinking errors whether you call them cognitive distortions irrational thoughts or when I work with my clients I try to call them unhelpful beliefs or unhelpful thoughts because distortions and irrational seems sort of pejorative to me so I try to avoid those words as much as possible and help clients see them as not incorrect necessarily but unhelpful and then we’ll identify some common thinking errors and their relationship to cognitive distortions and some of our just very basic fears why do we care well because cognitive distortions or irrational thoughts or unhelpful thoughts whatever you want to say really impacts people on a physical level a mental level and an emotional level a person who perceives the world is hostile unsafe and unpredictable will tend to be more hyper vigilant until they exhaust the stress response system so think about you know a bottle ship and you’ve got a bunch of new people on this battleship and all the sailors every time there’s the least little thing they send off the all-hands-on-deck so a big bird flies over and I mean literally a bird and they freak out found me all hands on deck and this goes on for a week or two or six months you know let’s think about our clients they don’t usually come in right away where everything is set to OFF that startle response everything sets off that fight-or-flight response the staff starts to get exhausted all the rest of the sailors that have to drop everything and run to their battle stations after a little while they’re like really no no we just we can’t even do this and it also reminds me of the boy who cried wolf anyhow I digress sticking with the battleship metaphor so eventually the captain says you know what let’s retrain on what is worth setting off the all hands on deck because everybody here is exhausted and nobody’s even really responding anymore when they come to their battle stations they’re just kind of dragging their butts in like whatever it’s probably another false alarm the same sort of thing is true with us when we’re on on high alert for too long our brain says you know what we got to conserve some energy in case some really really big threat comes along so it turns down what I call the stress response system it turns down the sensitivity so you don’t get alerted for every little thing that would cause you stress but you also don’t get alerted for those little things that would cause you happiness either anything that would cause the excitatory neurotransmitters to be secreted you’re just not getting those anymore which a lot of people kind of refer to as depression it’s just kind of like the F whatever and only the biggest most notable things actually cause an emotional effect we don’t want people to get to that point that’s no way to live so we need to help them learn how to sort of retrain their spotters to figure out what is actually stressful a person who perceives the world is generally good and believe they have the ability to deal with challenges as they arise will be able to allow their stress response system to function normally there are going to be times you have all hands on deck whether it’s a real emergency or whether it’s just a drill but it will happen and they can go they can you know do what they’re going to do they have that adrenaline rush they have the energy and the focus to do their jobs and when it’s over they go back to their quarters they can relax refresh you know just kind of chill for a while and then there’s a low where their body rebalances before the next one and this is kind of what we want in life I mean ideally we wouldn’t have super high peaks very often but we want to make sure we give our body time to rebalance after there’s a stressor and not have to stand on on edge not be hyper vigilant constantly just waiting for the next one to come along so what is the impact of these thinking errors well whenever we have that stress response system activated the body is saying we either need to fight or we need to flee so you’re dumping all kinds of adrenaline and other neuro chemicals so there’s anxiety there can be stress when people start having this reaction you know they start having muscle tension sweating heart rate increases breathing increases people will call that anxiety some will label that as anger either way they’re both sides of the same coin they need to do something but if it lasts too long then we start moving into depression and they just they don’t have to get up and go anymore there’s just not any excitatory neurotransmitters really left they need some time to rest and rebalance behaviorally think about it if you go somewhere and you are just constantly on guard are you going to keep going there or are you going to withdraw so people who have a lot of thinking errors unhelpful thoughts tend to withdraw more they may turn to addictions to kind of numb or blunt some of the inputs sleep problems and changes when you are hyper vigilant when you have this stress response going even if it’s not a full-bore if it’s still there somewhat if you’re stressed out you’re not going to sleep as well you’re going to maintain higher levels of cortisol so you’re not going to get that restful rejuvenating sleep you may kind of goes on and off eating changes you know depending on the person some people eat the self food that some people can’t eat it all but we do see that the hormones Guerlain and lets them get all out of whack not under stress but also when sleep gets out of whack when your circadian rhythms get out of whack so we’re starting to see the Cascade effect where it’s emotional and behavioral physical you’ve got stress-related illnesses that start coming up if you’re on that lunch you’ve got muscle tension for that long it starts to hurt I mean you start to get migraines your back starts to hurt wherever you store your stress so to speak it starts to come out and most people when they’re under a lot of stress for an extended period you know a day is not a big deal for most people but for an extended period become more susceptible to illnesses they start getting sick easier headaches GI distress you know some people store their stress right in their gut socially think about the last time you were stressed were you patient and tolerant and just a pleasure to be around you may have tried to be but you’re more prone to irritability and impatience and again wanting to withdraw all of these affects contribute to fatigue and a sense of hopelessness and helplessness which often intensifies thinking errors so you’ll see this negative reciprocal interaction if somebody feels stressed out and overwhelmed and that they withdrawal then they may start feeling like they have no support and they don’t and they lose all their social buffers to the stress so they feel even more stressed so they want to withdrawal even more so we’re going to talk about how to prevent that now I like this little diagram maybe because it’s got a heart in the center I don’t know but behavior feelings and thoughts this is the outside of the circle all three of these impact diecuts each other when you do something it often impacts your feelings and your thoughts about a situation when you when you’re thinking if you think positively you’re probably going to choose more positive behaviors and more have more positive feelings you’re thinking negatively obviously you may choose more of an escape behavior Protection behavior and may have more feelings of anger anxiety depression etc so these things are going on and they’re all interacting the one really cool thing is if you break this chain somewhere or this circuit then you can stop that reciprocal negative downward spiral so cognitive behavioral helps people who are willing to show up or who are willing to address their thoughts not everybody is willing to start addressing their thoughts right away maybe they want to start addressing their sleep problems in their eating problems or something that’s more physical okay that’s fine because anywhere we interrupt this circuit is going to have positive effects assuming the intervention is positive it’s going to have positive effects on the other ones so what about the triangle well yourself so you’re feeling thoughts and behavior impact you it impacts how you feel and you’re like well yeah okay just stay with me but the way you feel think and act impacts your future and it also impacts how you interact with others so you know that kind of affects things because remember social support is a big buffer for us now core beliefs and you can do this inward to outward or outward to inward but either way it comes down to core beliefs if you have positive thoughts and positive feelings and you generally engage in positive behaviors to keep that cycle going you will probably feel pretty good about yourself have good relationships have a somewhat optimistic feeling about the future and your core beliefs may be more like people are generally good I can do this you know very self affirming and other affirming positive core beliefs about yourself in the world now if your thoughts or feelings are negative then you have this negative outer circle you don’t feel so good you start questioning the goodness and Trust ability and dependable of other people you have more of a bleak look in the future so what do you think is going to happen to the core beliefs the core beliefs may change too if someone doesn’t love me I am completely unloveable they may change to being more extreme more negative and more difficult to rectify if you want to have somebody who’s happy I mean you’re not going to have somebody who’s happy who thinks the world is an unkind unpredictable scary place going it’s just wonderful roses today so we have to help people try to adjust eventually start adjusting those core beliefs and when we get into causing that behavior remember the ABCs your automatic but well your automatic thought then your and beliefs are what happened as soon as that event occurs and those you don’t think about that’s why they’re called automatic so when you have the ABCs these core beliefs are those things that pop up that we need to address so what factors affect this and whoops you know there’s a lot of stuff right here and EBP they call them vulnerabilities you know we’re just going to talk about in general different factors that affect the choices our clients make in terms of behaviors so negative emotions if they are not if they’re feeling angry if they’re feeling anxious they’re feeling depressed they’re probably not going to be really motivated to get up and engage in a whole lot of self affirming activities they’re not probably not going to be having a lot of positive self affirming thoughts they’re going to be focused on whatever is causing that distress and maybe escaping from that physically pain and illness when you don’t feel well it’s harder to be Susie sunshine I don’t think many of us are just a barrel of monkeys when we don’t feel well so if our clients have pain this is one of those if you want to put it in behaviors behavioral areas physical areas we can address and have them go see their physician have them go see their physical therapist and get recommendations so they aren’t feeling physically painful physically and distress all the time because physical distress and emotional distress both mess with sleep unfortunately sleep is the first thing to usually go and I’m not talking about quantity I know a lot of clients who when they get depressed they’re in in bed for you know days they’ll get up they’ll maybe shower and you know go back to bed and they’re sleeping a lot but it doesn’t mean it’s quality sleep so what we need to look at is what is the quality of their sleep are they getting that rejuvenation the time for their brain and neural chemicals to rebalance so they can feel happy so they can have that nice balance of all the the neurotransmitters they need to feel happy poor nutrition well no matter how much sleep they get if they don’t have the building blocks to make the neurotransmitters and the hormones that are needed to prompt the feelings the physiological sensations that we’ve labeled happiness or excitement or you know even depression and anxiety those are all caused by different neurotransmitters being secreted in different combinations if your body doesn’t have the building blocks to make those then it doesn’t matter how much sleep you get you’re not going to get any benefit from it an intoxication and this can be uppers downers anything that is psychoactive if you are messing with that neurotransmitter balance you’re going to get it out of whack and you may either use up too much of the excitatory or cause us a lot of it or you may use up too much of the depressant either way there’s usually a rebound effect which we call withdrawal so you’re not going to be in a good space either during the intoxication sometimes but definitely when you’re sobering up there’s a period where there’s going to be negative emotions negative feelings environmentally yeah your environment can even make you grumpy introduction of a new or unique situation some people love new challenges love going to new places other people not so much depending on the person taking on going somewhere new may be really stressful for them so if they’ve already got de-stress going on because of having to go to this new situation then their thoughts may be a little bit more on the anxious side about a lot of things and they may have less patience and tolerance to deal with other stuff that comes their way because they’re already kind of on edge and exposure to unpress you know going places that you just really don’t want to go maybe and one of the places I used to work we had this meeting once a month and it was literally an eight-hour meeting and we would all sit in there for eight hours and one person at a time would get up and give their staff reports or whatever but it tended to be a relatively dreadful sort of environment or eight hours and we all knew we had to be there and that was fine but it was an unprecedented were grumbling on the way in they were getting their coffee and going well I better do this because I’m not getting out for another eight hours we need to help our clients obsess what is it in your environment if anything that is making you already feel grumpy or not as happy and likewise what can you put in your environment to make you feel happier you know I keep pictures of my kids and my animals on my phone that way if I’m having a moment or not sometimes I just like looking at them I can take a look at it it makes me smile and I’m like okay life is good you know this moment may not be so wonderful but it’s just this moment then we move on to stress of a social nature peers or family who convey irrational thoughts as necessary standards for social acceptance nobody wants to associate with those people or nobody’s going to like you when you’re like this or you read if you really want to be successful then you need to change fill in the blank it’s always a something needs to change you are not okay for who you are how you are and a lack of supportive peers to buffer stress because we all have negative people in our life it happens but if you have negative supportive peers that you can call afterwards and go yeah I had just had to meet with someone so for an hour and it was just dreadful and that person can go well I’m sorry or be there make you laugh or whatever they do it helps buffer the stress if you don’t have those positive social supports then you’re left walking out of it you’re kind of feeling shell-shocked and then you also at the same time have to figure out for yourself all right what do I do next now it doesn’t mean you can’t do it you know people do it all the time but it is good it is awesome to have supportive peers to buffer your stress so when cognitive therapy clients learn to distinguish between thoughts and feelings realizing that thoughts will trigger feelings but they don’t have to cause continual feelings and behaviors and feelings can cause certain thoughts but they don’t have to you can unhook from them and you can just say this is how I’m feeling right now now where am I going to go from here and we talked about that on Tuesday with unhooking from unhooking from your thoughts and stepping back and going what is the next logical action to get me to where I want to go become aware of the ways in which the thoughts can influence feelings in ways that are sometimes not helpful being critical being jealous envious maybe you just don’t like somebody and you know there’s a whole lot of reasons for that but you don’t like everybody most people don’t like everyone and so it’s you know that’s okay but recognize how that affects your interactions with that person and your thoughts about that person learn how thoughts that seem to occur automatically affect emotions so recognize start getting down to what are these core beliefs that happen every time it’s a negative incident that make me feel angry or anxious constructively evaluate whether these automatic thoughts and assumptions are accurate or perhaps biased evaluate whether the current reactions are helpful and a good use of energy or unhelpful and a waste of energy that could be used to move toward those people and things important to the person so again back kind of to that ACP sort of thing is this a good use of your energy to help you achieve your goals and be the person you want to be and develop the skills to notice interrupt and correct these biased thoughts independently like I said you don’t always have to call somebody you can do it on your own but sometimes it’s nice to have that buffer in that middle moment so what causes these thinking errors how can we even start helping people address their thoughts and until we start thinking about well what caused them information processing shortcuts as we grow up we learn things you know when you were knee-high to a grasshopper you didn’t have a lot of experience so you learned things but things you learned when you were a kid unfortunately because you were cognitively a child are either our dichotomies they’re all or nothing it’s either this way or no way at all so things that you have things that you learn back when you were a child may not have been challenged if you heard something from your parent maybe your parents said you’re a bad girl or you’re a bad boy it’s all or nothing well I am a bad girl so I guess that means I’m not okay and if I’m not okay right now I’m never okay that can stick with a person so these outdated amis schemas can really trip somebody up once the person gets into you know middle schoolish the thoughts aren’t nearly as dichotomous there’s a lot more formal operational thought if you will but up until then I mean you’ve got a child who’s experiencing a lot of stuff and taking in like a sponge everything they hear and it gets sorted into a yes or a No pile there’s there’s no kind of middle pile that there’s no yes and so what we want to do is help people look at those thoughts now and say okay if they’re all or nothing is there a way to find both and so for example we’ll take that exam scenario I gave you earlier if a child hears you’re a bad girl when they’re young they take that to mean always everything about me is bad I’m unlovable so what is the both and compromise as an adult we can look back and go you know I’m a good person I may not make may make poor choices sometimes I may make bad choices but I’m a good person so there’s that both and you know I’m not perfect but I’m good so that it’s not all or nothing and I encourage my clients to really always look for that middle ground how can it be both or does it have to even be that negative one but most of the time there’s a little bit of something on both sides the brain’s limited information processing capacity and limited responses when children are young you know they hear something you know mom comes in and says you’re a bad girl and child hears I’m totally unlovable and it just crushes the child they don’t have experiences to go moms having a bad day she kind of tends to say things she doesn’t mean when she’s having a bad day it’s just it’s devastating to that child when you’re older if somebody says something that’s not necessarily tactful you know you can look at it and go yeah that really wasn’t nice but that person probably did not intend to be hurtful they may have something else going on children have fewer experiences so what was devastating or overwhelming as a child may not still have have to feel that way when you’re a child if your best friend moved away oh that was devastating it was the end of the world now as an adult you can go visit them you can call them and with the internet and everything you can email them you can still stay in touch so there are ways to do it yeah you can’t go out and swing swing on swings together all the time but it doesn’t have to mean the end of the end of time things will change and there’s a little process of grieving that has to go along with that but to an adult a friend moving away is less devastating than say to a six-year-old your parent being angry with you if you grew up in an alcoholic or addicted household you learn don’t talk don’t trust don’t feel when the parent came in if the parent was angry with you you could have been in a lot of hurt you know there could have been some actual danger to your physical or emotional person so it was scary as a 26 year old or however old your client is is it that threatening you know if your parent gets angry with you you don’t depend on them for food and shelter anymore you don’t have to be an inner household if they were violent towards you so is it as terrifying when your parent gets angry yes there’s lots of issues with wanting acceptance from your parents that’s over here there’s a whole nother issue but when your parent is angry do you have to have that person’s approval when we’re in crisis we don’t process much when you’re in crisis your body is worried about surviving if you’ve been in a car wreck if somebody has gone to the hospital whatever the case is you’re not processing all of the data in order to make it in for decision you’re processing what’s right in front of you because when we’re in crisis we generally have tunnel vision and really crappy memory so if something happened when someone was in crisis that hurt their feelings made them angry you know fill in the blank some sort of dysphoric emotion we want to say well let’s look back at that and see if there’s a pose and let’s look back at that and see if there was something that you missed that might help you understand why this person reacted that way but understanding that in crisis we just generally don’t make the most informed decisions so emotional reasoning helping clients understand that feeling or not facts and helping them learn to identify feelings and separate them from facts so if they say I’m terrified all right so you’re terrified got that about what are you terrified you know tell me what are these things that make you feel like the world is such a scary place and let’s list them on the whiteboard or a flip chart what is the evidence that those are present dangers right now that they’re actually impending threats so tell me about what the evidence is in what ways is this similar to other situations where you felt terrified and how did you deal with those situations I have a friend who actually went this morning on an airplane flight and she hates flying totally terrified of it so what is the evidence that this plane is going to crash you know what is the evidence that it is likely that this plane will crash and there really she’s flying on an american-based commercial airliner there really isn’t any when you look at the proportions so okay there’s there have been a couple of crashes over the past 20 years and in a couple of those there were some fatalities no doubt but looking at the proportions and running the numbers what’s the likelihood in what ways this is similar to other situations that you have felt terrified you know maybe there haven’t been any other situations where she’s flown and gotten through it and been like score I did that but what other situations have you had to get through that you were terrified and how did you deal with those help people develop distress tolerance skills one of the things I told her was when you’re sitting on the airplane and you know the airplane starts up don’t wait til you start getting really stressed necessarily but when we were little on the car when we’re in the car we used to find things on the drive find something that starts with a and everybody would find something that started with a and then find something that starts with B and you know so on and if you couldn’t find something that started with that letter you were out so I mean she’s going on this trip with her kids and I’m like why don’t you try doing that because there are some letters that you’re going to have to work really hard and it’s kind of like the game apples to apples you end up finding something really inane in order to get that letter and you laugh and you’re so busy focusing on that you’re not focusing on all of the things that could possibly maybe go wrong other distress tolerance skills you know you can go through the whole DBT curriculum and learn some of those the biggest thing is if you have to face the terror if you have to go through it figure out a way to not have to focus on it and fight it and go I shouldn’t be afraid I shouldn’t be because that doesn’t work if it worked we wouldn’t be talking about it and develop emotional regulation skills so prevent those vulnerabilities set yourself up so you are as prepared as you can to not feel stressed to not feel anxious she has her spouse with her who can help diffuse some of it she’s got her kids with her she downloaded some movies she’s prepared to endure the distress she’s you know trying to go into it with a positive mindset as much as possible and focusing on the destination which you know is ultimately the reason she’s getting on the plane social causes of stress and thinking errors everybody’s doing it well that’s not true there’s very real that everybody does so correcting misinformation how the client gather objective information about you know if they say well everybody else that I know has succeeded okay well let’s gather objective information about that who do you know and tell me if they’ve succeeded if I want to be liked I must do it this need for approval or low self-esteem can cause a lot of problems in thinking errors and fears of rejection so we say okay let’s look at developing some self-esteem so you don’t need to worry about if somebody likes you what would it be like if you woke up in the morning and you didn’t care if so-and-so liked you I mean we all want to have friends don’t get me wrong I’m not saying you want to be her moving out in the woods but if we’re talking about a particular so-and-so what would it be like in the morning to get up and go you know what if that person messages me today or call us me today that’s great and if not I’m okay with that how liberating would that be to get your power back and how people develop social supports that share their same values and goals at least mostly or at least can respect yours so for example when you know I work with people with co-occurring disorders and they don’t drink and they don’t use drugs so they may be around people family friends who drink if you’re going to be in that situation do you have to drink and can you be around do you have social supports that can be supportive of your choice to not drink doesn’t necessarily mean they’re it’s not going to not going to not drink in front of you but at least they’re not trying to get you to drink so the social causes of irrational thoughts if I want to be liked I must do this why can’t you be like for who you are cognitive bias negativity mental filter focus on the negatives and worry about the future most of us know some people like that most of us have had a moment where we felt like this we’ve just gotten ourselves in a tizzy and spun out of control but you can bring it back so you want to ask yourself or have your clients ask themselves what’s the benefit to focusing on the negative if you know that this is going to go south really fast what’s the benefit to just focusing on that could you focus on alternatives or Plan B’s what are the positives to the situation most people who have mood issues who present to us in counseling don’t focus on both sides yes every side you know has a little bit of negative to it if you really want to look hard enough but every side also has a silver lining if you really want to look hard enough so we need to balance the the positives and the negatives so encourage people to look for the positives in the situation yeah this really sucked but and what are all the facts what are all the things going into it sometimes people will go to work and not know or wonder if they’re going to get laid off because you know you’re not necessarily always guaranteed a job anywhere there can be layoffs but if somebody is going to work every day worried about this focusing on the negative