Stress management

 CBT – Stress Inoculation Training

Cognitive therapy is highly effective at dealing with stress. “Cognitive” refers to thinking – so it is an effort at replacing irrational thoughts with more rational ones. So, the way in which a person thinks about their life and the problems that they experience is maladaptive. To treat them then, we need to alter the way in which they think, so that the problem starts to disappear. Cognitive Behavioural therapy is the best known cognitive treatments. Cognitive – treats the faulty thinking. Behaviour – changes behaviour as a result.

Stress Inoculation Training is the best known application to stress (Meichenbaum, 1977). He argued we should use such therapy before a person experiences problems rather than afterwards. SIT is a form of coping and stress management. There are three main stages to the process:

  Conceptualisation: coming to a realisation such as the following: I realise that im most stressed in social situations and I always react by thinking ‘I cant handle this, im going to make a fool of myself’.

  Skill acquisition and rehearsal: practice thinking rationally instead.

  Application and follow through: try a straightforward social situation first. Then when confident doing this, try something more difficult. In case anything goes wrong, have…