Stress Inoculation Therpay Content

Question 1

What is stress inoculation therapy?

Answer 1

A form of CBT that trains individuals to cope with anxiety and stressful situations more affective let through a cognitive approach, learning skills to ‘inoculate’ (defend/vaccinate) themselves against the damaging effects of future stressors

Question 2

How is SIT different to other types of stress treatment?

Answer 2

It focuses on developing a form of coping with a stressor before the stressor develops into a real problem, like the way you ‘inoculate’ yourself from future diseases with a vaccination

Question 3

Who developed SIT and what was his belief on coping/managing stress?

Answer 3

Donald Meichenbaum - believed you can’t usually change the causes of stress in the life but you can change the way you think and deal with the stressors causing the stress.

Question 4

How does SIT help reduce the stress response to situations?

Answer 4

. If stressors are approached with a negative perception/mindset, this will accumulate to negative outcomes such as anxiety and depression.
. If stressors can be approached with a positive mindset, some positive outcomes can be drawn out from the stressor due to this positive attitude (‘seeing the light in the dark’)

Question 5

What are the three stages of stress inoculation therapy?

Answer 5

1. Conceptualisation phase
2. Skills acquisition, rehearsal and consolidation
3. Application and follow-through

Question 6

What happens during the conceptualisation phase of SIT?

Answer 6

. Client and therapist collaboratively identify source of stress
- could involve interviews or keeping a diary of stressful experiences to get the client to ‘tell their story’
. Therapist helps client understand which coping strategies are maladaptive and help provide change
. Therapist may challenge the client’s perceived threats and encourage them to be seen as problems to be solved.
. Breaking down stressors into components that can be dealt with
Overall: getting a new perception of stress and their problem

Question 7

What occurs during skills acquisition , rehearsal and consolidation phase of SIT?

Answer 7

. Coping skills taught, practiced in clinic and eventually rehearsed in real life
. Skills are specific to the stressor and individual methods of coping

Question 8

What are some of the skills taught to cope with stress in SIT?

Answer 8

. Relaxation techniques
. Positive thinking
. Using self-coping statements

Question 9

How can clients use coping self-statements to cope and manage their stress?

Answer 9

. When preparing for stressful situation, tell yourself not to worry as this won’t help
. Use reinforcing self-statements like it wasn’t as bad as expected
. Telling yourself to relax and breathe in stressful situations

Question 10

How are the skills taught in SIT both cognitive and behavioural?

Answer 10

. Cognitive: encourage client to think differently about their stress
. Behavioural: changes behavioural response to stress to become more adaptive.

Question 11

How are the skills taught in SIT rehearsed/practiced?

Answer 11

. Imagery = imaging dealing with stressful situation
. Modelling = watching someone else cope with stressor and imitating if successful
. Role playing = acting out scenes involving stressors

Question 12

What occurs during the application and follow-through phrase of SIT?

Answer 12

. Clients can apply these new coping skills to different situations that become more and more stressful
. Important for client to recognise it isn’t always easy to apply the skills in a real-life situation so don’t worry too much
. Clients may be asked to train others in the skills
. Therapist and client continued to monitor success of therapy, can have booster sessions after
. Evaluation of how well the new skills worked after each application