up yep I’m definitely going to be the one that’s going to get the pink slip and they go to their mailbox each time looking for that pink slip expecting it to be there how is that going to affect their mood as opposed to alright there may be layoffs coming what can I do to make myself really valuable or and what are my options if I do get laid off let’s make a plan B and C so I don’t just feel like the rug was pulled out from under me coin toss activity if somebody tends to be stuck in negativity have them flip a coin every morning if it lands on heads they can just see their normal selves to their heart’s content if it lands on tails they need to act as if they are a happy positive optimistic maybe even a noxious ly optimistic person for the entire day you know we want them to be farting rainbows and when I say that they usually look at me and laugh and but that’s okay I’m like every time you start having a negative thought I want you to see a unicorn farting rainbows and take it from there and then have them process how they felt at the end of the day if they weren’t constantly focused on negativity and worrying and only seeing the bad stuff disqualifying or minimizing the positive if something happens when somebody says well I just got that promotion because they didn’t have anybody else to give it to okay if your best friend just got a promotion would you say that to them what is scary about accepting the positive about accepting the fact that maybe you got the promotion because you’re awesome sometimes we disqualify the positive because it fails to meet someone else’s standards so might that be true here you know maybe you got this promotion and you’re actually down deep down inside kind of proud of it but you know that your mother had always wanted you to be this over here and you’re never going to meet that expectation so you minimize it that way nobody else could say well you know better than nothing and take away your thunder egocentrism my perspective is the only perspective take different perspectives I always say three if something happens and you know maybe somebody was rude to you anyone they were rude to me okay they were rude to you what are three reasons what are some alternate perspectives why that person might have been rude maybe what you did something that triggers them maybe they were having a bad day and it’s got nothing at all to do with you you know there are options that we can look at personalization and mind-reading what are some alternate explanations for the event that didn’t involve you if you think well that person that person just really doesn’t like me and you know I’ve got to work with them every day and they hate me my question to my client would be what what’s the evidence for that and what are some alternative explanations for why that person may be behaving that way I had a staff member that a lot of my other staff members had difficulty getting along with and ultimately you know we had to sit down and look when I had some different staff meetings with people and say you know what gives you the idea that she doesn’t like you what gives you the idea that it’s about you and you know they cited all kinds of behaviors and I had to come back to well what are some alternate reasons why somebody anybody not just her might be expressing those behaviors could it be something besides you and of course they came back – yeah availability heuristic remembering what’s prominent in your mind if somebody was if you’re a supervisor for example and you’re doing evaluation for the year what are you really remembering when you’re doing that evaluation the whole year or the last three months and that’s the event fail ability heuristic so when you’re talking to somebody about their relationship with their best friend or their spouse or their kids and if somebody says well that that child has always been a problem okay let’s look at that you know the child is 18 and you’ve had a lot of problems with him lately but what about three years ago so was he always a problem or is this something that’s relatively new that something might have changed magnification people getting stuck on fearing the absolute worst so you want to ask them is this a high probability or low probability outcome if they’re magnifying something that happened like oh my gosh that is the worst thing in the world is this going to matter six months from now maybe you totaled your car and yeah that is a huge bummer and you’re safe in six months is this really going to matter that much you know there are going to be some bills and everything but the big scheme of things is at the end of the world what have you done in the past to tolerate events like these when something really really unpleasant has happened and then if they’re looking at dichotomous ways of thinking which a lot of our clients still do they’re like someone so it always does this or never does this have them look at the differences between love versus hate perfection versus failure and all good intentions versus all bad intentions because a lot of our dichotomies fall in one of these three categories this person always does this or Never or does it intentionally or you know just doesn’t care belief in a just world the fallacy of fairness encourage people to look for for good people they know that have had bad things happen attributional bearers are labeling yourself not a behavior such as saying I am stupid instead of I don’t have good math skills I am is difficult to get rid of I can’t get rid of stupidity if it’s part of me but if it’s a thought or a skill I can either get rid of it or improve it stable I am means I am right now and I probably always will be stupid verses I can change this thought or skill I can learn math and internal attributions mean it’s about me as a person versus about a skill or skill deficit or something completely unrelated so when somebody makes a global internal negative statement we want to help them challenge that global internal positive statements I’m all about but the negative ones I want to say let’s take a look at that is that true that this is about you all of the time and it means that there’s something wrong with you so we want to ask them how are these thoughts how are these ways of thinking impacting your emotions health relationships and perceptions of the world we want to increase motivation to start looking at these spanking errors because it’s a lot of work to start changing the way you automatically think because you’ve got to stop you’ve got to become mindful and then you’ve got to decide well what are the alternative thoughts because this is what I thought for so long how may have this thought has been helpful in the past most of the time thoughts we have came from somewhere and whether it was a thought we had when we were a child something we learned when we were a child that is dichotomous and not quite applicable anymore it may have been helpful in the past to help you navigate situations doesn’t mean it was wrong it means it’s not helpful in the present asking them to always ask themselves is this thought or feeling bringing you the client closer to those people and things that are important to you it’s hanging on to this negativity bringing you closer and and I like the energy philosophy if you will when you are unhappy you are letting this person have your power you are letting this person make you angry when you decide you are not going to give them your power then you may start feeling happier and I don’t always use that with clients but sometimes the power metaphor help when we talk about thinking Ayers asked them are there examples of this not being true and and or how can a statement be made less global stable and internal is it about you or is it about what you do at work is it about you or is it about your relationship with this particular person so the last couple of slides focusing on some of the irrational thoughts or unhelpful beliefs our basic fears are rejection and isolation failure loss of control the unknown and death generally the things that cause people to have this fight-or-flight reaction fall into one of those categories so some of the unhelpful beliefs that we hear a lot coming up when we do the ABCs is that mistakes are never acceptable so if I make one I am incompetent so we’ve got dichotomous thinking and we’ve got a lot of internal global labeling here rejection and isolation when somebody disagrees with me it’s a personal attack against me well sometimes it is what does that mean it’s about you we’re helping them address the rejection and isolation fears we want to ask them you know if they disagree with you were they attacking you and saying you were stupid or were they attack attacking you want to use that word or were they attacking the thought and saying they disagreed with the thought there’s a little bit of a difference it’s somewhat semantics but it’s a difference because they may have a lot of respect for you but they may disagree with what you just said if someone criticizes or rejects me there must be something wrong with me again that’s one of those internal global negative statements to feel good about myself others must approve of me we want to make sure our clients can self validate and they don’t rely on external validation because they’re setting themselves up for a world of hurt if they are not their own best friend to be content in life I must be liked by all people and thanks for a second are you liked by everybody I know I’m not liked by everybody so does that mean that I should not be content in life and what does it say to give people that power to say if you don’t like me that I can’t be content because I’ve got to be liked by everybody sometimes with clients I’ll help them look at what may be going on with the other person why that person might like them because a lot of times other people’s reactions towards you are more about their stuff than about you and helping them see how that might be true my true value as an individual depends on what others think of me so these other unhelpful beliefs pertain to those thoughts of failure and loss of control none of us likes to fail don’t get me wrong it’s not pleasant but it happens and there is a saying out there that says if you haven’t failed you haven’t tried which means we need to get beyond our safety envelope we need to push ourselves behind beyond our boundaries and when we do sometimes we’re going to stumble and fall and we pick ourselves up and we learn from it but to expect to never fail at anything is not realistic so nothing ever turns out the way you want it to how many times have you heard that from your clients I won’t try anything new unless I know I’ll be good at it I’m in total control and anything bad that happens is my fault so let’s look at this locus let’s control thing here you’re in total control so you can make it rain you know it was unpleasant today because I had to come to work and it was raining outside so that was bad it happened was it your fault pointing out and depending on your relationship for your client you’re probably going to be more or less snarky when you present some of these but a lot of times I have a semi joking relationship if you will with my clients and they’re like yeah I see your point that kind of didn’t make a lot of since other times you know if they’re more serious I’ll ask them to identify things that happened that were bad that they had nothing to do with if I feel happy about life something will go wrong or I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop helping people stay focused in the moment with mindfulness and something’s going to go wrong down the road somewhere sometimes yeah it’s true this will happen let’s enjoy what we’ve got for right now the past always repeats itself it was if it was true then it’s true now so what was true when you were ten is true now that you’re forty always is that true it’s not my fault my life didn’t go the way I wanted everybody conspired against me and there’s no gray area so for people who feel the need to hold on to control its dichotomous it is or it isn’t it’s got to be that way there’s no gray area and it can make life be seem very uncomfortable because they’ve got to put things in one of two buckets and sometimes things don’t fit nicely in buckets what happens if we add a third bucket that both an bucket so a quick note about irrationality the origins of most beliefs were rational and helpful given the information the person had at the time and their ability to process that information because of their cognitive development so things that we identify as unhelpful or automatic beliefs now came from somewhere and they made perfect sense whenever they were formed they may not be healthy or helpful now which is why we want to look at them and either adjust them or just throw them out the door but when they were formed they were on point irrationality or unhelpful nasaw thoughts comes when those beliefs are perpetuated without examination so again we need to look at them continually look at what you’re telling yourself and go is this still accurate and continue to be held despite causing harm to the person sometimes you’re going to look at a thought an automatic thought and you’re going to go yeah that is still spot-on now is holding on to this helping me achieve my goals you know yet the world right now is kind of a scary place is holding on to this fear and terror helping me and be a happy productive yada-yada whatever kind of person you want to be or is it causing me to feel anxious and angry and scared sometimes it’s more productive for clients to think of thoughts as unhelpful instead of irrational because like I said I feel like irrationality and distortions seem very pejorative to a lot of clients so questions clients can ask themselves when they are faced with a situation what are the facts for and against this belief is this belief based on facts or feelings just because you feel scared is it a scary situation does the belief focus on just one aspect or the whole situation does the belief seem to use any of those thinking errors we talked about and if so you know what do I need to do about it what are some alternate explanations for this belief what else could have caused this to happen besides whatever I’m afraid of what would you tell your child or your best friend if they had this belief what would you took what would you want someone to tell you about this belief you could have somebody tell you something that would make you feel okay what would you want them to tell you and how is this belief moving you toward what and who is important to you remembering that beliefs are a combination of thought and fact and personal interpretation of those thoughts and facts I tend to when I talk you know you see me I kind of I’m all over the place with my arms I am a animated talker now if you are seeing me from a hundred feet away and you are seeing me talk might think I was angry because I make a lot of really big gestures because if you had grown up in a situation where there was domestic violence or something but if you had grown up in a household like I did where you had a first generation Italian first generations of ten Italian Americans talk big they talk real big with lots of gestures and sometimes loud and that doesn’t necessarily mean any anger a lot of times it’s just pure excitement so understanding that there’s thoughts in facts you know you see this going on but your personal interpretation can really affect what you get out of it or what you perceive that situation to be so we need to look at how is your personal interpretation maybe adding a negative bias and what what do we do about that it may be 100 percent accurate what do we do about it so it doesn’t keep you miserable thoughts impact behaviors and emotional and physical reactions emotional physical reactions impact thoughts and your interpretation of events irrational or unhelpful thinking patterns are often caused by cognitive distortions my two favorite words in that same sentence cognitive distortions are schemas or shortcut ideas or memories if you will which were formed based on faulty inaccurate or immature knowledge or understanding of the event you know little kids may not have quite understood what was going on they just understood that mommy and daddy were screaming identifying the thoughts the hecklers I call them those negative voices inside your head that are maintaining unhappiness helps people choose whether to accept the thoughts and say yeah you know that’s right I really am not good at that or whatever the negative thought is and change it or let the thought go are there any questions you you thank you miss Benson well thank you all if you come up with any questions you know you’re mulling it over later and you think you know that yet I’ve worked with a client and with something similar and I did this or you know you have a question about something I said feel free to email me the easiest one to remember is support at all CEUs com there’s only two others in the office so either my husband gets it err I do so it’ll get to me and I guess that’s it so I will see you all on Tuesday if you have any types of courses that you want to see added to the list please let me know I’m always interested in doing what you want to learn about not necessarily just where I pull out on my rabbit hat yes you can print the slides in the golly golly golly when you go into the class there’s a link that has a PDF of the slides that you can print if you want to print go ahead and print those out the video version of this will be up on YouTube by tomorrow morning maybe later this afternoon you okay everybody have an absolutely amazing rest of your day and weekend if you enjoy this podcast please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube you can attend and participate in our live webinars with dr. Schneider by subscribing at all CEUs calm / counselor toolbox this episode has been brought to you in part by all CEUs calm providing 24/7 multimedia continuing education and pre certification training to counselors therapists and nurses since 2006 use coupon code consular toolbox to get a 20% discount off your order this month.As found on YouTubeSeanCooper🗯 The Shyness & Social Guy ⇝ The 3 WORST Mistakes You Must AVOID If You Want To Overcome Shyness (PLUS: 1 weird trick that targets the root biological cause of shyness so you can stop being nervous, awkward, and quiet around people…) By Sean Cooper, The Shyness & Social Anxiety Guy. The fact that you’re reading this article tells me you may have already reached a point where you feel your shyness is NOT going away on its own… 732d01adf780998f105af3460737a431 or you fear it’s getting worse and worse. And I don’t want you to waste one more day living a life where you feel left out, bored, or depressed because you don’t have the relationships which would make you happy. That’s why I’ve put together this page to help you avoid the worst mistakes that keep many people stuck with shyness for years… often giving up hope of ever improving as you watch other people have interesting “normal” lives without you. Yet this doesn’t have to happen.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Skills and Counseling Techniques with Dr. Dawn-Elise “Doc” Snipes

 CEUs are available for this presentation at AllCEUs.com/CBT-CEU Hi everybody and welcome to today’s presentation on cognitive behavioral therapy skills. Like the other the presentation we did on assert not assertive community treatment acceptance and commitment therapy, which is also based on just providing information about skills that can be used not providing an evidence-based practice we couldn’t cover that in a full hour or just an hour so over the next hour we’re going to define cognitive behavioral therapy and its basic principles a lot of us are familiar with this but it’s going to be a good review and it also may highlight some nuances that you didn’t know about will identify factors impacting people’s choice of behaviors explore causes and impact of thinking errors and identify common thinking errors and their relationships to cognitive distortions so why do we care well as therapists we want to help people figure out the best way to live a happy healthy meaningful goals-driven life for some people that’s going to mean using some cognitive behavioral interventions that can be in addition to mindfulness that can be in addition to a lot of other things but it’s important to help people understand that the way we believe things to be the way we interpret things is going to affect our reactions so for example think about a situation you know you’ve walked into and maybe you walked into it with a small child and it was a different situation it was a new situation but you know it was no big deal you walked in it was not a threatening situation to you because you were like hey I got this the little kid walks in and goes oh wow there are a lot of people walking around here, this is the really scary same situation as two different perceptions you probably didn’t have much of a stress reaction going on whereas the little child probably had this fight-or-flight thing going on grabbing onto your hand like please don’t let go Atlanta Airport is a perfect example if you’ve ever taken a little kid through Atlanta Airport it gives you an idea about how people can perceive things differently and when you enact that fight-or-flight reaction you’re going to have all those stress hormones you’re going to have all either anxiety or anger or whatever that goes with it it may serve to exhaust the person and leave them feeling hopeless and helpless so what we want to do is help people see that but we also want to help them see that when they’re depressed when they’re tired when they’re sick things are going to seem a lot worse a lot of times because they don’t have the energy to perceive it differently I mean when you’re sick it’s overwhelming to think of going through Atlanta Airport so this is what we want to help people start understanding is it’s two sides of the same coin they interact if one is you know kind of going wonky is going to affect the other one the good thing is if one’s going really good the other one’s going to go good if you’re having positive thoughts you’re probably going to feel pretty good there’s an activity and I think we’re going to talk about it later it’s called the coin flip activity and I asked client clients to flip a coin in the morning and in the morning if it turns heads then they have to be the most positive Pollyanna all day long look for the silver lining and everything smile walk with their head up hold those nonverbals up and see how they feel at the end of the day besides a little sore because there are muscles they’re using they haven’t been used in a while if it lands on tails they can just be their normal selves which generally if they’re seeing me means that they are depressed anxious stressed out angry about something in the negative realm then we talk about how did things seem different on the days when you were feeling better when you were walking taller when you were smiling even our nonverbals it doesn’t even have to be sickness it can be our nonverbals that can make us feel or make our body feel heavy and tired and make it seem like it’s a whole lot harder to deal with life as a person who perceives the world generally good and believes they can deal with challenges as they arise that good old self-efficacy will be able to allow their stress response system to function normally so if they’re like you know what I can deal with whatever life throws at me I’ve got it and maybe I need help with it maybe I’ll need to ask for support but I’ve got it it’s not going to completely overwhelm me with people who see the world as hostile unsafe and unpredictable you know for a variety of reasons whatever happened to make their scheme as such that they don’t believe that people or the world is trustworthy are predictable they are always on guard they’re always kind of like a hamster in a cage that has Have you ever had a hamster hamsters don’t recognize you and go hey that’s my own or human contact score hamsters go run under their little house and you just kind of open the cage and stick your hand in there and flip over their house and you’re like come here and give me cuddles and you’re like you know 200 times bigger than they are so the little hamster is like freaking out this is what it’s like for people and obviously, I’m exaggerating but this is what it’s like for people who have a negative perspective a negative view or a hostile view of the world so kind of keep that little hamster in your mind cognitive behavioral therapy we have core beliefs those things that are in our hearts when I talk with my clients about honesty step one and that’s what they’ve got to do to start recovery is get honest with themselves first and then other people we talk about head heart and gut honesty do you think it’s right does it seem like the right thing to do does it feel right in your heart you know does it make you happy it doesn’t make you feel good and then the spidey senses is your gut saying and or is your gut fine if one of those is saying this might not be the right choice and we need to think about what’s going on so we have those core beliefs and I put them in the heart just because that’s the middle of the head heart and gut but you have core beliefs about yourself whether you’re good with you’re bad whether you’re effective at certain things yada yada you have core beliefs about other people same thing good bad effective predictable and you have core beliefs about the future and a lot of that goes with the locus of control but also your past experiences if the world in the past is seemed unfriendly and uncontrollable and you’ve perceived it that way then you’re going to expect the future to be uncontrollable so what we want to do is help people look at their schemas and their core beliefs about themselves others in the future and figure out kind of what they want it to look like these schemas are going to affect your behavior and your thoughts and your feelings and you know you can pick wherever you want to start it doesn’t matter because all three inter interface with one another so if you haven’t let’s start with negative thoughts if you have negative thoughts then you might feel anxious angry stressed dysphoric which will affect the behavior you’re going to do different things than if you have positive thoughts about something you feel excited and energized you’re going to have different behavior the best thing example I can give you is if you’ve ever done public speaking or had to present something some people detest public speaking it’s just terrifying for them to get up in front of a group of people so their thoughts am I going to trip up I going to forget what I’m going to say I’m going to make a fool of myself I’m going to you know it can go on forever that when you get on a roll you can get on a negative roll and go on forever or positive hopefully get on that roll with those thoughts you start holding onto those thoughts remember as we talked about in a CT the other day when you hold those thoughts and you kind of mush them around in your mind and you come to believe them that you’re going to make a fool of yourself and it’s going to be awful you’re going to start feeling terrified likely which is going to likely affect your behavior if you go out on the stage and you’re terrified you’re going to probably stutter you’re probably going to get foggy-headed you’re going to have that fight-or-flight reaction so there’s an the adrenaline rush and you start sweating and you can’t focus and you can’t concentrate you want to away as opposed to somebody like me who loves public speaking and I’m just like cool I get to go out there and try to engage however many people are in the audience it’s a game for me because when I can see your faces I enjoy trying to figure out and make eye contact with people and figure out what it is that they’re there for what is it that’s going to make them tick what resonates with them so my behavior as you can kind of see right now when I go out there I’m excited and I want to engage people and it’s a fun experience for me again just like the airport the same experience for two different people and two very different interpretations and reactions to it so what effects I don’t like the term rational but when we’re talking about CBT irrationally comes up a lot I like to replace it with helpful because every behavior in its weird sort of way is or probably was rational at one time that being said we’re going to get back to that stress affects our behavioral choices if we’re under stress we can have negative emotions negative emotions will affect our thoughts if we’re feeling sad we’re probably going to look at the dark side if we feel sad we’re going to look at the bottom falling out if we’re happy we’re probably going to look for that silver lining physical factors if you’re in pain sick sleep-deprived poorly nourished so your body can’t produce the neurotransmitters it needs to or heaven forbid intoxicated you’re probably not going to make the same decisions as you would if you were comfortable healthy well-rested nourished and not intoxicated any of those things can go impact how you perceive a situation or how you react in a situation, especially the intoxication whereas in your non intoxicated State in your sober state, you may think that you want to do something but then you’ve got that filter that goes not not a good idea in an intoxicated State or even in a manic state if you’re you know if you have somebody with bipolar that filter kind of goes away so the behaviors that someone may normally not do because they have a rational filter that goes you know punching this guy outs probably not the best idea right now the filter goes away when you’re sleep-deprived you’re less generally people are less patient generally people don’t have as much of a filter thing about watching your children if you have children or your grandchildren or even yourself I know myself when I’m sleepy I am giddy as all get-out and things I wouldn’t normally say because they’re you know stupid I’ll just come out and say anyway and my kids just roll their eyes or the mom you’re overtired could go to bed, uh but that’s okay you know I’m okay with that in that situation now if I acted that way at work it would be a worse thing environmentally if you’re introduced to a new or unique situation and you perceive it as stressful because the unknown we know can be stressful then you may not make as rational of a choice or as helpful of a choice because you maybe trying to escape the same thing as exposure to UNPROFOR bellowing for a the word here but UNPROFOR ball is the best I could come up with we all prefer certain situations some people as I said would rather do just about anything then get up in front of a lecture hall of a hundred and fifty people and talk but if they have to do it then they’re going to be under stress which may affect how they do things so we want people to understand that their perception and their feelings are affected by a lot of other things not just you know an emotion here or a particular memory there’s a lot that goes into it and social if peers your family convey irrational thoughts as necessary very standards for social acceptance people may tend to cling more to it to those unhelpful thoughts and unhelpful behaviors you know in CBT they say irrational because quote nobody wants to associate with those people you know who are those people and why can’t we associate with them there are a lot of things if you think back think high school you know high school is pretty rough if we’re going to talk about having irrational thoughts and cognitions if you have to be part of this particular group to be accepted you have to do this you have to do that but do you do those kinds of all-or-nothing statements are cognitive distortions and while they may have served a purpose in some way shape or form in the past we need to encourage our clients to take a look at them now and go are they still helpful ways of thinking is it still helpful for me to think that I am only successful if I live in a million-dollar house in a gated community and do this that and the other or can I be can I define success a different way or do I define success differently and lack supportive peers to buffer stress so we had those peers that caused stress by talking about the half dues and categorizing and lots of attributions but then there’s also not having somebody to go you know does this make any sense because sometimes we are our own worst enemies and if we go to a friend and we go you know this is what I’m thinking and I think I have to do this in order to be acceptable to be loved or you know whatever the case may be most people are not going to use those exact phrases a good friend is probably going to listen and go yeah you’re right or no no that’s way off so supportive peers are essential to reminding us to consciously regularly check in with our cognitions to make sure that they are hopeful and rational so a note about irrationality and this is mine this is not from CBT the origins of most beliefs for rational and helpful given the information, the person had at the time and their cognitive development their ability to process that information so concepts and schemas and core beliefs that people formed when they were five are probably going to be very egocentric you know the person is going to feel like everybody sees it my way because this is how I see it you know just like a five-year-old does a five-year-old doesn’t think well you know let me take Johnny’s perspective is no he assumes that Johnny sees it the same way so it’s going to be egocentric it’s probably going to be focused on only one aspect of the situation because small children can’t focus on multiple aspects and it’s probably going to be dichotomous it’s all-or-nothing Mommy loves me mommy hates me and it could be personalized you know everything a lot of kids think that everything has to do with them so if something happens something bad happens many times children will take it personally or be afraid it’s going to happen to them again you know if hurricane katrina hurricane Andrew those sorts of things you know we saw a lot of trauma in children and they developed very real fears about thunderstorms and hurricane season and if you’ve watched Florida hasn’t had a notable hurricane in years now but there’s a lot of stuff that goes into that but young people during some of those really bad hurricane seasons perceive those situations differently okay so we need to help people understand that if we especially if we use the term irrational those thoughts you formed when you are knee-high to a grasshopper and they made perfect sense to you back then but now that you’re an adult you’ve got more experience and you’re able to take different perspectives your brain is more developed let’s take a look at it and see if you can look at different perspectives and come up with something a little more helpful maybe a different way of perceiving this situation the irrational irrationality or unhelpful Nosov Fox comes when those beliefs are perpetuated without examination so something a belief that you formed when you’re five you’re still holding when you’re 35 and you’ve never questioned it you’ve never gone you know does this make sense is this is helpful to get me to where I want to be most of us don’t know we form these attitudes and beliefs when we’re you know growing up when we’re in elementary school middle school high school from watching TV to being around our peers from being around our family in our community and we get all this input of the way things should be and a lot of times people don’t stop to question and go and go well does this make me happy is this really what I want and they can be irrational if they continue to be held despite causing harm to the person so the person continues to hold this belief even though it is causing them general emotional cognitive harm is making them miserable we need to look at why what’s motivating them to hold on to that belief why is that belief so important and how can we make it so they can live a happy values-driven life emphasis on the happy how can we make it less harmful sometimes it’s more productive for clients to think of these thoughts as unhelpful or helpful instead of irrational sometimes when I say irrational to clients and you know I’m the same way if somebody says you’re being irrational I’m like oh I’m not it elicits this instantaneous defensive reaction it’s like when you tell them they’re being resistant they’re like I am NOT rien resistant so helpful or unhelpful and then we talk about why it is unhelpful in getting them toward their goals basic principles of cognitive behavioral therapy we teach or help clients learn to distinguish between thoughts and feelings I can think something is scary I’ll probably feel it but if I have an automatic you know feeling I walk into Atlanta Airport and I see yeah I went to an airport in New York I can’t even remember which one it was because my plane was diverted and I got off and I walked out there and I have never seen so many people packed in his place like sardines before in my life I was just completely overwhelmed that was kind of an automatic feeling now that was a feeling based on you know who knows it was overwhelming to be surrounded by that many people so then I had to separate the thoughts and go okay what am I thinking that’s making me feel so overwhelmed and at that point you know I didn’t know how to get to my gate and all that other sort of stuff with traveling I don’t travel well but encouraging clients to stop and go okay why am I feeling this way what are my what thoughts am I having that are contributing to these dysphoric feelings CBT helps people become aware of how thoughts can influence feelings in ways that are sometimes not helpful we have hecklers in our gallery the automatic tapes that we plaything memories that we have whatever you want to call them that when you try something when you are just going through daily life you hear these voices in the back of your head and not real voices but that is saying you’re never going to make this or if you would have just blah blah blah then you’d be a the better person helping clients become aware of those thoughts and how they’re negatively influencing their feelings and keeping them kind of stuck is a huge part of CBT we help them learn about thoughts that seem to occur automatically without even realizing how they may affect emotions again those thoughts from they’re saying you’re not good enough you’re not smart enough and nobody’s gonna like you where did that come from and do you believe it you know maybe it came from somebody when you were in high school so was that a valid source maybe it came from somebody yesterday on Facebook was that a valid source taking in those thoughts and then figuring out is this something I’m going to hold because it makes me happy or is this something that I’ve got to deal with because I’m having a negative reaction constructively evaluate whether these automatic thoughts and assumptions are accurate or perhaps biased the other thing to remember is a lot of our clients not all of them but a lot of them hold themselves to a standard there’s like up here and they hold everybody else to a standard that’s down here so they are a failure if they don’t achieve this but everybody else is successful as long as they achieve this so encouraging them to take a look at how accurate and biased or unbiased are the thoughts and like I said they may be their thoughts they may be telling themselves these things evaluate whether the current reactions are a helpful and good use of energy or unhelpful and a waste of energy that could be used to move toward those people and things important not impotent important to the person road-rage you’re in the car you’re driving somebody cuts you off okay natural reaction fight or flight reaction you’re just like slam on the brakes and do whatever you got to do aversive maneuvers you’re good so you could let it go at that point ago got Lucky on that one and keep driving most people not all but most they found that 80% of drivers have reported incidences of road rage which is a high number but most people will start getting all fired up and irritated and grumpy and we and just rageful and so my question would be I hear that and I hear that it made you angry in retrospect did screaming at the person as you pass them at sixty miles an hour in your car with the windows rolled up does any good did it do any good at all what else could you have done with that energy if you wouldn’t have expended it all yesterday we had to wait for the vet to come by and my daughter just completely wore herself out worrying about when the vet was going to get there what he was going to say about her donkeys and was beside herself so by the time it got to evening and it was time for her to go to her martial arts class she didn’t have the energy to go she’s like um wiped out I just want to go to bed in retrospect we’re looking back and saying okay now tell me what it was that you were so stressed out about and let’s talk about whether that was a realistic and helpful line of thought to perseverate on all day long and what could you have done differently because she didn’t bother to mention any of that to me yesterday and then developed the skills to notice interrupt and correct these biased thoughts independently causes of these thinking errors information processing shortcuts when we form schemas and we encounter a situation that reminds us of something in the past like when I go to my grandmother’s house I have a schema I have a belief system I have you know stuff that I know about my grandmother’s house so when I go to my grandmother’s house it’s kind of a shortcut to knowing what to expect when I walk in and how to behave how to do different things and it helps me plan and predict if you’re using outdated or dichotomous all-or-nothing schemas it may cause thinking errors because you may be now incorrectly processing current events mental noise some of us have it a lot of us have it not everybody thinks about trying to focus and study for a final exam in the middle of a really busy sports bar okay this is a cause of thinking or you’re going to miss important things you’re not going to be able to focus you’re not going to necessarily attend to the correct things because there’s just so much else going on your attention is drawn in 17 different directions and or the brain’s limited information processing capacity due to age we talked about that before young kids think all or nothing they think dichotomously egocentric ly middle school-aged kids and older start developing the ability for abstract thinking, by the time we get older, you know as adults theoretically we’re able to you know think pretty well and think pretty clinically about different events but if we’re in crisis when someone is in crisis and it could be like what we think of clinically as a crisis or it could be they’re just completely overwhelmed and burned out and have been burning the candle at both ends for three months they’re not going to process information quite as well they’re not going to take in all this stuff because they’re just like shell-shocked have you ever seen teachers in the hallway of like an elementary school Oh at the end of the second nine weeks they just kind of stand there with this blank look on their face they’re not processing as much as they were the first day of school and you know God loved them they have a lot to deal with but we need to help our clients understand that there are some times that they are going to have to really stop and focus write things down so they can remember or they can make decisions a little more my guess is most of us have times in our life when we’ve been able to think through complex problems but then there are other times where you just can’t keep it all in your head and you’ve got to put it on a whiteboard maybe that’s just me but we want clients to understand that they are not broken they’re not faulty they’re doing the best they can with the tools they have and the knowledge they have and our job is to help them see where some of this might have gone a little awry other causes of thinking errors and emotional motivations I feel bad therefore whatever I’m thinking must be bad if I’m scared that means whatever it’s coming on the other end of the phone is bad news moral motivations I did it because it was the right thing to do and that can be an excuse for doing wrong behaviors as well it can also be you know you can argue on the moral one social influence well everyone else is doing it so it must not be bad set that again a lot of times and this is where the frames approaching the motivational interviewing is helpful f stands for feedback about the reality of what’s going on is everybody doing it let’s look at statistics you know not subjective information let’s look at objective information so the impact of these thinking errors makes people want to fight or flee when they get upset and we use upset as a kind of this all-encompassing garbage term emotionally they get depressed or anxious we don’t want to feel that way anxiety and anger are flee or fight fight or flee it’s our body saying there’s a threat you got to do something depression is your body going I give up I just don’t I don’t even have the energy to do it anymore behaviorally some people withdraw because they shut down we all know people who get frustrated when they get overwhelmed when they start feeling hopeless or helpless they just kind of withdraw from everything and everyone’s addictions numb that out so they don’t have to feel the dysphoria sleeping problem and changes when we start being on that constant fight-or-flight hyper-vigilant sort of thing going on in the body is always sort of turned on which means you’re not going to sleep as well then the circadian rhythms get messed up which starts causing exhaustion and lethargy and then everything seems harder because you’re sleep-deprived and then you start thinking more negatively and more hopelessly you see where this is going it’s a downward spiral and eating changes some people eat a lot more because they’re eating comfort foods some people eat a lot less because their stomach is so torn up from the stress they can’t even think about holding anything down physical stress-related illnesses fibromyalgia gastrointestinal problems headaches neck aches backache you know the whole the gamut of it when you start feeling bad when you start hurting generally it gets frustrating after a while and that frustration makes it kind of raises the the bar brings you up a little bit so you’re that is much closer to kind of just kind of being overwhelmed you don’t have as much of a cushion as you would if you were happy healthy well nourished not in pain and socially a lot of times we will get irritable or impatient with other people or withdrawal when we’re having these negative cognitions these thinking errors that are keeping us in a dysphoric state these effects of thinking errors contribute to fatigue and a sense of hopelessness and helplessness which intensifies thinking errors this is an important concept that I want my clients to understand and I want to drive home in this presentation so thinking errors what are they emotional reasoning feelings are not facts and we want to help people to learn to effectively identify feelings and separate them from facts so if somebody says I’m terrified okay that is a feeling what are the facts supporting that feeling why are you are terrified what is the evidence that you are in some sort of danger right now you know and danger may not be the right word for your client at that a particular point in time but what’s the evidence that there’s a threat in what ways is this similar to other situations maybe it’s triggering something from the past that was scary or you know you were too little to be able to handle it but you can handle it now and how if you dealt with similar situations like this, in the past, we want to help people just step back and get some distance between their feelings and their thoughts and try to figure out you know which thoughts are helpful and productive and even if a sought makes people anxious or angry it can be helpful it may be telling them hey dude you need to get your butt up and get out of there if it’s helpful it means it’s moving them toward where they want to be happy healthy safe and values-driven life so happy and helpful developed a stress tolerance skills when people use emotional reasoning they feel emotions which then they start attributing finding the facts to support those emotions instead of looking at all the facts we want to help them learn to tolerate their distress so they can kind of let that subside for a second they can accept their feeling they can name they can say I’m scared I’m stressed I’m angry and whatever but they don’t have to act on it right then they can tolerate the distress for a minute without having to try to make it go away and emotional regulation skills they can feel a feeling without having to make it go from zero to 120 you know if they feel sad they go I feel kind of sad instead of grabbing onto it and going I wonder what I feel sad about I must feel sad about all these sad things now I’m going to be sad and devastated so we want to help people learn how to regulate their emotions identify them accept them whatever word you want to use and tolerate them because feelings are there for a reason they’re there to tell you your brain thinks something’s going now thankfully we have that higher-order cognition stuff going on so we can contradict our brain and we can go you know maybe that’s not true in this situation cognitive bias negativity mental filter whatever you want to call it people who focus on the negative they walk in they get up in the morning and they look outside and it’s partly cloudy they get to work and they said instead of saying there was it was very light traffic they said there was a fair amount of traffic everything is always the flip side of what somebody who’s optimistic would say so asking them what’s the benefit to focusing on the negative in what ways is this helpful to you you know some people say well it keeps me from getting disappointed because I know it’s going to end up negative anyway so we can trap challenges that know that whatever it is they think they know and see if there have been exceptions when it hasn’t turned out that way what are the positives to this situation I give the example a lot of you know I wash my car or it rains and maybe I wanted to go out on a run that day but I can perceive it I can look at the positives you know the rain washed my car for me so I don’t have to do it now score it watered my garden all the better it knocked down some of the pollen out of there even better I can find and I can encourage people to find positives in a situation yes there are negatives there are negatives to every situation if you want to find them you’re going to find them but if you want to find the positives you can too which takes us down to what are all the facts there’s the positive and the negative and the neutral I told you earlier about the coin toss activity having people toss a coin on the heads days they act like it is just the greatest day to be alive and see how things are different when they do their journal because you know I have my clients do I’m sort of a mindfulness check-in in the morning and in the evening and preferably at lunchtime how are they feeling what’s their emotional state what’s their energy level on the happy days a lot of times it can be less and sometimes they need a little coaching throughout because some of those old patterns kick in but I want them to start challenging some of their automatic thoughts that we’re going to talk about in a minute disqualifying or minimizing the positive most of us can probably say we’ve had a bunch of clients that do this they are more than happy to tell you about all the things that they mess up but then when they do something right they minimize it encouraging people to hold themselves to the same standard they would hold everyone else to and I know I talked about that earlier ask them things like would it minimum would you minimize this if it was your best friend’s experience your best friend came to you and said I just got into such-and-such college would you say awesome or would you say anybody can get in there how would that go ask them what is scary about accepting these positive things that you might have had an accomplishment for some people it means that it might mean other people expect more of them for other people they just don’t know how to accept the positive they don’t know how to accept compliments they don’t know how to be the center of attention and they don’t like it and then we want to look at why that is sometimes we disqualify the positive because it fails to meet someone else’s standards so as people might that be true here you know I know when I was growing up and going through college and going through school and everything got my doctorate but I will always be ever and always being not a real doctor because a Ph.D. is not an MD and I’m like really so is it somebody else’s standards or can I feel good about having a Ph.D. egocentrism my perspective is the only perspective I’ll being egocentric but it doesn’t work most of the time so encouraging people to take alternate perspectives maybe you’re texting with someone and they say something that is not that you interpret as not the nicest thing and this happens in text messages a lot and they get upset now an egocentric thinking error would say that purse is just grumpy today someone that’s taking other perspectives would stop and go back and read the text and go I wonder if maybe this could have been taken some another way you know cuz their reaction is not what I intended so egocentrism if you hold on to that I don’t understand anybody else because you know I don’t see a problem with anything personalizing and mind-reading this is when you assume that everybody’s frowning because of something you did your boss walks down the hallway and looks at you and grimaces and continues to walk on oh I must have done something wrong no maybe he just got out of his senior management meeting that was five hours long and he’s got to go to the bathroom you know there could be a hundred different explanations for why that happened so encourage clients to ask themselves what are some alternate explanations for this event that doesn’t involve me you know why might this have happened if they hold on to that, I must have done something wrong but as soon as their boss calls them up and goes hey can you come to my office for a second you know where their thoughts are going to go I’m getting fired I’m going to get laid off I don’t know what it was that I did wrong but he walked by me two weeks ago in the hallway and grimaced and I’m just I’m the worst person in the whole world but where did that come from so encouraging people to not necessarily assume they know what’s going on in someone else’s mind and not automatically attributing every person’s negative behavior to something they did how often and then ask them how often has it been about you now think about the last 10 times you’ve taken something personally how many of those 10 times has it been about something you did versus something with the other person then the availability heuristic remembering what’s most prominent in your mind so asking clients what are the facts ah the most obvious one that we talk about is plane crashes you know it is way dangerous to fly on a plane because you hear about all those plane crashes well yeah you hear about A few planes crash but you don’t hear about the 20,000 every day that land safely so you remember it and it seems more dangerous because that’s what is in your mind that’s what is available to you that’s what you’ve based your thought processes on because maybe you didn’t know that 20,000 planes or more fly and land just perfectly every day this can also be true with people remembering what’s most prominent in your mind sometimes and this can be very very true in domestically violent relationships if somebody falls in love with someone and that person is just the greatest person since sliced bread for the first four months and then the cycle starts and there’s this little tiny a sliver of the honeymoon period after the battering cycle and the person’s like that’s the person I fell in love with that’s what I remember and they try to focus on that that’s most prominent in their mind and they ignore the rest of the stuff so we need to encourage people to look objectively at the facts magnification are you confusing high and low probability outcomes what are the chances that this is going to happen how many clients have we worked with that have gone to the doctor and gotten in a physical or get a test run and then the doctor had to call them back and this could be true for you too and the doctor had to call them back two or three days later when the tests came back from the lab and that whole three days they were just in a panic because they were afraid they were going to get some terminal diagnosis so thinking about high and low probability outcomes another instance or example of magnification is somebody that thinks this is the end of the world whatever it I think I’ve told you before my little story about um tripping when I was walking down the hall at work and falling and yeah it was embarrassing my folders went everywhere and yeah but in that big scheme of things will it matter that much from now you know are people gonna think oh she is such a clutch she must be a ditz too no I mean they may have thought that at that time I don’t know but you know in six months nobody’s going to remember and then ask them in the past when something like this has happened when you’ve had to get a test done and you’ve had to wait on results or if you’ve done something that was embarrassing and you didn’t think you thought everybody was going to remember it forever.

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How did you tolerate it how did you learn to deal with it building on those strengths that they already have all-or-nothing thinking errors these are things like love versus hate I love them or I hate them it’s all or nothing she does this all the time or she never does it if I’m going to do it I’m going to do it perfectly or I’m not going to do it at all thank you all good intentions or all bad intentions you know sometimes we do things with good intentions that have some bad repercussions so did we do it with all bad intentions are all good intentions and the answer is neither most of the time life is kind of in that middle-ground gray area encouraging clients to look and find examples where something hasn’t been one of the polls when having they do something that they’re proud of that wasn’t perfect or when again when has somebody else do something that they were proud of that wasn’t perfect remembering that with availability heuristic remembering how often something happens and how long it’s been since you’ve seen that behavior and remember that sometimes good times are amazing but how frequent are they compared with the bad times another thinking error is a belief in a just world or a fallacy of fairness I just asked clients to identify for good people you know who’ve had bad things happen and in reality we all have bad things happen good people do bad people do in between people do attributional errors and this is a pet of mine you know labeling yourself is not a behavior so global versus specific and I am stupid versus I’m stupid at math I don’t have good math skills it’s not about me it’s about the skills I can change skills stable I am and I always will be versus it’s something I can change it’s something I can learn internally it’s about me as a person versus it’s about a skill deficit or something I could learn or change and there’s you know lots of information on attributions out there on the internet if you need a refresher on it but we find that a lot of people who have dysphoria have negative global stable internal attributions so questions for clients remember the beliefs equal thoughts and facts plus personal interpretation another way of saying it is reality is 10% perception is 10% reality and 90% interpretation so what are the facts for and against my belief is the belief based on facts or feelings does the belief focus on one aspect or the whole situation does the belief seem to use any thinking errors what are alternate explanations what would you tell your child or best friend if they had this belief how would you want someone to tell what would you want someone to tell you about this belief so if you’re telling somebody about this what are you hoping they’re going to say in return and finally, how is this belief moving you toward what and who is important to you or moving you away from what or who is important to you now they can do a worksheet and have all of these or you can pick one or two of these questions that are most salient for your clients but they can have kind of at their fingertips so as they’re going through the day and something happens they can ask themselves ok what’s an alternate explanation or you know whatever it is this is salient for that client’s irrational thoughts about how to do these thoughts impact the client’s emotions health relationships and perceptions of the world you know this is what we want to ask them how is this thought impacting you globally how may this thought have been helpful in the past where did it come from how does it make sense from when you formed it in the past when you’re dealing with it ask the person if the thought is bringing you closer to those that are important are there any examples of this thought or belief not being true and how can the statement be made less global less all-encompassing so it’s about a specific incident a specific situation less stable which means you can change it and less internal which means it’s not about who you are as a person but maybe something that you do or a skill that you have so we’re going to go through some of these thoughts real quickly here mistakes are never acceptable and if I make one it means that I’m incompetent well never is kind of stable and I am incompetent is kind of global, that’s also that extreme all-or-nothing thinking so you can see where these cognitive distortions end up leading to unhelpful beliefs when somebody disagrees with me it’s a personal attack well there’s personalization if I ever heard it before maybe it’s not about you may be they’re having a bad day and you just happen to be the unlucky target or maybe they’re disagreeing with you because they have a different point of view and it’s not a personal attack it’s just their point of view if someone criticizes or rejects me there must be something wrong with me personalization all-or-nothing thinking global stable and internal something wrong with me as a person to feel good about myself others must approve of me now this is one we’ve talked about external validation before and we can’t control other people to feel good about yourself how can you do that besides necessarily requiring other people to approve of you to be content in life I must be liked by all people Wow I’ve never met anybody who’s liked by all people I’ve never even met anybody who’s been hated by all people but it’s important to help clients see how this is dramatic to say all people and for them to be content then everybody has to like them I mean I like to be liked but if everybody doesn’t like me you know that’s pretty understandable my true value as an individual depends on what others think of me I would challenge this one this is all you know also, very personally internally I would challenge people to look at and say it so your child’s value as an individual depends on what other people think of he or most people would say no but the perspective thing nothing ever turns out the way you want it to okay all-or-nothing thinking and probably availability heuristic if something bad just happened then they may be focusing on that which causes them to focus on all the other bad things in the past that have happened not to focus on that is okay you know bad thing happen but look at all these good things I won’t try anything new unless I will be good at it this fear of failure fear of rejection it just really paralyzes a lot of people when they get stuck with that thinking the area that they have to be perfect I am in total control of anything bad that happens is my fault well that’s egocentric and personal if they think they’re in total control that’s their perception of how the world are they think if they’ve got everybody on marionette strings anything bad in the world that happens is their fault how powerful are they I feel happy about uh if I feel happy about life something will go wrong it happens sometimes but let’s look at times when you’ve been happy that something hasn’t gone wrong you know let’s get rid of that all-or-nothing thinking it’s not my fault my life didn’t go the way I wanted could be true but it seems like that’s making you unhappy so what do we do about that if I’m not in an intimate relationship I’m alone no, again that’s pretty extreme I’m either in an intimate relationship, or I am alone and a loner and you know it’s just me and my 17 cats which follows with there’s no gray area so encouraging people to look at what these beliefs are saying important thoughts impact behaviors and emotional and physical reactions emotional and physical reactions impact thoughts and interpretations of events so if you do something and it’s pleasurable and you have a great physical reaction you know let’s take bungee jumping or skydiving if you go out there and it’s scary but you do it and you’re just like whoa what a rush your interpretation of that is probably going to be good which means you’ll probably do it again if you go out there and it’s just the most horrible experience you’ve ever had you’re probably not going to do it again and your interpretation of it is going to be not good which is going to make it hard to understand why other people would do it irrational thinking patterns are often caused by cognitive distortions so let’s just look back at some of those because there are a lot fewer cognitive distortions or general ways of thinking about the world then there are thinking errors because there are lots and lots of thinking errors cognitive distortions are often schemas which were formed based on faulty inaccurate or immature knowledge or understanding and by identifying the thoughts of the hecklers you know the automatic tapes that are maintaining our unhappiness the person can choose whether to accept those thoughts or change them As found on YouTubeThe Destroy Depression ꆛ System-Cure Depression Naturally YOUR DEPRESSION HAS BEEN IN CONTROL LONG ENOUGH. It’s Time to Fight Back ☂🗯 “Depression Sufferer Of Over 20 Years Reveals His Simple 7-Step System That Gives You The Power To Destroy Your Depression, End Your Feelings Of Sadness And Hopelessness, And Get Your Life Back.” “This didn’t just change my life, it saved my life.

Overview of Screening | Addiction Counselor Exam Review

 This episode was pre-recorded as part of a live continuing education webinar on demand. Ceus are still available for this presentation through ALLCEUs Register at ALLCEUs com, CounselorToolbox, Hi everybody, and welcome to your review of the Process of Screening. In this presentation, we’re going to review key skills for engagement, discuss factors impacting engagement, define screening explore how to do a screening, and identify types of screening instruments. Now screening is one of those steps that a lot of people will do, especially as a job. An entry-level job in mental health, if you’re working towards your hours for certification or licensure as an addiction counselor, you’re, probably going to be in a position at some point where you’re doing a fair amount of screening. So let’s learn how to do that. The first step in screening and assessment and even counseling is developing engagement and engagement means that you need to develop verbal and nonverbal skills to establish rapport and promote engagement. So how do you establish rapport? How do you connect with somebody when they walk into the office? Do you sit down with a clipboard and start writing right away? No, you want to be able to be open to being warm to make eye contact to respond to them in a culturally appropriate and culturally sensitive way. So you know you got to be aware of the people that you’re working with, whether you know how much eye contact is enough, how much is too much, etc. You want to be able to talk to people, and you know a lot of people when they’re coming in for a screening. You know, may not know what’s going on. You want to be able to put them at ease. So hopefully you know those are the skills that you already have, which is one of the reasons that you’re getting involved in this field. But screening means you know, first and foremost developing that relationship because the quality of the relationship with you is going to determine in many cases whether somebody goes on for the assessment and treatment if needed, you want to discuss with the clients the rationale, purpose, and procedures associated with screening an assessment so sit them down and say you know we’re going to do a screening for substance use, so we’re going to do a screening for depression. This is why we do it. You know because we know that whatever percentage of people in this area struggle with depression and that early intervention is a whole lot more effective than late intervention, so the earlier we can help people arrest the problem, then the better off they’re going to be, And this is what screening is going to, be you know, so they know if they’re going to get there, not going to get their blood drawn. They know you’re just going to sit there. You’re going to. Ask them five or six questions, and they’re going to be done because they may be thinking that you know they need to lay on the couch and tell you their deepest darkest secrets and they’re not ready to do that. Well, of course not they just met you, so let them know this is what screening is assess. Client’s immediate needs, including detoxification. If you’re meeting with somebody – and you know you notice that they’re under the influence of substances, then they may need detoxification. If you’re assessing them for substance, use or substance use disorders, and they admit that they have been using consistently or they’re under the influence, they may need detox, administer evidence-based screening and assessment instruments to determine clients, strengths, and needs, and we’re going to talk about some of those evidence-based instruments later, but you know you can use the cage you can use the Sassi. You can use a variety of different instruments, and obtain a relevant history to establish eligibility and appropriateness of services. Wherever you are, you know you probably accept some insurance. Don’t accept others. You may have private pay, or you may not. We want to make sure that once we scream we can get the person into services that they may need. You know. So we need to determine: where can they go? You know if they’ve got Medicaid if their private pay if they’ve got private insurance. You know where could where’s the best referral place for them, and to do that, we need to get that relevant history. Other things that affect eligibility appropriateness for certain treatment programs, some treatment programs will work with people who are on benzodiazepines, while others won’t. Some treatment programs will work with people who have co-occurring mental health disorders. There won’t. So this history is important to figure out. Does this person need a specialized program? Are they dealing with specialized issues like LGBTQ issues? Are they if they’re an adolescent? They’re going to need an adolescent program, so we need to get all of this stuff. You know when we’re doing the screening we’re, going to get a little demographic data there and we’re going to do. The screening screen for physical needs, medical conditions, and co-occurring mental health issues. So, while a screening for substance use may be five questions, a full screening is probably going to take 20 or 30 minutes. So we’re going to ask them a variety of questions. We’re, not going to get super in-depth, but we are going to get sort of an overview of how this person is doing. That way. We can look at it and say you know: maybe they’ve got medical conditions that are contributing. If we’re screening for depression, maybe they’ve got medical conditions that are contributing to their depression. If they have a substance, use disorder, you know: are their medical conditions being made worse by their substance use? And if so, what do we need to do so? We want to you, know, the screen we want to screen for co-occurring mental health issues. It does not matter if the person had depression or anxiety or bipolar before they started using or they develop depression or anxiety after they started using right now they’re. If they have depression or anxiety, it needs to be addressed, because you can’t, have somebody sober up and still feel miserable and expect to stay sober for long. Likewise, you know you can’t just treat their mental health issue and expect substance use. Just to go, oh so, if they, if you’re screening for one is really important to screen for the other substance, use will monkey with the neurotransmitters that can contribute to depression and anxiety. So you know they’ve got substance. Use we want to screen for that mental health issues. Sometimes people will self-medicate to try to numb the pain of mental health issues so again always screen for both of them because the likelihood is if one exists, the other exists at some level as well as interpret the results of the screening and assessment and integrate information to Formulate a diagnostic impression and determine the appropriate course of action, so you’re not doing a full diagnosis, but you’re going to go through and you’re going to look at the screening results and say yep. You know, technically, this person meets the criteria for substance use disorder, so we need to send them on for an assessment to see what may need to be done and what our options are to help them deal with it. If you’re screening for depression, the same things going to be true. This person meets the criteria. You know, we suspect that they may have a major depressive disorder. So let’s refer them for an assessment. So we can figure out what’s causing the depression and what options we have for helping the person deal with it. We want to develop a written integrated summary to support our diagnostic impressions and you’re going to do more of that with assessment, but in the screening, you know the Assessors going to want to know. Why did you send this person, you’re going to present a summary of the information that you gathered. That told you that this person may need to be assessed for substance, abuse, or mental health issues. You know it. Doesn’t have to be a dissertation, it can be a paragraph, but you do want to kind of put it all together in a nice little package. So the Assessor doesn’t have to go back and read through everything and try to figure out what you saw establish, rapport and an effective working alliance in which the client feels heard and understood you know to be respectful, and make eye contact and smile. You know don’t go directly to your paperwork and make them feel like a number, be punctual that’s important non judgmental if they’re talking about their substance, use don’t act shocked like oh, my gosh. I can’t believe that you drank while you were pregnant or oh, my gosh. I can’t believe that you’re using that much of that substance, or you did that to get your drugs, no, they did what they did to survive. They did what they did to survive, and given the tools that they had then we weren’t in their shoes. You know they’re by, but the grace of God goes so we want to remember that people did what they had to do and it got them here and it helped them survive until now, and we want to be attentive if we see that the Person starts moving around in their seat a little bit. You know, ask them, you know, are you uncomfortable? Is there something I can do to make you comfortable? They may be uncomfortable about what you’re talking about. They may be, you may be running late, and you know you’ve been in the session for 30 minutes and they need to go or they may need to go to the bathroom or they may be thirsty or cold. You know if you see them starting to become a little bit fidgety and not necessarily even agitated ask them. You know it seems, like you’re, becoming a little bit anxious or something I’m wondering if there’s, something you need something I can do to help that will go a long way to helping them feel like you care about them, motivate and Engage the client and identified service needs, so if you determine that they need an assessment, you’re going to have to motivate them to go so help them see how going to an assessment could be beneficial to them. How it help could help them meet their life goals. Engagement puts the clinician in the best position to negotiate with the client about what to do and how to do it. So assessment is usually done at whatever treatment center that you’re, hoping the person is going to be enrolled in. So we want to talk with them during the screening about what is it. What type of Center do you want to go to? Is there a place that you have in mind? Are there particular characteristics of treatment that you’re, hoping to experience, or likewise not experiencing some people, who don’t want to be in a hospital-type environment or whatever so start talking with them about what their options are and negotiate with them. You know if you think they need an assessment and you’re likely going to need to go to residential. You know you might want to start moving them toward the four or five options that offer that service and encourage them to go, and if they don’t think they have a problem, they may not be willing to go yet if they think they’ve Got a problem make sure that the handoff goes well to that agency. If it’s not within your same agency, make sure that that referral goes really well and that they are received equally warmly by the Assessor at that agency. Help them feel comfortable going to do this. If you give them a referral and just say here, go to this place and they’ll take care of you. The person may be like I don’t know where it is. I don’t know who this person is if you hand them this and say you know, go down to this place and do you know how to get there? So let me draw you a map and that help them know how to get there and then you’re going to meet with Jane at this facility and she’s. Going to do your assessment. I’ve worked with Jane for years. She’s, really awesome. You know she’ll take her time listening to what you have to say and what your want. Is she not going to force you into anything you don’t want? That goes a whole further to motivating the client to go because they’re not apprehensive about what in the world am i walking into engaged clients are more likely to participate, willingly, be treated, be compliant, and complete treatment. Now, engagement doesn’t stop when they leave the screening that’s just the beginning, but you are the face of the mental health system so to speak because you’re the first person that they interface with so you kind of set the tone for Their experience most of the time create a welcoming environment that’s pleasant and sensitive to age. If you’re working with kids, don’t have a sterile environment with only big people chairs, you know, have little people chairs and have you know books that are appropriate if it’s, have it be sensitive to gender? You know men, aren’t 39, t going to be wanting to sit in an office where everything is pink and frilly and whatever likewise adults, aren’t going to want to sit in a playroom to do counseling. So you know make sure you’ve got age. Appropriate stuff in the room that you’re working with, makes it sensitive to disobeying ability. If people have hearing disabilities, you know make sure that you can talk loudly enough, that they can hear you make sure you minimize extraneous noise that may keep them from hearing you make sure the area is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. So people who are physically disabled can get through doorways and things like that. The physical environment should be sensitive to sexual orientation, so have little clues around that you are accepting of the LGBTQ lifestyle, so a rainbow flag on your desk or something doesn’t have to be huge, you know just little things in the environment that say hey. You know I’m cool with whoever you are cuz. You’re an awesome person same thing with religion. You know try to make sure the assessment environment is friendly and not necessarily oppressively religious. You know, if you have you know across here or prayer there or something you know that’s, fine, that’s, your expression of who you are, but we want to make sure that people who are of a different religion or who are atheist. Don’t feel oppressed in that environment. Likewise, people who’ve been traumatized potentially through their church in some way or another may be off-putting if they see that so be cognizant of the things that seem benign to you and what they may mean to the people who are coming in for Screenings and make sure your environment is sensitive to socioeconomic status, and what I mean by that is, you know, have a pleasant environment for everybody, but people who are from a higher socioeconomic status, for example, are probably going to affect. Expect a plusher environment and a much different experience more concierge-type services than somebody who is of a middle class or lower socioeconomic status. Now, does that mean you can just throw folding chairs out for other people? No, we want to make sure everybody is comfortable and they feel kind of like it,’s their living room. You know we don’t want them to feel like it,’s, a stair-scary environment, but you do need to pay attention to it. What is this person, or what are the people in my community expecting when they come in factors impacting engagement, can include stigma about the diagnosis or even about help seeking not everybody is cool with counseling some cultures say you know, counseling disgraces the family. Some of you know older people like my grandmother,’s, age back then, and in the 1940s and 50s you didn’t tell other people your stuff, so be conscious of the fact that just being there may be overwhelming for people’s, expectations about The effectiveness of treatment can impact their engagement if they’ve been in treatment before or they’ve known. Somebody who’s been in treatment before and it just never seems to work. Then they may be there because they have to be for some reason, but they don’t expect you to be able to help them, so their engagement going to be low. One of the things you can do with those people is to make sure you have some tools in your toolbox that are brief interventions that can help them start feeling better. Today, you know tomorrow, something like that. So talk with them, sleep is one of the first and easiest things to start addressing. You know talk with them about their sleep hygiene patterns. You know, because people’s, inability to relax, can contribute to depression and anxiety and a whole bunch of other stuff, so learn about sleep hygiene and how to create a good sleep routine and encourage them to start doing that or encourage them to make a List of the people and things that are important to them, so they can figure out where they’re going from here, and they can figure out why they’re doing all this so find a couple of tools that you can give people, so they can Focus on the fact that yeah, this might help me and it might help me move towards my goals and, oh by the way I’m, starting to figure out what my goals are. People may have expectations about their role or power in the treatment process, so we want to make sure that clients understand that they are in charge. They are in charge of their treatment, make them. You know unless I have to do an involuntary commitment, but that’s something a therapist or is going to do or psychiatrist, but 99 99 of the time you want to work with the client and they’re going to be the ones to tell you what 39, s worked in the past. What hasn’t worked in the past? What’s working right now even a little bit, and you’re going to talk about ways to enhance that. You know we’re not going to force them to do things that they don’t want to do, and they may have certain expectations about the treatment itself. So we want to dispel any myths about what treatment is like. We want to help them know what our facility or the facility we’re, referring to can provide in terms of treatment, and we also want to just help them understand what to expect so. They’re not apprehensive, and you’re likable nests. I hate to say it, but you are likable enough sand. They’re likable near in pact engagement. If somebody comes into your office and you’re doing a screening and they are just, they have no social skills, they’re not attentive. They’re not attractive, they’re, not happy, they’re just mean and cantankerous it’s, going to be hard to engage them and it’s going to take an extra effort on your part to try to hear where they’re. Coming from and hearing what’s important to them and forming a bond, the client’s social skills will impact engagement. If they don’t have great social skills. You know you got to work with it and you know if they’re. I had one client that bless his heart. He was in college and he would still pick his nose and eat it, and you know I had a hard time focusing when he was doing that. So you know I got to the point where he would do it and as soon as he pick his nose, I pick up a tissue and hand it to him and go here. You go looks like you need that, but those are things that you can run into when you are working with clients and you need to keep that from causing a barrier in your ability to engage with them if they’re, not attentive. Ask them why you know or try to look for reasons why they’re, not attentive. You know you seem to be kind of distracted. Is there something I can do to make you more comfortable? And you know it’s just human nature that we tend to be more engaged with attractive people. Not everybody’s attractive. So you know focus on what the person has to say and what their heart has to say to engage, and you know likewise, you may not be written off the pages of Vogue either, but try to present yourself well, try to you know, dress appropriately Don’t show up all disheveled and smelly clothes like looking like you haven’t bathed in a week that that’s not helpful so make sure that you’re presenting your best face and you’re dealing with whatever face the client brings And still trying to build that engagement remember the way a client presents. This tells us a lot about what’s contributing to their presenting issues: poor social skills, and ADHD pain. You know there are a variety of things that can contribute to depression, anxiety, and substance use. So try to look at it from that way, even if it’s not your ideal client understand what’s causing this person to be negative and just argumentative and frustrating try to get under there and figure it out. Why is this person so unhappy? What’s motivating is that first impressions impact engagement, so your professional presentation is promptly courteous and smooth handling paperwork. If you walk in there with 15 sheets of paper – and you’re shuffling them around and it seems like you, don’t know what you’re doing. You’re like just a second. I know I had that form around here somewhere, they’re not going to feel very confident in anything. You have to say so and put on a good first impression. Put it together and make sure your paperwork is put together ahead of time. If you have an electronic medical record, make sure you know how to use it because it’s disturbing to people, even though it happens when you’re, using an electronic medical health record to do a screening and you get stuck and you’ve got To call somebody else in to help you figure out how to get on the next screen make sure the environment is calm, clean and comfortable, not too formal or informal like we talked about it, avoids interruptions and provides the appropriate level of privacy. You don’t want clients sitting in the waiting room being able to hear other clients that are in the therapy, rooms or screening rooms. If you’re doing screenings, you may not even be in an office, you may be out at a festival or something so make sure that you’ve got. You know little pull-around screens or something, if appropriate, to give people privacy other people, shouldn’t be hearing their responses to what you are asking them, even if it’s, you know like I said, even if it’s at a Workplace festival or something other people should not hear their answers. So how can you give them privacy if there’s, no way to do that where they can have auditory privacy put as much as possible on check sheets and forms that they can fill out? And then you can point to something and go so help me understand your answer to this right here. Most of the time you want to try to do a screening in a private room. In the initial interview you’re, developing trust and rapport so be empathetic. They’re nervous, probably or they don’t want to be there or maybe they do want to be there and they’re, just hoping that you can help paraphrase that to them whatever vibe you’re getting off of them, paraphrase that and work With it convey warmth and respect and explores the clients, strengths, and skills, you know you’ve been dealing with this depression or this addiction for a long time. I’m wondering how you’ve survived until now. What has helped you deal with it? And keep on keeping on facilitating the clients, understanding the rationale, purpose, and procedures of the screening and assessment exploring the clients, problems, and expectations regarding treatment and recovery, and determining whether a further assessment is needed. That’s your screening. So the definition of screening is the process by which the counselor, client, and significant others, when possible, review the current situation, symptoms, and collateral information to determine the probability of a problem. So we’re going to sit down and we’re going to go okay. What brings you here today? What makes you think you got a problem, you know, and then we’re going to start asking questions or using instruments to try to determine whether we think that there’s a probability that that problem exists screaming is used by all types of Human Service Personnel to determine eligibility and appropriateness of services and needed referrals, so it may be used by a physician by a nurse by a counselor by a caseworker to determine how can we best help this person achieve their goals and their maximum quality of life? It’s not unusual for caseworkers at the Department of Children and Families. If people are coming in to get their food stamps or EBT that month, or they’re enrolling in the process to do a screening to determine how can we best help this person? You know be able to start earning more money, you know, maybe they just need a better job, or maybe they’re not able to maintain employment because their depression is so oppressive. So you can see where screening may be used in a lot of different systems and situations to help people figure out how to help their customers. Screening determines the immediacy of the need. You know you could be doing a screening with somebody who’s like on the fence, or they don’t think they’ve got a problem and it you know there or their problem is minor, so the immediacy may not be great or you could Be screening somebody who is you know heavily intoxicated was just kicked out of his house is facing three DUIs. You know they have a much more immediate need for their safety as well as, hopefully, they’re. More motivated screening needs to be a trance process. We don’t want to sit there with a clipboard and be asking questions and scribbling things down and going uh huh. Well, I think you need to go for an assessment that’s not transparent. The clients like, where did you come up with that I usually use screening instruments, and I talk with people when I’m writing things down. I tell them at the end. If you want to see anything I wrote down, I would encourage you to know I don’t write well, and I’ve got poor penmanship, but I encourage you to read what I wrote and we’re going to talk about these instruments after you Take them so you know you know why were we asking these particular questions? What does it mean to me as a therapist doing your screening, so they understand how you’re arriving at your conclusions? Screening does require informed consent. You know it. Doesn’t have to be a big thing, but it does have to happen before you start screening somebody you need to go. You know I’d like to screen you for depression or anxiety, or this is a wellness screening that your agency is offered, but have them ideally have them sign a sheet acknowledging that they know that they’re being screened for whatever and screening identifies Early warning signs and helps provide early intervention, services and resources, so you know think about high blood pressure or diabetes or any of those physical things doctor screens for that regularly, and if they see that there might be a problem creeping in, they can do something right. Then, to keep it from becoming a full-blown problem. Mental health screening is the same. We notice people are under a lot of stress. We know that that’s probably going to wear them out after a while, and it might lead to depression. So we can start helping them, develop stress management skills, for example. They may not need to go to treatment, maybe they need to go to psychoeducation and learn about stress management, or maybe you’ve got a book. You can let them read or something. But screening is a method of determining what the person needs. Screening is the first opportunity to engage the client in the therapeutic relationship and treatment process, sometimes based on observations or other circumstances. People may be referred directly for assessment, for example, if people come into the detoxification unit we kind of bypass screening. We know there’s a problem and jump straight into assessment, so screening doesn’t always happen, but a lot of times. It does because of that referral source – you know if you’re an Assessor that person came from somewhere. You know their lawyer could have screened them. Their doctor could have screened them whatever, but somebody along the way, probably screen them to determine yeah. You probably need to go over to this facility and talk to an Assessor of the clients. Internal motivation is the primary reason for engaging in treatment. So if they’re there because their wife told them they had to be or their boss or the courts that got them there, but to get them actually engaged in treatment and not just going through the motions they have to have internal motivation. There has to be something in it for them, and that’s, what we want to work on developing throughout the whole process, help them see how this benefits them, what’s in it for them, how can it help them accomplish and get closer to their goals for their life, internal motivation may be fleeting, so rapid engagement is vital. If you see a spark of interest or a spark of willingness, we kind of need to pounce on that spark and go alright. It seems like you know you want to get on with this because you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired. So let’s get you enrolled. Now, if you have to make an appointment for an assessment that’s six weeks out, you may lose the person. You know that engagement doesn’t last for long. The engagement lasts while they’re in your office, and then you know you got to have somebody else, pick it up and keep that momentum going. Screening should be brief. You know twenty-thirty minutes you don’t want to have somebody in there for three hours, that’s the assessment conducted in a variety of settings by a range of professionals on persons deemed to be at risk. Some things we do Universal screenings for like domestic violence, other things you may do selected screenings for – and it also depends on your setting and all that kind of thing. But the take-home point is that screenings are conducted in a variety of settings, whether it be a Health Fair at an employer,’s, a doctor,’s office, sometimes churches will even set up wellness days and do screenings screening represents the first part of a Collaboration among the multidisciplinary team because the screener is going to say, okay, I think I’ve identified that this person probably has an issue with this and needs to be referred to assessment over here, but they also need help with housing and food and affording their Prescriptions, so the screener will kind of link them to other team members in the multidisciplinary team. Screening needs to be sensitive to racial, cultural, socio, economic, and gender-related concerns, so make sure that you’re, culturally responsive and it needs to be developed from information gathered from multiple sources when possible. When you’re doing a screening a lot of times, the only person you’ve got to do. The screening is the person sitting right in front of you, but if you’ve got other information. When I do screenings on people in the criminal justice system, I want to see their criminal records. You know that gives me some objective. Information on you know how many times have they been caught? Dui, whether or not they’ve been convicted? How many times have they been caught DUI, that gives me a little bit more information than just what that person is telling me if they’ve been involved with the Department of Children and Families. I want them to bring their case report, especially if they’ve got an open case going on. Screening assesses signs and symptoms of intoxication and withdrawal. Three key elements: we want to verify that the behavior deviates from the norm and rule out all non-drug related causes. So if somebody is having difficulty focusing or they’re agitated, we want to rule out ADHD and schizophrenia and some other things that might cause that, to rule in, if you will stimulant abuse, for example, you want to verify that there. This is not how they normally behave. You know some people are agitated and a little bit more bouncy or fidgety or whatever you want to say most of the time. If that’s how they are, then you know that’s how they are and it’s not a drug, wants to rule out the drug-related causes, including physical causes. You know if they’re in chronic pain if you know etc. There are a lot of reasons somebody could be excessively sleepy have difficulty concentrating be overly agitated. There are a lot of things that use diagnostic procedures to determine the types of drugs being used. So in screening, we’re going to ask them what they’ve been using. But ideally, you can also do an on-site drug screening. You know having a pee in a cup and the on-site. Screenings are not super reliable, but it gives you something to look at. You know most cases, it’s anywhere between 60 and 70 percent reliability, which is why, if it comes up positive and the person says, I didn’t use that it needs to be sent off to a lab for mass spectrometry. To determine what happened, because you can get false positives and you can get false negatives, they may have used something and it doesn’t show up on the test. So you don’t want to just trust the on sites as being a hundred percent, but it is a good tool to identify whether the person is telling you the truth about how much or what their current, whether they’re currently using or not assess Clients, mental health and trauma history. You’re not going to get deep into the weeds here, just ask them if they have a history of depression, anxiety, or abuse of any sort and move on to their safety or environmental needs. Do they have a safe place to sleep? You know if they have an address, you know, do they feel safe in their home? Do they eat well, how’s their nutrition? Do they have any physical health needs that are not getting met? Do they have any other wraparound needs? If they’ve got kids, do they have access to childcare? Are they having problems with transportation? Are they able to afford the medications that they’re already prescribed, etc? So we want to ask them about some basic things like that, and then we’re going to assess the danger to themselves and others. Are they talking about harming themselves or someone else? And we also want to ask if they’re thinking about hurting themselves or someone else. Screening methods include interviewing the clients and significant others using screening instruments and lab tests like urinalysis that we talked about signs of substance, use disorders or mental health issues. We want to look for number one, the circumstances of contact. If the person was referred by the court, then that’s a pretty good sign that there may be a substance use disorder going on if they’re referred because of a DUI. For example, if they’re referred because of a fight they got into, but they weren’t using at the time their blood alcohol was zero. We want to look maybe for mental health issues and things like intermittent explosive disorder. You want to look at the clients, demeanor, and behavior. Are they acting like they’re under the influence when they come in for the screening? Are they showing signs of acute intoxication or withdrawal? Are there any physical signs of drug use or self-injury? Needle injection marks, if they have a get frequent bloody noses, you know if they get bloody noses, while they’re in your office or if they have signs that they’ve been picking. Those can be all physical signs of drug use. Emaciation and malnutrition are also signed some drugs will cause the pupils to be dilated. Other drugs will cause the pupils to be pinpointed. So you want to know what the signs of different drugs are for drugs of intoxication and different signs that people have been using, especially injection, but, like I said, sometimes, drugs will cause people to pick or itch, and that will show indicate to you that there might Be an underlying issue and information spontaneously offered by the client or significant others can give you information about whether there’s a substance, use or mental health issue, and sometimes the significant other. Let me just kind of back up: there may be the significance the spouse brought the person in and when you go out to meet them you, the person, the person being interviewed. Doesn’t want their spouse in there. They want. They want to go back by themselves, okay, that’s cool, you go out and meet the person and then, if you can, with permission, bring the spouse back after the screening to give them both the results, and at that point the significant other the spouse may Spontaneously say: oh well, why didn’t you tell them about? You know the DUI you had three years ago or whatever. So sometimes spouses will just kind of blurt things out because they suspect that the significant other didn’t already say it during the interview. So if you can get that person in a private place where they have an opportunity to say something wonderful but remember you know you do have to have the client’s permission. Screening instruments can be developed by the agency or use standardized instruments. The cage is a common one and you ask a person: have they tried to cut down unsuccessfully, do they feel annoyed when people talk to them about their substance use, do they feel guilty about the substances about using their substances and do they sometimes have to Use first thing: in the morning to kind of wake up we call it an eye opener if they say yes to one or more of those, there’s a chance that they may have a problem. The gain is another tool that you can use, as is the Michigan alcohol screening test or the Sasi. So all of those are standardized instruments, and some of them cost money. Others, like Kay, don’t, so it may depend on your agency and what kind of budget you’ve got. What instruments you’re using any instruments you do use must detail what action should be taken based on received scores. So if a person takes the cage – and they say yes to one but not any of the others, does that mean they should be sent for a referral if they say yes to two, when at what point should they be sent for a full assessment? You want to screen when screening for mental health you want to screen for acute symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions or depression or anxiety, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and other mood and thought disturbances. So you’re going to ask them about time, place, purpose, and person. Do you know what time it is? Do you know where you are? Do you know why you’re here and do you know who I am you’re going to ask them about short and long-term memory if they can tell you about something from their childhood great, but you’re also going to ask them If they can tell you about what they had for lunch, another thing you want to assess or another way to assess short term memory is to tell them. I’m going to tell you four words and I want I’m going to. Ask you in a few minutes to recall those four words for me and then tell them four words: make them easy words like dog cat, bird, and fish. You know not something hard to remember and then in five or ten minutes. Ask them what were the four words I told you and see if they can remember you’re going to ask them about prior involvement in mental health treatment. What worked and what didn’t if they have been in treatment? What prescription medications do they use, and this includes all prescriptions because physical health prescriptions can have mental health side effects? Ask them about recent traumas again, don’t get into it, but ask them if they’ve been victimized or experienced any sort of abuse and a family history of mental illness. If they have a family history of mental illness, the chances of them developing mental illness are a little bit greater. When screening for mental health, you’re going to use the modified mini screen, the Mental Status exam, the mini Mental Status exam. The brief symptom inventory, a brief psychiatric rating scale, or the symptom checklist 9 t r. So those are the ones that you’re, typically going to use a lot of times. They’re already in your electronic medical record, so you’re not going to have to figure out what to use in terms of you know, knowing what the instruments are for certification and testing purposes. These are the six that you want to be aware of. So you can google each one of them and find out more about what each screening test can provide. Your screening is the initial contact to decide if a person may need a more in-depth assessment. Screening is brief but requires the person to be engaged in the process to get an accurate result. How well the person is engaged in the screening process is a direct predictor of whether he or she will continue in the process. If you enjoy this podcast, please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube, you can attend and participate in our live webinars with doctor Snipes by subscribing at all CEUs comm slash counselor toolbox. This episode has been brought to you in part by all CEUs com providing 24 7 multimedia, continuing education, and pre-certification; training to counselors therapists, and nurses, since 2006 use coupon code consular toolbox to get a 20 discount off your order. This month,As found on YouTubeThis solution reverses kidney disease! Guaranteed to be effective or your money back: Beat kidney disease. Just by following a simple treatment plan, you can reverse kidney disease. No matter how old you are! Just listen to what people who have tried this solution have to say. “Thank God I came across your solution by accident! 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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Skills and Counseling Techniques with Dr. Dawn-Elise “Doc” Snipes

 CEUs are available for this presentation at AllCEUs.com/CBT-CEU Hi everybody and welcome to today’s presentation on cognitive behavioral therapy skills. Like the other the presentation we did on assert not assertive community treatment acceptance and commitment therapy, which is also based on just providing information about skills that can be used not providing an evidence-based practice we couldn’t cover that in a full hour or just an hour so over the next hour we’re going to define cognitive behavioral therapy and its basic principles a lot of us are familiar with this but it’s going to be a good review and it also may highlight some nuances that you didn’t know about will identify factors impacting people’s choice of behaviors explore causes and impact of thinking errors and identify common thinking errors and their relationships to cognitive distortions so why do we care well as therapists we want to help people figure out the best way to live a happy healthy meaningful goals-driven life for some people that’s going to mean using some cognitive behavioral interventions that can be in addition to mindfulness that can be in addition to a lot of other things but it’s important to help people understand that the way we believe things to be the way we interpret things is going to affect our reactions so for example think about a situation you know you’ve walked into and maybe you walked into it with a small child and it was a different situation it was a new situation but you know it was no big deal you walked in it was not a threatening situation to you because you were like hey I got this the little kid walks in and goes oh wow there are a lot of people walking around here, this is the really scary same situation as two different perceptions you probably didn’t have much of a stress reaction going on whereas the little child probably had this fight-or-flight thing going on grabbing onto your hand like please don’t let go Atlanta Airport is a perfect example if you’ve ever taken a little kid through Atlanta Airport gives you an idea about how people can perceive things differently and when you enact that fight-or-flight the reaction you’re going to have all those stress hormones you’re going to have all either anxiety or anger or whatever that goes with it it may serve to exhaust the person and leave them feeling hopeless and helpless so what we want to do is help people see that but we also want to help them see that when they’re depressed when they’re tired when they’re sick things are going to seem a lot worse a lot of times because they don’t have the energy to perceive it differently I mean when you’re sick it’s overwhelming to think of going through Atlanta Airport so this is what we want to help people start understanding is it’s two sides of the same coin they interact if one is you know kind of going wonky is going to affect the other one the good thing is if one’s going well the other one’s going to go well if you’re having positive thoughts you’re probably going to feel pretty good there’s an activity and I think we’re going to talk about it later it’s called the coin flip activity and I asked client clients to flip a coin in the morning and in the morning if it turns heads then they have to be the most positive Pollyanna all day long look for the silver lining and everything smile walk with their head up hold those nonverbals up and see how they feel at the end of the day besides a little sore because there are muscles they’re using they haven’t used in a while if it lands on tails they can just be their normal selves which generally if they’re seeing me means that they are depressed anxious stressed out angry about something in the negative realm then we talk about how did things seem different on the days when you were feeling better when you were walking taller when you were smiling even our nonverbals it doesn’t even have to be sickness it can be our nonverbals that can make us feel or make our body feel heavy and tired and make it seem like it’s a whole lot harder to deal with life as a person who perceives the world generally good and believes they can deal with challenges as they arise that good old self-efficacy will be able to allow their stress response system to function normally so if they’re like you know what I can deal with whatever life throws at me I’ve got it and maybe I need help with it maybe I’ll need to ask for support but I’ve got it it’s not going to completely overwhelm me with people who see the world as hostile unsafe and unpredictable you know for a variety of reasons whatever happened to make their scheme as such that they don’t believe that people or the world is trustworthy are predictable they are always on guard they’re always kind of like a hamster in a cage that has Have you ever had hamster hamsters don’t recognize you and go hey that’s my own or human contact score hamsters go run under their little house and you just kind of open the cage and stick your hand in there and flip over their house and you’re like come here and give me cuddles and you’re like you know 200 times bigger than they are so the little hamster is like freaking out this is what it’s like for people and obviously, I’m exaggerating but this is what it’s like for people who have a negative perspective a negative view or a hostile view of the world so kind of keep that little hamster in your mind cognitive behavioral therapy we have core beliefs those things that are in our hearts when I talk with my clients about honesty step one and that’s what they’ve got to do to start recovery is get honest with themselves first and then other people we talk about head heart and gut honesty do you think it’s right does it seem like the right thing to do does it feel right in your heart you know does it make you happy it doesn’t make you feel good and then the spidey senses is your gut saying and or is your gut fine if one of those is saying this might not be the right choice and we need to think about what’s going on so we have those core beliefs and I put them in the heart just because that’s the middle of the head heart and gut but you have core beliefs about yourself whether you’re good with you’re bad whether you’re effective at certain things ya ya you have core beliefs about other people same thing good bad effective predictable and you have core beliefs about the future and a lot of that goes with the locus of control but also your past experiences if the world in the past is seemed unfriendly and uncontrollable and you’ve perceived it that way then you’re going to expect the future to be uncontrollable so what we want to do is help people look at their schemas and their core beliefs about themselves others in the future and figure out kind of what they want it to look like these schemas are going to affect your behavior and your thoughts and your feelings and you know you can pick wherever you want to start it doesn’t matter because all three inter interface with one another so if you haven’t let’s start with negative thoughts if you have negative thoughts then you might feel anxious angry stressed dysphoric which will affect the behavior you’re going to do different things than if you have positive thoughts about something you feel excited and energized you’re going to have different behavior the best thing example I can give you is if you’ve ever done public speaking or had to present something some people detest public speaking it’s just terrifying for them to get up in front of a group of people so their thoughts am I going to trip up I going to forget what I’m going to say I’m going to make a fool of myself I’m going to you know it can go on forever that when you get on a roll you can get on a negative roll and go on forever or positive hopefully get on that roll with those thoughts you start holding onto those thoughts remember as we talked about in a CT the other day when you hold those thoughts and you kind of mush them around in your mind and you come to believe them that you’re going to make a fool of yourself and it’s going to be awful you’re going to start feeling terrified likely which is going to likely affect your behavior if you go out on the stage and you’re terrified you’re going to probably stutter you’re probably going to get foggy-headed you’re going to have that fight-or-flight reaction so there’s an the adrenaline rush and you start sweating and you can’t focus and you can’t concentrate you want to away as opposed to somebody like me who loves public speaking and I’m just like cool I get to go out there and try to engage however many people are in the audience it’s a game for me because when I can see your faces I enjoy trying to figure out and make eye contact with people and figure out what it is that they’re there for what is it that’s going to make them tick what resonates with them so my behavior as you can kind of see right now when I go out there I’m excited and I want to engage people and it’s a fun experience for me again just like the airport the same experience for two different people and two very different interpretations and reactions to it so what effects I don’t like the term rational but when we’re talking about CBT irrationally comes up a lot I like to replace it with helpful because every behavior in its weird sort of way is or probably was rational at one time that being said we’re going to get back to that stress affects our behavioral choices if we’re under stress we can have negative emotions negative emotions will affect our thoughts if we’re feeling sad we’re probably going to look at the dark side if we feel sad we’re going to look at the bottom falling out if we’re happy we’re probably going to look for that silver lining physical factors if you’re in pain sick sleep-deprived poorly nourished so your body can’t produce the neurotransmitters it needs to or heaven forbid intoxicated you’re probably not going to make the same decisions as you would if you were comfortable healthy well-rested nourished and not intoxicated any of those things can go impact how you perceive a situation or how you react in a situation, especially the intoxication whereas in your non intoxicated State in your sober state, you may think that you want to do something but then you’ve got that filter that goes not not a good idea in an intoxicated State or even in a manic state if you’re you know if you have somebody with bipolar that filter kind of goes away so the behaviors that someone may normally not do because they have a rational filter that goes you know punching this guy outs probably not the best idea right now the filter goes away when you’re sleep-deprived you’re less generally people are less patient generally people don’t have as much of a filter thing about watching your children if you have children or your grandchildren or even yourself I know myself when I’m sleepy I am giddy as all get-out and things I wouldn’t normally say because they’re you know stupid I’ll just come out and say anyway and my kids just roll their eyes or mom you’re overtired could go to bed, uh but that’s okay you know I’m okay with that in that situation now if I acted that way at work it would be a worse thing environmentally if you’re introduced to a new or unique situation and you perceive it as stressful because the unknown we know can be stressful then you may not make as rational of a choice or as helpful of a choice because you maybe trying to escape the same thing as exposure to UNPROFOR bellowing for a the word here but UNPROFOR ball is the best I could come up with we all prefer certain situations some people as I said would rather do just about anything then get up in front of a lecture hall of a hundred and fifty people and talk but if they have to do it then they’re going to be under stress which may affect how they do things so we want people to understand that their perception and their feelings are affected by a lot of other things not just you know an emotion here or a particular memory there’s a lot that goes into it and social if peers your family convey irrational thoughts as necessary very standards for social acceptance people may tend to cling more to it to those unhelpful thoughts and unhelpful behaviors you know in CBT they say irrational because quote nobody wants to associate with those people you know who are those people and why can’t we associate with them there are a lot of things if you think back think high the school you know high school is pretty rough if we’re going to talk about having irrational thoughts and cognitions if you have to be part of this particular group to be accepted you have to do this you have to do that but do you really so those kinds of all-or-nothing statements are cognitive distortions and while they may have served a purpose in some way shape or form in the past we need to encourage our clients to take a look at them now and go are they still helpful ways of thinking is it still helpful for me to think that I am only successful if I live in a million-dollar house in a gated community and do this that and the other or can I be can I define success a different way or do I define success differently and lack supportive peers to buffer stress so we had those peers that caused stress by talking about the half dues and categorizing and lots of attributions but then there’s also not having somebody to go you know does this make any sense because sometimes we are our own worst enemies and if we go to a friend and we go you know this is what I’m thinking and I think I have to do this in order to be acceptable to be loved or you know whatever the case may be most people are not going to use those exact phrases a good friend is probably going to listen and go yeah you’re right or no no that’s way off so supportive peers are essential to reminding us to consciously regularly check in with our cognitions to make sure that they are hopeful and rational so a note about irrationality and this is mine this is not from CBT the origins of most beliefs for rational and helpful given the information the person had at the time and their cognitive development their ability to process that information so concepts and schemas and core beliefs that people formed when they were five are probably going to be very egocentric you know the person is going to feel like everybody sees it my way because this is how I see it you know just like a five-year-old does a five-year-old doesn’t think well you know let me take Johnny’s perspective is no he assumes that Johnny sees it the same way so it’s going to be egocentric it’s probably going to be focused on only one aspect of the situation because small children can’t focus on multiple aspects and it’s probably going to be dichotomous it’s all-or-nothing mommy loves me mommy hates me and it could be personalized you know everything a lot of kids think that everything has to do with them so if something happens something bad happens many times children will take it personally or be afraid it’s going to happen to them again you know if hurricane Katrina hurricane Andrew those sorts of things you know we saw a lot of trauma in children and they developed very real fears about thunderstorms and hurricane season and if you’ve watched Florida hasn’t had a notable hurricane in years now but there’s a lot of stuff that goes into that but young people during some of those really bad hurricane seasons perceive those situations differently okay so we need to help people understand that if we especially if we use the term irrational those thoughts you formed when you are knee-high to a grasshopper and they made perfect sense to you back then but now that you’re an adult you’ve got more experience and you’re able to take different perspectives your brain is more developed let’s take a look at it and see if you can look at different perspectives and come up with something a little more helpful maybe a different way of perceiving this situation the irrational irrationality or unhelpful Nosov Fox comes when those beliefs are perpetuated without an examination so something a the belief that you formed when you’re five you’re still holding when you’re 35 and you’ve never questioned it you’ve never gone you know does this make sense is this is helpful to get me to where I want to be most of us don’t know we form these attitudes and beliefs when we’re you know growing up when we’re in elementary school middle school high school from watching TV to being around our peers from being around our family in our community and we get all this input of the way things should be and a lot of times people don’t stop to question and go and go well does this make me happy is this really what I want and they can be irrational if they continue to be held despite causing harm to the person so the person continues to hold this belief even though it is causing them general emotional cognitive harm is making them miserable we need to look at why what’s motivating them to hold on to that belief why is that belief so important and how can we make it so they can live a happy values-driven life emphasis on the happy how can we make it less harmful sometimes it’s more productive for clients to think of these thoughts as unhelpful or helpful instead of irrational sometimes when I say irrational to clients and you know I’m the same way if somebody says you’re being irrational I’m like oh I’m not it elicits this instantaneous defensive the reaction’s like when you tell them they’re being resistant they’re like I am NOT being resistant so helpful or unhelpful and then we talk about why it is unhelpful in getting them toward their goals basic principles of cognitive behavioral therapy we teach or help clients learn to distinguish between thoughts and feelings I can think something is scary I’ll probably feel it but if I have an automatic you know feeling I walk into Atlanta Airport and I see yeah I went to an airport in New York I can’t even remember which one it was because my plane was diverted and I got off and I walked out there and I have never seen so many people packed in his place like sardines before in my life I was just completely overwhelmed that was kind of an automatic feeling now that was a feeling based on you know who knows it was overwhelming to be surrounded by that many people so then I had to separate the thoughts and go okay what am I thinking that’s making me feel so overwhelmed and at that point you know I didn’t know how to get to my gate and all that other sort of stuff with traveling I don’t travel well but encouraging clients to stop and go okay why am I feeling this way what are my what thoughts am I having that are contributing to these dysphoric feelings CBT helps people become aware of how thoughts can influence feelings in ways that are sometimes not helpful we have hecklers in our gallery the automatic tapes that we plaything memories that we have whatever you want to call them that when you try something when you are just going through daily life you hear these voices in the back of your head and not real voices but that is saying you’re never going to make this or if you would have just blah blah blah then you’d be a the better person helping clients become aware of those thoughts and how they’re negatively influencing their feelings and keeping them kind of stuck is a huge part of CBT we help them learn about thoughts that seem to occur automatically without even realizing how they may affect emotions again those thoughts from they’re saying you’re not good enough you’re not smart enough and nobody’s gonna like you where did that come from and do you believe it you know maybe it came from somebody when you were in high school so was that a valid source maybe it came from somebody yesterday on Facebook was that a valid source taking in those thoughts and then figuring out is this something I’m going to hold because it makes me happy or is this something that I’ve got to deal with because I’m having a negative reaction constructively evaluate whether these automatic thoughts and assumptions are accurate or perhaps biased the other thing to remember is a lot of our clients not all of them but a lot of them hold themselves to a standard there’s like up here and they hold everybody else to a standard that’s down here so they are a failure if they don’t achieve this but everybody else is successful as long as they achieve this so encouraging them to take a look at how accurate and biased or unbiased are the thoughts and like I said they may be their thoughts they may be telling themselves these things evaluate whether the current reactions are a helpful and good use of energy or unhelpful and a waste of energy that could be used to move toward those people and things important not impotent important to the person road-rage you’re in the car, you’re driving somebody cuts you off okay natural reaction fight or flight reaction you’re just like slam on the brakes and do whatever you got to do aversive maneuvers you’re good so you could let it go at that point ago got lucky on that one and keep driving most people not all but most they found that 80% of drivers have reported incidences of road rage which is a high number but most people will start getting all fired up and irritated and grumpy and we and just rageful and so my question would be I hear that and I hear that it made you angry in retrospect did screaming at the person as you pass them at sixty miles an hour in your car with the windows rolled up does any good did it do any good at all what else could you have done with that energy if you wouldn’t have expended it all yesterday we had to wait for the vet to come by and my daughter just completely wore herself out worrying about when the vet was going to get there what he was going to say about her donkeys and was beside herself so by the time it got to evening and it was time for her to go to her martial arts class she didn’t have the energy to go she’s like um wiped out I just want to go to bed in retrospect we’re looking back and saying okay now tell me what it was that you were so stressed out about and let’s talk about whether that was a realistic and helpful line of thought to perseverate on all day long and what could you have done differently because she didn’t bother to mention any of that to me yesterday and then developed the skills to notice interrupt and correct these biased thoughts independently causes of these thinking errors information processing shortcuts when we form schemas and we encounter a situation that reminds us of something in the past like when I go to my grandmother’s house I have a schema I have a belief system I have you know stuff that I know about my grandmother’s house so when I go to my grandmother’s house it’s kind of a shortcut to knowing what to expect when I walk in and how to behave how to do different things and it helps me plan and predict if you’re using outdated or dichotomous all-or-nothing schemas it may cause thinking errors because you may be now incorrectly processing current events mental noise some of us have it a lot of us have it not everybody thinks about trying to focus and study for a final exam in the middle of a really busy sports bar, okay this is a cause of thinking or you’re going to miss important things you’re not going to be able to focus you’re not going to necessarily attend to the correct things because there’s just so much else going on your attention is drawn in 17 different directions and or the brain’s limited information processing capacity due to age we talked about that before young kids think all or nothing they think dichotomously egocentric ly middle school-aged kids and older start developing the ability for abstract thinking by the time we get older, you know as adults theoretically we’re able to you know think pretty well and think pretty clinically about different events but if we’re in crisis when someone is in crisis and it could be like what we think of clinically as a crisis or it could be they’re just completely overwhelmed and burned out and have been burning the candle at both ends for three months they’re not going to process information quite as well they’re not going to take in all this stuff because they’re just like shell-shocked have you ever seen teachers in the hallway of like an elementary school Oh at the end of the second nine weeks they just kind of stand there with this blank look on their face they’re not processing as much as they were the first day of school and you know God loved them they have a lot to deal with but we need to help our clients understand that there are some times that they are going to have to really stop and focus write things down so they can remember or they can make decisions a little more my guess is most of us have times in our life when we’ve been able to think through complex problems but then there are other times where you just can’t keep it all in your head and you’ve got to put it on a whiteboard maybe that’s just me but we want clients to understand that they are not broken they’re not faulty they’re doing the best they can with the tools they have and the knowledge they have and our job is to help them see where some of this might have gone a little awry other causes of thinking errors and emotional motivations I feel bad therefore whatever I’m thinking must be bad if I’m scared that means whatever it’s coming on the other end of the phone is bad news moral motivations I did it because it was the right thing to do and that can be an excuse for doing wrong behaviors as well it can also be you know you can argue on the moral one social influence well everyone else is doing it so it must not be bad set that again a lot of times and this is where the frames approaching the motivational interviewing is helpful f stands for feedback about the reality of what’s going on is everybody doing it let’s look at statistics you know not subjective information let’s look at objective information so the impact of these thinking errors makes people want to fight or flee when they get upset and we use upset as a kind of this all-encompassing garbage term emotionally they get depressed or anxious we don’t want to feel that way anxiety and anger are flee or fight fight or flee it’s our body saying there’s a threat you got to do something depression is your body going I give up I just don’t I don’t even have the energy to do it anymore behaviorally some people withdraw they shut down we all know people who get frustrated when they get overwhelmed when they start feeling hopeless or helpless they just kind of withdraw from everything and everyone’s addictions numb that out so they don’t have to feel the dysphoria sleeping problem and changes when we start being on that constant fight-or-flight hyper-vigilant sort of thing going on in the body is always sort of turned on which means you’re not going to sleep as well then the circadian rhythms get messed up which starts causing exhaustion and lethargy and then everything seems harder because you’re sleep-deprived and then you start thinking more negatively and more hopelessly you see where this is going it’s a downward spiral and eating changes some people eat a lot more because they’re eating comfort foods some people eat a lot less because their stomach is so torn up from the stress they can’t even think about holding anything down physical stress-related illnesses fibromyalgia gastrointestinal problems headaches neck aches backaches you know the whole the gamut of it when you start feeling bad when you start hurting generally it gets frustrating after a while and that frustration makes it kind of raises the the bar brings you up a little bit so you’re that is much closer to kind of just kind of being overwhelmed you don’t have as much of a cushion as you would if you were happy healthy well nourished not in pain and socially a lot of times we will get irritable or impatient with other people or withdrawal when we’re having these negative cognitions these thinking errors that are keeping us in a dysphoric state these effects of thinking errors contribute to fatigue and a sense of hopelessness and helplessness which intensifies thinking errors this is an important concept that I want my clients to understand and I want to drive home in this presentation so thinking errors what are they emotional reasoning feelings are not facts and we want to help people to learn to effectively identify feelings and separate them from facts so if somebody says I’m terrified okay that is a feeling what are the facts supporting that feeling why are you are terrified what is the evidence that you are in some sort of danger right now you know and danger may not be the right word for your client at that a particular point in time but what’s the evidence that there’s a threat in what ways are this similar to other situations maybe it’s triggering something from the scary past or you know you were too little to be able to handle it but you can handle it now and how if you dealt with similar situations like this, in the past, we want to help people just step back and get some distance between their feelings and their thoughts and try to figure out you know which thoughts are helpful and productive and even if a sought makes people anxious or angry it can be helpful it may be telling them hey dude you need to get your butt up and get out of there if it’s helpful it means it’s moving them toward where they want to be happy healthy safe and values-driven life so happy and helpful developed a stress tolerance skills when people use emotional reasoning they feel emotions which then they start attributing finding the facts to support those emotions instead of looking at all the facts we want to help them learn to tolerate their distress so they can kind of let that subside for a second they can accept their feeling they can name they can say I’m scared I’m stressed I’m angry and whatever but they don’t have to act on it right then they can tolerate the distress for a minute without having to try to make it go away and emotional regulation skills they can feel a feeling without having to make it go from zero to 120 you know if they feel sad they go I feel kind of sad instead of grabbing onto it and going I wonder what I feel sad about I must feel sad about all these sad things now I’m going to be sad and devastated so we want to help people learn how to regulate their emotions identify them accept them whatever word you want to use and tolerate them because feelings are there for a reason, they’re to tell you your brain thinks something’s going now thankfully we have that higher-order cognition stuff going on so we can contradict our brain and we can go you know maybe that’s not true in this situation cognitive bias negativity mental filter whatever you want to call it people who focus on the negative they walk in they get up in the morning and they look outside and it’s partly cloudy they get to work and they said instead of saying there was it was very light traffic they said there was a fair amount of traffic everything is always the flip side of what somebody who’s optimistic would say so asking them what’s the benefit to focusing on the negative in what ways is this helpful to you you know some people say well it keeps me from getting disappointed because I know it’s going to end up negative anyway so we can trap challenges that know that whatever it is they think they know and see if there have been exceptions when it hasn’t turned out that way what are the positives to this situation I give the example a lot of you know I wash my car or it rains and maybe I wanted to go out on a run that day but I can perceive it I can look at the positives you know the rain washed my car for me so I don’t have to do it now score it watered my garden all the better it knocked down some of the pollen out of there even better I can find and I can encourage people to find positives in a situation yes there are negatives to every situation if you want to find them you’re going to find them but if you want to find the positives you can too which takes us down to what are all the facts there’s the positive and the negative and the neutral I told you earlier about the coin toss activity having people toss a coin on the heads days they act like it is just the greatest day to be alive and see how things are different when they do their journal because you know I have my clients do I’m sort of a mindfulness check-in in the morning and in the evening and preferably at lunchtime how are they feeling what’s their emotional state what’s their energy level on the happy days a lot of times it can be less and sometimes they need a little coaching throughout because some of those old patterns kick in but I want them to start challenging some of their automatic thoughts that we’re going to talk about in a minute disqualifying or minimizing the positive most of us can probably say we’ve had a bunch of clients that do this they are more than happy to tell you about all the things that they mess up but then when they do something right they minimize it encouraging people to hold themselves to the same standard they would hold everyone else to and I know I talked about that earlier ask them things like would it minimum would you minimize this if it was your best friend’s experience your best friend came to you and said I just got into such-and-such college would you say awesome or would you say anybody can get in there how would that go ask them what is scary about accepting these positive things that you might have had an accomplishment for some people it means that it might mean other people expect more of them for other people they just don’t know how to accept the positive they don’t know how to accept compliments they don’t know how to be the center of attention and they don’t like it and then we want to look at why that is sometimes we disqualify the positive because it fails to meet someone else’s standards so as people might that be true here you know I know when I was growing up and going through college and going through school and everything got my doctorate but I will always be ever and always being not a real doctor because a Ph.D. is not an MD and I’m like really so is it somebody else’s standards or can I feel good about having a Ph.D. egocentrism my perspective is the only perspective I’ll being egocentric but it doesn’t work most of the time so encouraging people to take alternate perspectives maybe you’re texting with someone and they say something that is not that you interpret as not the nicest thing and this happens in a text messages a lot and they get upset now an egocentric thinking error would say that purse is just grumpy today someone that’s taking other perspectives would stop and go back and read the text and go I wonder if maybe this could have been taken some another way you know cuz their reaction is not what I intended so egocentrism if you hold on to that I don’t understand anybody else because you know I don’t see a problem with anything personalizing and mind-reading this is when you assume that everybody’s frowning because of something you did your boss walks down the hallway and looks at you and grimaces and continues to walk on oh I must have done something wrong no maybe he just got out of his senior management meeting that was five hours long and he’s got to go to the bathroom you know there could be a hundred different explanations for why that happened so encourage clients to ask themselves what are some alternate explanations for this event that doesn’t involve me you know why might this have happened if they hold on to that, I must have done something wrong but as soon as their boss calls them up and goes hey can you come to my office for a second you know where their thoughts are going to go I’m getting fired I’m going to get laid off I don’t know what it was that I did wrong but he walked by me two weeks ago in the hallway and grimaced and I’m just I’m the worst person in the whole world but where did that come from so encouraging people to not necessarily assume they know what’s going on in someone else’s mind and not automatically attributing every person’s negative behavior to something they did how often and then ask them how often has it been about you now think about the last 10 times you’ve taken something personally how many of those 10 times has it been about something you did versus something with the other person then the availability heuristic remembering what’s most prominent in your mind so asking clients what are the facts ah the most obvious one that we talk about is plane crashes you know it is way dangerous to fly on a plane because you hear about all those plane crashes well yeah you hear about A few planes crash but you don’t hear about the 20,000 every day that land safely so you remember it and it seems more dangerous because that’s what is in your mind that’s what is available to you that’s what you’ve based your thought processes on because maybe you didn’t know that 20,000 planes or more fly and land just perfectly every day this can also be true with people remembering what’s most prominent in your mind sometimes and this can be very very true in domestically violent relationships if somebody falls in love with someone and that person is just the greatest person since sliced bread for the first four months and then the cycle starts and there’s this little tiny a sliver of the honeymoon period after the battering cycle and the person’s like that’s the person I fell in love with that’s what I remember and they try to focus on what’s most prominent in their mind and they ignore the rest of the stuff so we need to encourage people to look objectively at the facts magnification are you confusing high and low probability outcomes what are the chances that this is going to happen how many clients have we worked with that have gone to the doctor and gotten in a physical or get a test run and then the doctor had to call them back and this could be true for you too and the doctor had to call them back two or three days later when the tests came back from the lab and that whole three days they were just in a panic because they were afraid they were going to get some terminal diagnosis so thinking about high and low probability outcomes another instance or example of magnification is somebody that thinks this is the end of the world whatever it I think I’ve told you before my little story about um tripping when I was walking down the hall at work and falling and yeah it was embarrassing my folders went everywhere and yeah but in that big scheme of things will it matter that much from now you know are people gonna think oh she is such a clutch she must be a ditz too no I mean they may have thought that at that time I don’t know but you know in six months nobody’s going to remember and then ask them in the past when something like this has happened when you’ve had to get a test done and you’ve had to wait on results or if you’ve done something that was embarrassing and you didn’t think you thought everybody was going to remember it forever how did you tolerate it how did you learn to deal with it building on those strengths that they already have all-or-nothing thinking errors these are things like love versus hate I love them or I hate them it’s all or nothing she does this all the time or she never does it if I’m going to do it I’m going to do it perfectly or I’m not going to do it at all thank you all good intentions or all bad intentions you know sometimes we do things with good intentions that have some bad repercussions so did we do it with all bad intentions are all good intentions and the answer is neither most of the time life is kind of in that middle-ground gray area encouraging clients to look and find examples where something hasn’t been one of the polls when having they do something that they’re proud of that wasn’t perfect or when again when has somebody else done something that they were proud of that wasn’t perfect remembering that with availability heuristic remembering how often something really happens and how long it’s been since you’ve seen that behavior and remember that sometimes good times are amazing but how frequent are they compared with the bad times another thinking error is a belief in a just world or a fallacy of fairness I just asked clients to identify for good people you know who’ve had bad things happen and in reality we all have bad things happen good people do bad people do in between people do attributional errors and this is a pet of mine you know labeling yourself is not a behavior so global versus specific and I am stupid versus I’m stupid at math I don’t have good math skills it’s not about me it’s about the skills I can change skills stable I am and I always will be versus it’s something I can change it’s something I can learn internally it’s about me as a person versus it’s about a skill deficit or something I could learn or change and there’s you know lots of information on attributions out there on the internet if you need a refresher on it but we find that a lot of people who have dysphoria have negative global stable internal attributions so questions for clients remember the beliefs equal thoughts and facts plus personal interpretation another way of saying it is reality is 10% perception is 10% reality and 90% interpretation so what are the facts for and against my belief is the belief based on facts or feelings do the belief focus on one aspect or the whole situation does the belief seem to use any thinking errors what are alternate explanations what would you tell your child or best friend if they had this belief how would you want someone to tell what would you want someone to tell you about this belief so if you’re telling somebody about this what are you hoping they’re going to say in return and finally, how is this belief moving you toward what and who is important to you or moving you away from what or who is important to you now they can do a worksheet and have all of these or you can pick one or two of these questions that are most salient for your clients but they can have kind of at their fingertips so as they’re going through the day and something happens they can ask themselves ok what’s an alternate explanation or you know whatever it is this is salient for that client’s irrational thoughts about how to do these thoughts impact the client’s emotions health relationships and perceptions of the world you know this is what we want to ask them how is this thought impacting you globally how may this thought has been helpful in the past where did it come from how does it make sense from when you formed it in the past when you’re dealing with it ask the person if the thought is bringing you closer to those that are important are there any examples of this thought or belief not being true and how can the statement be made less global less all-encompassing so it’s about a specific incident a specific situation less stable which means you can change it and less internal which means it’s not about who you are as a person but maybe something that you do or a skill that you have so we’re going to go through some of these thoughts real quickly here mistakes are never acceptable and if I make one it means that I’m incompetent well never is kind of stable and I am incompetent is kind of global that’s also that extreme all-or-nothing thinking so you can see where these cognitive distortions end up leading to unhelpful beliefs when somebody disagrees with me it’s a personal attack well there’s personalization if I ever heard it before maybe it’s not about you may be they’re having a bad day and you just happen to be the unlucky target or maybe they’re disagreeing with you because they have a different point of view and it’s not a personal attack it’s just their point of view if someone criticizes or rejects me there must be something wrong with me personalization all-or-nothing thinking global stable and internal something wrong with me as a person to feel good about myself others must approve of me now this is one we’ve talked about external validation before and we can’t control other people to feel good about yourself how can you do that besides necessarily requiring other people to approve of you to be content in the life I must be liked by all people Wow I’ve never met anybody who’s liked by all people I’ve never even met anybody who’s been hated by all people but it’s important to help clients see how this is dramatic to say all people and for them to be content then everybody has to like them I mean I like to be liked but if everybody doesn’t like me you know that’s pretty understandable my true value as an individual depends on what others think of me I would challenge this one this is all you know also, very personal internal I would challenge people to look at and say it so your child’s value as an individual depends on what other people think of he or most people would say no but the perspective thing nothing ever turns out the way, you want it to okay all-or-nothing thinking and probably the availability heuristic if something bad just happened then they may be focusing on that which causes them to focus on all the other bad things in the past that have happened not to focus on that is okay you know bad thing happen but look at all these good things I won’t try anything new unless I will be good at it this fear of failure fear of rejection it just really paralyzes a lot of people when they get stuck with that thinking the area that they have to be perfect I am in total control of anything bad that happens is my fault well that’s egocentric and personal if they think they’re in total control that’s their perception of how the world are they think if they’ve got everybody on marionette strings anything bad in the world that happens is their fault how powerful are they I feel happy about uh if I feel happy about life something will go wrong it happens sometimes but let’s look at times when you’ve been happy that something hasn’t gone wrong you know let’s get rid of that all-or-nothing thinking it’s not my fault my life didn’t go the way I wanted could be true but it seems like that’s making you unhappy so what do we do about that if I’m not in an intimate relationship I’m alone no, again that’s pretty extreme I’m either in an intimate relationship, or I am alone and a loner and you know it’s just me and my 17 cats which follows with there’s no gray area so encouraging people to look at what these beliefs are saying important thoughts impacts behaviors and emotional and physical reactions emotional and physical reactions impact thoughts and interpretations of events so if you do something and it’s pleasurable and you have a great physical reaction you know let’s take bungee jumping or skydiving if you go out there and it’s scary but you do it and you’re just like whoa what a rush your interpretation of that is probably going to be good which means you’ll probably do it again if you go out there and it’s just the most horrible experience you’ve ever had you’re probably not going to do it again and your interpretation of it is going to be not good which is going to make it hard to understand why other people would do it irrational thinking patterns are often caused by cognitive distortions so let’s just look back at some of those because there are a lot fewer cognitive distortions or general ways of thinking about the world then there are thinking errors because there are lots and lots of thinking errors cognitive distortions are often schemas which were formed based on faulty inaccurate or immature knowledge or understanding and by identifying the thoughts of the hecklers you know the automatic tapes that are maintaining our unhappiness the person 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Common Co Occurring Issues in Addiction | Addiction Counselor Exam Review

this episode was pre-recorded as part of a live continuing   education webinar on-demand CEUs are still available for this presentation   through all CEUs registered at all CEUs comm slash counselor toolbox I’d like to welcome everybody to today’s presentation on common co-occurring issues   exploring the interaction between mental health physical health and addiction so we’re kind of   putting together the stuff that we’ve been talking about for a couple of sessions now   we’re going to start by talking about some questions and then reviewing what a healthy   person needs and then going through and talking about how different addictions may cause or be   caused by mood disorders and physical health issues and we’re going to talk about things   that you may see in private practice or the a facility that you’re working in just real quickly   for those of you who are here how many people if you would just type in the chat window if you’re   a mental health counselor type mhm if you are a addictions counselor type SI or whatever so just   kind of so and know who I’m talking to you okay so mostly mental health ok cool so what we’re going to look at is what you may see in private practice or a mental health   setting because these clients a lot of clients that have substance abuse or addiction issues   and I use the term addiction because we’re talking about behavioral addictions too many   times they don’t meet the criteria for admission for substance abuse because they don’t meet that   threshold of a substance use disorder tolerance withdrawal yay yay so substance abuse agencies   can’t get funding to provide the treatment so they end up in a mental health facility or a   mental health counselor’s office and they may be dealing with some of these addiction issues   and wanting to address them or they may not be but those issues are out there and exist so   we want to know how they interact so told you we’re gonna have a couple of questions to think   about and I’m just asking you to ponder these for right now and you can add throughout the class if   you want but we’re gonna talk about it more at the end how can we and why is it important   to address chronic illness and disabilities that result from or that cause mood disorders   or addictions so thinking about you know like HIV or hepatitis are two of the big one’s cirrhosis of the liver chronic obstructive pulmonary disease from smoking so these are   things that can result from addiction why or how is it important for us as clinicians mental health   clinicians mainly to think about addressing these how can we address depression and/or anxiety kind   of our mood disorder genre and hopelessness that results from or causes depression and anxiety so   we know that thinking back affects acceptance and commitment therapy there’s clean discomfort   which is what he calls your initial emotion when you feel something if you feel depressed   if you feel anxious that’s how you feel and it’s uncomfortable but it’s clean it is it is   what it is and then he calls dirty discomfort the feelings that we have about those feelings   so we can get angry that we are depressed we can get depressed that we’re still depressed and he   calls that dirty discomfort because we’re kind of layering on and piling in think about just kind of   throwing somebody into a hole and piling more dirt on top of them so we want to think about   how can we address these issues that result from depression or anxiety or sleeping eating or energy   changes so if you’ve got somebody who is dealing with a chronic illness or something else has   happened or they’re they’ve got some sort of an addiction and they are not eating well not   sleeping well it could trigger depression or anxiety so we’re going to talk about that how   can we address sleeping eating and energy changes seems like we’re getting repetitive we’re looking   at how each one interface and how can we address these things that are caused by or cause mood   disorders or addictions because we know when we look at the diagnostic criteria for depression   for example sleeping eating and energy changes primary in there and how can we address guilt   and regret which may accompany addiction recovery or the diagnosis of the disease as the result of   addiction such as lung cancer or HIV or cirrhosis of the liver and people who have liver disorders   cirrhosis of the liver and hepatitis are at a greater risk of liver cancer so that can they   can have some additional anxiety that is related to that so they may look back and go I wish I   hadn’t well you have so how can we help you deal with that and come to some level of acceptance so   my little editorialized soapbox when we’re talking about addictions I mean sometimes we don’t want to   think that they exist we want to pretend that our clients are coming in their mental health clients   otherwise their perfectly healthy things are going great well that may not be the trick the   case a lot of people begin to use and I mean think about ourselves when we’re when we were   in high school and college or you know even later some people use it for recreation you know they want   to go out have a few beers do whatever cool you know that’s fine some people drink or use it for   relaxation my son has a love of we will use that word videogames and he will get on his videogames   and we’ll kind of get lost in it it helps him escape from you know life as we know it for a   little bit of time some people use because of peer pressure you know it’s everybody’s   doing it or you know you’re at a football party or something and everybody’s having a beer and   somebody offers you one and you don’t want to be rude things like that can happen and some people   begin to use straight up for self-medication they’re like I feel crappy I need something to   help me feel better or numb the pain so there’s a lot of reasons people begin to use so then you   might say well why don’t they just say no because it’s easy to say no well it’s not some   people start to use it because they’re bored and they want something to bring some excitement some   euphoria to their life and we’re talking about everything from sex addiction to internet addiction to cocaine use I mean we’re running the gamut here they may lack the awareness of the dangers or how   quickly you can become addicted I know when I was working in the facility in Florida there was the   sort of knowledge if you will and knowledge is not the right word rule I guess that with crack   cocaine for some people, it was a one-hit wonder you did it once and you were hooked and several drugs can be highly addicting quickly especially if they’re taken either   through injection or inhalation but we’ve talked before about the fact that our bodies can start   developing tolerance to opiates within 3 to 5 days so you know people may not a lot of people   don’t realize when they go in and their doctor writes him a script for two weeks of opiates and   they take it as prescribed that they’re actually becoming somewhat addicted to those opiates if   they take the whole prescription so they may not understand that some people don’t say no because   they have low self-esteem so they’re looking for comfort to help them relax to help them loosen   up so they can be more fun at the party and or to peer pressure somebody tells them why don’t use or why don’t come out and go drinking with us or whatever the case may be so to fit in   they may try to use it to fit in to feel part of a crowd and part of it can also be you   know with that peer pressure just generally the culture promoting this kind of behavior going   it’s ok I think I’ve shared with you before at At the beginning of some of the original Beverly   Hillbillies episodes they still advertised Winston cigarettes, like they are the greatest thing and cool people, have them and that’s the thing to do so if that message gets out people may start   believing it and not do their research so to speak on what the true problems or risks may be and then again self-medication some people may be struggling just to get by from day to day and   this helps them survive the best they can with the tools they have until we give them some new tools   so just saying you know I had I grown up during the era of Nancy Reagan and you know God loves her she was trying to help and for a certain small percentage she probably did but for a larger   percentage just saying no is not that easy we need to give people the tools so they can say no so   they don’t so they aren’t relying on these drugs for some reason because when people start using it for recreation and relaxation some people may not have a big big issue with it other people may   start throwing their neurotransmitters kind of out of whack depending on how much how often they use   what combinations if they’re on any medication so people may inadvertently start messing with their   neurotransmitters and creating and we’ll talk about this creating depression or anxiety   that they end up trying to self-medicate so that that is my soapbox for it is not that easy to just   say no we as a culture not just as clinicians have some work to do so what do we need to do to help people be able to just say no they need to have access to healthy nutrition   and knowledge of what that means my son and it’s still like drawing fingernails on a blackboard   to me today this week, I told his sister that you no, he didn’t understand why she was so concerned   with the nutrition he’s a guy he doesn’t need to pay attention to nutrition it’s just whatever and I   was just like oh my gosh you know everything I’ve said has fallen on deaf ears but okay we’ll back   up and figure out a way they need access to it and then they also need to eat it you know if   we have healthy foods available but people are still eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches   for every single meal it’s not going to help so we need to make sure people understand what a healthy   diet looks like and how to do it in a way that’s not painful you know we’re not asking you to just eat   rabbit food as my daddy used to say but so what does it look like to eat a diet or nutrition that   makes you feel good that’s happy that makes you feel happily fulfilled you like it tastes good   whatever you want to say but that’s also healthy you know it’s not just pizza or just   peanut butter we need to educate people and a lot of adults that I work with have no clue about   sleep hygiene you know they know they’re supposed to try to go to sleep but they don’t know anything   about turning off the blue turning on blue light filters so the blue lights are not keeping them   up so we need to do some education here ideally in elementary schools but if we can get it out to the   community so they can pass it on to their little minions we’ll be on a good path to pain control we   need people to start having pain control but we need to also have them have alternatives to   pain control besides opiates and there are a lot of them out there again people don’t know about   so we must educate and we’re not prescribing pain control that’s not our job but   if we have a client who’s in chronic pain we can suggest that they work with their doctor that they   look into options for pain control you can google it and find a lot of different alternatives now   if they don’t want to go to the doctor but you know there are a lot of different things from   acupressure it attends units to things that are nonpharmacological that can help people manage   their pain so they can sleep which will help the rest and rebalance to deal with fatigue and   be able to deal with life kind of on life’s terms because they won’t be in this constant state of   stress people need access to regular medical care to prevent problems so you know we want to prevent   this thing on your face from becoming skin cancer we want to prevent anything else that that might   trigger problems and early intervention so like with Lyme disease, if people get early intervention   mentioned they don’t end up with the chronic problems with HIV the earlier the intervention   the better same thing with hepatitis you know the list goes on so we want to make sure that if   people have some sort of issue that’s disrupting their ability to get enough sleep process   nutrition go to work do any of these things that they have access to some method whatever method   they need to address it so sometimes it’s medical sometimes it’s mental health it’s social   services they need safe housing so we’re on to social services now and that includes a roof   over their head that they’re not worried when they go to sleep at night but also being safe   from domestic violence and things like that safety and this kind of goes with safe housing and I put   internal and external because you know the first part is external safety we want to be able to know   that our patients can relax wherever they’re at they have enough money to keep a roof over their   head in a safe place and you know typically that’s not something that we think about as mental health   counselors we think about helping them deal with their anxiety but if they can’t get enough sleep   and they never feel safe when they’re at home they’re not going to be able to rest and they’re   at best their recovery is going to be impeded at worst you know it’s going to contribute to the   issue that they’re seeing us for so safe housing is important we’re not going to get it for them   but we can point them in the right direction your local United Way which is 2-1-1 and most places   generally has a listing of different resources for accessing safe housing if you don’t work   in a facility that’s used to dealing with that and then internal safety that’s shutting up that   internal critic that’s being able to go through a day without being derogatory to yourself and that’s something that we definitely can help with we can help people shut down that   internal critic or that internal person that is always calling gloom and doom and you know   waiting for the other shoe to drop or whatever the case maybe we can help clients change their   cognitions so it’s safe inside their head and then people need love and acceptance and   this should sound pretty familiar are you know Maslow’s hierarchy here kind of in Reverse   but people need love and acceptance but in order for love to have love and acceptance in many cases   they also need to love and accept themselves so we’re gonna work on self-esteem we’re gonna help   people develop relationship skills hopefully there are some people in their life that have provided   some level of love and acceptance maybe not the unconditional positive regard we’ve hoped for but   they’re there so these are things that the healthy happy person needs and these are things in large   part we can do through education referral and direct services help people get so why do we care about   co-occurring issues as mental health counselors well 35 percent of people with anxiety disorders   have according to one of these studies abused opiates so that’s a lot if you’ve got somebody   with an anxiety disorder this isn’t just panic this isn’t just something you know severe   this is you know any of your anxiety disorders one in three roughly have abused opiates they’ve   used some sort of opiate drug to help them kind of chill out of opiate or alcohol dependent patients   20% have major depressive disorder so of that 35% you know there’s going to be a percentage   of them who may be opiate or alcohol dependent and there are a lot of our clients that we see in   mental health treatment who are not willing to be truthful about how much they really drink or how   often they drink because they might be suspecting it’s a little bit of a problem but   they’re not wanting to go there yet they’re in what we call pre-contemplation okay so let’s   just go with this in mind that there may be some underlying other stuff that they haven’t told us   about opiate or alcohol-dependent patients 20% have major depressive disorder so you know we’re   taking them and we may be seeing them in the clinic for depression and we do want to be suspect of   whether there’s either some opiate or alcohol issues there depression and opioid-dependent patients including pain management patients so those who are opiate-dependent by prescription have been associated with poorer physical health decreased quality of life increased risk-taking behaviors and suicidality am I saying that pain management clinics are bad no but what I’m saying   is those who are in pain management clinics for a variety of reasons are at a high in a higher risk   category I mean think about it if your pain is bad enough that you need to be going to a pain   management clinic think about how much that must hurt think about how much that must impair your   daily life think about the impact of the drugs that you’re taking on your mood your energy levels   and the stigma in some cases associated with it some people here suboxone and they’re like yeah   whatever my neighbor takes that other person here suboxone and they’re like ah you can’t be taking   that so there is still a lot of social stigmas that goes along with medication-assisted therapies so there are a lot of things that may contribute to depression in opioid-dependent patients   the prevalence and severity of depression tend to decline within the first few weeks after treatment   initiation so if they are trying to get off of you know ideally their detox and they’re   trying to you know remain sober the prevalence and the severity of depression tends to decline so we   need to get them off of it first and get them through that acute withdrawal from a depressant   including alcohol and I know this slide is boring but we’re gonna be through in a second withdrawal   from depressants including alcohol opioids and even stimulants invariably include potent anxiety   symptoms so it’s important to pay attention and withdrawal from stimulants can also include potent   depressive symptoms if they’ve been on a crack binge for you know five days that won’t sleep for   a while many people with substance use disorders may exhibit symptoms of depression that fade over   time and are related to acute with drawl well we talk about acute withdrawal we’re talking about   the first three months we’re not talking about the detox period which is generally three days so   encourage people who’ve gone through detox and maybe they’re seeing you on an outpatient basis   encourage people to you know be patient and work with the treatment team if they need to but the first   three months is always the hardest so chicken or the egg you know did the person start using and become   depressed or was the person depressed so they self medicated does it matter depression and anxiety   are associated with addiction because because if you have stimulant withdrawal or recovery   that period after you quit using that’s maybe a week maybe two weeks where your body is going   whew that was a run people may feel depressed fatigued have difficulty concentrating which can   impact how well they eat it’ll impact their sleep they’re gonna sleep a lot more but the   quality of sleep may be poor so they can mess up their circadian rhythms and you know they   may not have access to the social support that they wanted they may but really with stimulant   withdrawal we’re looking at nutrition and sleep so we want to educate patients if they   decide to stop taking stimulants what they need to look at stimulant use can also be associated   with depression and anxiety because many people not you know the majority but a lot of people   out there will self-medicate depression with stimulants from anything from caffeine which   you know maybe like mild dysthymia but if you abuse enough caffeine you know it starts getting   into your system you become dependent on it but if you start combining caffeine and nicotine plus oh   let’s add in some workout supplements or you know the occasional Ritalin or something not suggesting   it then it’s these things can wear the body down which can lead to additional depression but people   may use these things to try to feel better because think depression is related for some people   they may not feel like they can wake up they’re fatigued they’re lethargic all the time and   they’re feeling blue so if they take stimulants they get that dopamine rush they’re starting   to feel good and they’re awake stimulant use can cause anxiety well the so if you’ve got   somebody who already has maybe they are depressed but they’ve also got some anxiety and they start   using stimulants which may make the anxiety way worse alcohol or opiate use some people use these things   to numb or to forget and that’s just your the standard used the depressant some people will   use either one of these but especially opiates to deal with physical pain to medicate depression or   anxiety remember there are a lot of trials not several trials right now that are looking at   using opiates to treat intractable depression but a lot of people also use opiates off-label illegally to address anxiety so if you’ve got a client with depression or anxiety just kind of   be alert for how they’re behaving if they’ve got pinpoint pupils or if they’re itching and   picking all the time I mean not the occasional are winter and the heat just turned on I’ve got   dry skin itch but constantly itching and picking and you know where you’re like please just settle   down detox from opiates can all often produce depression produces a lot of flu-like symptoms   which can make people feel crappy and the flu-like symptoms I won’t get graphic impaired   nutrient absorption impaired sleep you know they’re sleeping a lot because they feel like   crap but they’re also having to get up every 10 minutes to go to the bathroom sometimes so   this first week or so during the initial if they go cold turkey so to speak can be rough   detox from alcohol as I’ve talked about before can produce anxiety symptoms so understanding   that when people are going through detox whether they are alcohol dependent and have been drinking   a whole lot which needs to be medically monitored I can’t say this enough and I’ll say it a lot more   tomorrow when we talk about where Nikki Korsakoff syndrome but people who are detoxing from alcohol   will have anxiety symptoms and a period of high blood pressure and sometimes depression and anxiety are associated with addiction just because they sober up one morning and they look at their life   and they’re like what the hell have I done so you know and you’re looking at them going yeah   I don’t blame you for feeling that way now let’s see what we can do to improve the next moment   so make sure that we understand that these things are going to go hand in hand and to be   on the lookout because like I said a lot of people aren’t forthcoming even about alcohol use which is   legal but if they’re using something illegally or using maybe their kid’s Ritalin or something   they’re pretty much almost guaranteed not to tell you so we want to be on the lookout for signs and   symptoms bipolar disorder can be triggered by drug use so we just know that we can the person could   get worn down mess with the neurotransmitters enough they’re not exactly sure how it happens   but we have seen the initial acute episode of bipolar disorder-triggered mania triggered by   drug use it is more common for people with bipolar to use stimulants when they’re depressed and just   about anything when they’re manic now if you’re working with somebody with bipolar you know   you’re probably already having these discussions about how you stay safe when you’re in a manic   episode people with ADHD may use to self-medicate and we’re talking cannabis is a big one for ADHD   to help people feel like they’ve got more focus and not feel like they’ve got so much coming in   and so much stimulation all the time which can be exhausting and after the use of any of the substances   of abuse the disruption and neurotransmitters can make people feel like they’ve got ADHD-type symptoms faculty concentrating difficulty following through with things etc so understanding   that even if things don’t meet the threshold for DSM-5 diagnosis we want to look at what symptoms   are there and how can we help people manage them so they’re getting adequate sleep nutrition pain   control social support and safety borderline and antisocial personality just kind of threw those   in there because we see those a lot when we’re working in dual diagnosis facilities more people   are more likely to use addictions to cope with a lack of sense of self and their emotional lability   if they’re borderline so I mean their world is so chaotic many people with borderline personality   disorder are likely to use to try to get some calm in the storm now I will put out my other soapbox   here with both of these personality disorders when you see somebody in active addiction or early recovery they probably have symptoms that would meet diagnosis you know their symptoms   are pervasive in multiple areas of life their symptoms would meet the diagnosis for one of these   two personality disorders during this period but it resolves as recovery becomes the norm   as the neurotransmitter stabilizes they develop interpersonal skills so you know giving people   a little bit of time before we say it’s borderline personality disorder versus borderline personality   characteristics if you will be helpful because both of these diagnoses can block people from   getting into certain treatment centers and getting some of the services they need okay so we’re going   to move on to some of our more common addictions alcoholism is associated with eating disorders   there’s a really strong Association and it usually flip-flops between bulimia and alcoholism so if   somebody’s symptomatic for bulimia they may not be drinking a lot of alcohol but they may during   periods of remission from the bulimia drink a lot more alcohol become alcohol dependent so there’s   a lot of research out there that shows there’s a strong correlation between these two things and   it’s also associated with binge eating disorder but especially bulimia nutritional deficiencies   from alcoholism can cause mood disorders so even if somebody is not and I use the term   I should have put alcohol instead of alcoholism because even the term heavy use without physical   dependence can cause nutritional deficiencies that can cause ulcers it can cause physical problems   physical exhaustion which can disrupt sleep alcohol impairs sleep quality alcohol makes   apnea worse so if you’ve got a client who has sleep apnea they’re drinking they’re probably   gonna sleep even worse than they normally do depression is the result of using well alcohol as a depressant so what do people expect well most people expect to relax they don’t think about the   rest of the stuff that’s going on in neurochemical imbalances because the alcohol exits our system a   lot faster than our brain can catch up and go okay it’s not in there anymore so I need to adjust the   temperature and in sleep disruption anxiety can also, be triggered as a result of use I’ve said   before say it again after that initial period where people feel the depressant or relaxing   effects of alcohol there is an upsurge in anxiety so a lot of people have another drink to kind of   quell that anxiety feeling but you know people with anxiety disorders are gonna feel it more   prominently and the neurochemical imbalances that alcohol use causes can worsen pre-existing   anxiety conditions or trigger anxiety conditions nicotine is another one that we see a lot even   in just straight-up mental health clinics not co-occurring so what effect does nicotine have   well anxiety and depression are 70% more likely in smokers so that’s one of those statistics we want   to look at nicotine triggers dopamine release okay so nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs on   the planet and you’re thinking I thought that was opiates well opiates are in there but nicotine   not only is nicotine legal but it’s also one of the most addictive drugs on the planet so that’s   another important point to think about people are using their trigger and dopamine release their   brain gets used to being flooded with dopamine so their receptors on the other end start sensitizing   so we’re creating an artificial environment basically when people are smoking blood vessel   changes when people smoke it causes blood vessel changes that can cause high blood pressure as well   as depression and fatigue and confusion in the blood vessels narrow and get stiffer so the oxygenated   blood has a harder time getting to where it needs to be so people start feeling blah and that can   cause them to think that they’re starting to feel depressed can also cause those cause loss of   energy people with severe and persistent mental illnesses are two to three times more likely than   the general population to use nicotine so that’s just an interesting little fact to have out there   if you work with people with SP MI and people with ADHD may smoke because it increases their   concentration and attention for about five minutes literally, for about five minutes but during that   five minutes they’re like oh my gosh it’s a relief I can like focus for half a second so we   want to look at what else is going on whether the a person has adult ADHD for example physical health   mental nicotine is linked with COPD and emphysema and lung cancer so you know all kinds of lung   and cardiopulmonary stuff well when that happens you know we have less oxygenated blood efficient   efficiently getting through the system we’re going to have increased fatigue increased confusion some   grief that may go along with that especially if people are starting to have to carry an oxygen   tank around with them or something you know we may have to help them deal with disability acceptance   and depression and stroke because smoking like I said increases blood pressure and reduces   circulation so cutting off or greatly reducing circulation to the brain they have shown that   people who smoke especially heavy smokers are at a much greater risk of stroke and addiction nicotine   is strongly correlated with other addictions a a lot of people when they’re in the bar well not   so much anymore since smoking is not allowed in public places but used to be when they were in   the bar they would also be smoking but a lot of people associate alcohol and nicotine or nicotine   and other drugs so if somebody is using other drugs likely they’re smoking now it doesn’t work   the other way around just because they’re smoking doesn’t mean they’re likely using other drugs the   reason this is more important is that people who continue to smoke after they have gone into   recovery for their drug of choice have a relapse rates as high as 68 percent higher than for people   who quit smoking so we start thinking about that and we say well why is that well because nicotine is a mood-altering substance you know we don’t think of it as such because it’s not a   woohoo it’s Marva hey okay it’s not as prominent of interaction as maybe cocaine or something   but it does change the balance and people still do use smoking to cope with life when things get   stressful they smoke well if things get stressful and you know they’re too stressed for smoking to   handle then they may start going back to what else can I take use or do that will make this   feeling go away right now we know also that was smoking and that repeated release of dopamine   they’re messing with the neurochemical balances in their brain, so it makes sense that eventually   just like tolerance to other drugs happens it may not be enough at a certain point and they may fall   back into other habits nicotine has been known to suppress appetite and but whether it keeps weight   off or not they haven’t shown alcohol and nicotine both are appetite suppressants which   is another reason people with bulimia tend to drink and one of the reasons why people quit   smoking they tend to be hungrier so helping them get through that period now whether it   helps them keep weight off the party that deals with the reason that they eat it’s not really that it’s   suppressing their or increasing their metabolism so much its nicotine suppresses the anxiety   and sometimes the desire the hunger but if people are still eating out of anxiety if they’re still   eating under stress eating then you know when they stop smoking and they don’t have a cigarette to put   in their mouth when they’re stressed they tend to go for other things and so we need to help people   figure out when they stop smoking are you eating because you’re hungry or are you eating   because you’re stressed if they’re eating because they’re hungry and they’re getting heavier   than they want to be they need to talk with their doctor about you know thyroid tests and also let   their doctor educate them on biological setpoint theory of you know not everybody’s going to be   a zero so you know that may be something we can help them deal with body acceptance issues if   you know maybe they’re programmed genetically to be you know a size X whatever that is and they’re   not happy because they want to be a zero which our culture does tell us to do as clinicians   we can help them look at you know the costs and benefits of continuing to smoke and what being   you know a size zero means for them to opiate abuse there’s a lot of physical stuff and we’re   just gonna run through it real quick because you’re not as concerned with it the physical   stuff the doctors are gonna see but we need to be aware of from a clinical point because it can keep   people from getting their basic needs met blood and injection site infections you know that’s   probably going to lay them up for a while but if they have repeated infections and are repeatedly   out of work they can lose their job they can lose their housing they can you know get some sort   of MRSA or something else which can be really expensive it can be life-threatening ya-ya   collapsed veins and this is more common obviously this is only for injection drug users but   collapsed veins just as you would expect keep the oxygenated blood from getting where it needs to be   so people are more likely to experience strokes and may have certain forms of vascular dementia   because of the strokes dementia we’re familiar with endocarditis is the inflammation around   the heart so again this is only for needle drug users but if you’ve got a client who is using   needles to inject any kind of drug be aware of that and what they get and what they inject is   rarely pure so knowing what else they’re injecting into their system if they’re you know crushing   pills from the pharmacy you’re a little bit more sure about what they’re getting as opposed to if   it’s from the corner dealer and sometimes they’re cut with really nasty things like   you know comic bathroom cleaner and stuff HIV if people get HIV from injection or some other risky   behavior they’re probably going to experience some depression and a lot of times HIV from   opiate abuse they’re gonna experience depression remorse regret all that kind of stuff anxiety   about how long they’re going to live what’s going to happen and oh those medication side   effects those the antiretroviral medications that they have to take are doozies I’ve seen people go   through the induction weeks on their medications and it is a rough time so helping people   get through it so they are medication compliance so they can continue to live we need to help them   maintain hope and self-efficacy and all that kind of stuff to maintain that forward movement to get   through the induction period liver damage from acetaminophen can set people up for you know   physical pain among other things and it decreased pain tolerance now this generally the decreased   pain tolerance goes away after the the body starts producing its endorphins and   natural painkillers again but that initial period Stevie-Wright-rare-interview if somebody quits using and maybe you know you are seeing them as a mental health client and they had an accident or had surgery or something   they started using pills they got a couple of refills then the doctor said no I’m cutting you   off and now they’re going through a detox period detox from opiates is unpleasant but it is rarely   life-threatening unless somebody becomes their electrolytes get imbalanced because of the flu   symptoms but we still may see this in private practice in mental health practice because   of the scenario I just told you people can start taking painkillers as prescribed for something   they may get addicted you know take them for a month or so then when they get off of them   not only do they feel like you know really bad but their pain is also back and it may be they   had their wisdom teeth out that pain may be gone but other aches and pains and everything you feel is probably going to be intensified until the body kicks back in so educating clients about   this is what happens you know it’s not uncommon if you think it’s too bad go see your   doctor helping them make sure they’re getting good nutrition you know it’s hard if you’ve got   flu symptoms to feel like you want to eat or hold anything down so what can you do to make   sure your body has the building blocks to make the stuff that it needs to help you feel better what   can you do to improve your sleep and a lot of our clients and you know where I used to work we   had a methadone clinic and we also had a mother baby unit and as soon as the mothers would give   birth then the doctor would start them on their detox from methadone and he didn’t believe   in the kinder gentler taper he was just like okay baby’s gone threats gone because you can’t detox   from somebody from opiates when they are pregnant because it can cause the baby to die anyway   so as soon as they would stop or as soon as they weren’t pregnant anymore he would just   D see them and they would feel really bad I mean not only did they just push an 8-pound something   out of their body but they also are experiencing a decreased pain tolerance because they’re not   on the opiates anymore and all they want to do is sleep it’s just like please so understanding that   is important in helping people get through that period even though they may want to sleep   all the time helping them understand that it’s important to maintain their circadian rhythms   if they have to take two or three ten-minute power naps throughout the day to get through   the day you know more power to them but if they can practice good sleep hygiene they’re gonna   be way better off in the long run OPD opiate abuse is also or opiate use is also associated   with the treatment of depression but it can cause depressive symptoms due to its pharmacological   properties I mean it slows everything down from you’re gastrointestinal to your heart rate to your   respiration you’re not breathing as much you’re not getting as much oxygen in you’re gonna have   more fatigue you’re gonna have more confusion you’re going to have more of those symptoms of   depression for some people they find it is and certain opiates they find it is a powerful way   to reduce anxiety it makes them feel like they’ve got a ton of energy because they’re not stressed   out anymore and this last one is one of the The main reason that I find people don’t want to give   up opiates is that they finally feel better when they’re on the eating disorders commonly a coat   co-occur with depression and anxiety which can be caused by nutritional deficiencies you know   you’re not giving your body the building blocks so it can’t make the neurotransmitters it needs   and it also probably disrupts your sleep some and depression anxiety can cause or trigger or   whatever you want to say eating disorders because people with eating disorders may fear becoming fat   have low self-esteem have a sense of lack of self-control or have body dysmorphic disorder   so we also want to be aware that there are mental health stuff that can trigger dysfunctional eating   patterns there’s about a 24% prevalence of PTSD among people with eating disorders so if you’ve   got a client with eating disorders especially bulimia be on the lookout for depression anxiety   body dysmorphic disorder alcoholism and PTSD they maybe smoking too but of the things, I just listed   that’s probably the least of their worries it’s all eating disorders are also associated with   alcoholism and smoking I said physical health issues now you’re seeing somebody with an eating   disorder it’s a mild eating disorder you’re seeing them once a week outpatient so you’re not and you   have you know you have training and working with eating disorders or maybe it’s   mild enough that you’re just getting supervision on treating this issue whatever being aware that   people with eating disorders anorexia or bulimia can have irregular heartbeats and cardiac arrest   due to potassium imbalances and electrolyte imbalances so if they’re not eating or if   they are binging and purging in some way shape or form and that includes excessive exercise which can   trigger a lot of heart problems they may have loss of bone mass and osteoporosis so they may   break bones a little bit easier going back up to the heartbeat not to belabor the point but again   heart problems mean a lack of available oxygen mean confusion fatigue potential difficulty   sleeping depressive symptoms and you know cardiac arrest in and of itself is bad kidney damage from   Doretta caboose and low potassium can also potentially drain damaged the adrenals which   are on the kidneys and so it’s important to be aware of what people are using a lot of people   with eating disorders are going to creatively use stimulants to suppress their appetite think   about any of your diet drugs your enter mean I think it’s one of them the ones they give to help   people lose weight they’re stimulants they’re intense stimulants so people who are   struggling with eating disorders are likely to go towards abusing stimulants or at least using them   which can drain the adrenals it can in some cases have been linked to the development of   Addison’s disease liver damage from not eating or binging and purging causing toxin buildup   and possibly pain we can help people deal with it as much as we can anemia which can cause symptoms   of depression in and of itself so goes back to that nutrition making sure they’re getting enough infertility which in and of itself can be devastating for young women if they can’t   have children anymore or can’t have children ever that may be a grief issue that we need to   help them deal with cathartic: and this is an important one to be aware of because you   don’t have to have somebody who uses laxatives all the time but people who regularly use or   abuse laxatives can become dependent on them so when they don’t use them they have a feeling of   bloating feeling full and abdominal pain which especially in people with eating disorders or   body morphic disorders surrounding just general body fit bad back body fat can greatly increase   anxiety depression hopelessness and in some cases of suicidality so again educating people   is the first step to helping them understand what’s going on and how dangerous laxatives can be but   also if somebody is trying to cut back on their use of laxatives or just recently stopped using   laxatives like when people stopped using opiates it takes the body a while to get back   online but for most people it eventually does people with eating disorders also have chronic   ulcers which are painful and can keep you up at night As you know gastric reflux and pancreatitis   which can flare up at a moment’s notice will is extraordinarily painful and can cause people to   lose time from school or work social activities feel bad about themselves and also   pancreatitis causes a lot of bloating which in eating disorders is a huge trigger   for anxiety and depression pathological gambling is associated with stimulant abuse especially   cocaine methamphetamine and Ritalin to stay focused disrupted sleep and rebound depression   when they quit taking that stuff they wake up and they’re like oh wow what did I just do alcoholism   is also associated with pathological gambling some people drink to calm their nerves some   people drink because it’s the culture if you go to any of the casinos you know their hand-and-out drinks, they’re trying to get you drunk so you keep gambling more and there’s as we spoke about   earlier rebound depression or anxiety smoking may help people increase their focus or make   them think they can increase their focus so if you can’t smoke in public places this is more of   an issue if you have somebody who does a lot of online gambling or they gamble at their friend’s   house or somebody’s house where there’s poker games and stuff smoking has some anti-anxiety   anti-anxiety properties and may be part of the the culture I know when my daddy used to have his   poker games everybody would smoke cigars and even the one woman who went there would be smoking a   cigar with everybody else and it was just the culture of being there so there are a lot of   different reasons that people may use substances in addition to gambling mental health issues from   gambling anxiety from the stimulant use or from the tension and release of am I going to you know   I’m down $20,000 am I going to make it back ADHD is also strongly associated with pathological   gambling bipolar disorder, especially during manic phases are associated with pathological gambling   generally you see them co-occurring it’s not like gambling causes it it’s you will see co-occur depression can occur due to losses and gambling can start because somebody’s depressed   because of their financial situation and their trying to figure out a way to you know borrow from   Peter to pay Paul and get ahead you also see pathological gambling is more strongly associated   with people who have obsessive-compulsive disorder if you’ve got clients with these   diagnoses just kind of you know be attentive to the fact that they are more likely to engage in   pathological gambling or if they start gambling it’s more likely to become a problem than for   people who don’t have these issues internet an addiction that is diagnoseable so   you know I’m not just making something up depending on your resource affects eight   point two percent to thirty-eight percent of the general population now obviously we were looking   at you know like games versus you know games plus Facebook plus shopping or something so depending   on the study you looked at their parameters were a little bit different but either way up   to 38 percent of the population has sacrificed significant personal recreational activities to engage in some sort of internet behavior Internet addiction can cause anxiety or   depression due to eyestrain and chronic headaches you know if you’re hurting all the time it can   make you feel wonky it can also interrupt your sleep can cause circadian rhythm disorder which   can trigger depression fatigue reduced stress tolerance this is a condition when your body   doesn’t know whether it’s supposed to be awake or asleep because a lot of people who engage in internet-addictive behaviors do so in the dark or you know they don’t pay attention to whether the   lights are on or not they may just sit there kind of in their cave carpal tunnel contributes to pain   and sleep disruption because carpal tunnel does wake you up at night back ache again may disrupt   your sleep and can cause chronic pain during the a day which can interrupt your daily activities poor   nutrition I know a lot of gamers that will sit there for an entire weekend and not get up to go   eat so if it’s not brought to them they don’t eat they’ll even wear adult diapers so they don’t have   to get up to go to the bathroom reduced immunity due to exhaustion from not sleeping and job or   relationship problems I know uh several people whose marriages ended over a world of warcraft’   so internet addiction is a real thing and it’s something that we need to be cognizant of because   it does cause a lot of problems and a lot of relationships and it may be one of many problems   but it’s something to look at sex addiction can cause hepatitis and a variety of different STDs   which if not treated can cause systemic problems it’s related to anxiety and depression because sex   addiction may begin in order because somebody wants to feel loved or connected maybe after   a breakup or because they never felt loved you’re connected and then they feel that rush and they’re   like oh I like that I want to do that again part of it could be engaging in that behavior which is   so thrilling you know depends on the person psychological withdrawal from sex addiction   people who have been engaging in sex addiction type behaviors and I include pornography addiction   in it for this presentation if they’re not able to access that may start feeling anxious or depressed   they can’t get to that they can’t get to the the thing that’s gonna cause the dopamine rush and   reflection on behaviors that they’ve engaged in as a part of their sex addiction can also prompt   anxiety about a spouse finding out you know am I going to develop an STD and am I you know how I feel about what I’ve been doing so as clinicians if we’re working with somebody who has compulsive   sexual behaviors even if you know anywhere about that the spectrum we need to be aware that these things may   exist and figure out or help them figure out how they feel about it and what they need to   do to make sure that they’re getting good sleep that they’re dealing with their depression and   their anxiety so that they can have a safe internal and external environment so back to that global   perspective how can we and why is it important to address chronic illness and disabilities   that result from or cause mood disorders or addictions how can we address depression anxiety   and hopelessness that results from or causes depression anxiety or physical problems how can   we address physical problems that are caused by mood or addictions and how can we address   guilt or regret which may accompany addiction recovery or the realization of a diagnosis of a   disease caused by the addiction so while you kind of ponder those there was a question that came in so question what about robbing Peter to pay Paul in association with trauma specifically childhood trauma so if you could clarify that for me a little bit I had mentioned robbing Peter   to pay Paul in terms of gambling so I’m just so mental health issues can be caused by or trigger   addictions or physical health issues addictions can cause or trigger mental health issues or   physical health issues that can be caused by addictions or mental health issues   so again chicken-or-egg we don’t necessarily know which one came first when you have any one of   these it’s probably going to or likely impact each other person or each other area common   issues are seen in all three changes in sleeping changes in nutrition fatigue and grief effective   treatment requires addressing the underlying causes as well as the ripple effects you know so yes after childhood trauma or trauma of any sort, some people may spend a lot   of time feeding the addiction as you put it or engaging in addictive behaviors to avoid some   of the PTSD symptoms to avoid thinking about it to deal with the grief to deal with the shame so   they may engage in something that makes them feel better or helps them forget to cope with the trauma that happened until they have other tools so they can come to   some sort of terms with it and you know as I say close that chapter in their book already   if there are no other questions tomorrow’s the presentation I learned a lot creating is   on alcohol-related dementia and vascular dementia and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders all three of   which are issues that are caused by substance use and specifically alcoholism and then I’ll   give you a hint about where an acute Korsakoff a a lot of clients who abuse alcohol but they’re not   alcohol dependent who decide to stop drinking can trigger where Nikki Korsakoff syndrome   and causes alcohol-related dementia-type symptoms so again in mental health, we need to be on the   lookout for it if we hear that our clients are trying to cut down on their alcohol use   alrighty everybody and so tomorrow is that presentation and then Thursday we’re going to   look at different models of new bottles of treatment if you enjoy this podcast please   like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube, you can attend and participate   in our live webinars with doctor Snipes by subscribing at all CEUs com VirtualBox this   episode has been brought to you in part by all CEUs calmly provide 24/7 multimedia continuing   education and pre-certification training to counselors therapists and nurses since 2006 used coupon code consular toolbox to get a 20% discount on your order this month  As found on YouTubeAnimated Video Maker – Create Amazing Explainer Videos | VidToon™ #1 Top Video Animation Software To Make Explainer, Marketing, Animated Videos Online It’s EASIER, PRODUCTIVE, FASTER Get Commercial Rights INCLUDED when you act NOW Get Vidtoon™