Chapter 1 Cognitive Theory and models of anxiety: an introduction 5
Cognitive theory of anxiety disorders 5
Dysfunctional schema 5
Negative automatic thoughts, worries and obsessions 6
The role of behaviour 6
Chapter 2 Assessment: An Overview 6
Aims of assessment 6
Measurement 6
Depression 6
Anxiety 7
Panic disorder and agoraphobia 7
Health anxiety 7
Social Phobia 7
Generalised Anxiety 7
OCD 7
Cognitive Therapy assessment Interview 7
Detailed description of the presenting problem 7
Cross sectional cognitive behavioural analysis 7
Longitudinal analysis 8
Underlying assumptions and beliefs 8
Structure of the assessment interview 8
Multiple Presenting Problems 8
Chapter 3 Cognitive Therapy: Basic characteristics 8
Cognitive techniques 8
Behavioural techniques 8
The structure of therapy 8
Relapse prevention 9
Socratic dialogue 9
Chapter 4 Cognitive Therapy: Basic techniques 9
Eliciting NATS 9
Ten methods for accessing NATS 10
Reattribution Methods 11
Verbal Reattribution 11
Behavioural Reattribution 13
Chapter 5 Panic disorder 14
Characteristics of panic attacks 14
Cognitive model of panic 14
Selective attention 15
Safety behaviours 15
Avoidance 15
From cognitive model to case conceptualisation 15
Assessment 15
Deriving the vicious circle 15
Developing the basis formulation 15
Socialisation 15
Sample socialisation experiments 16
Reattribution Strategies 16
Behavioural strategies 16
Verbal Reattribution Techniques 18
Chapter 6 Hypochondriasis: Health Anxiety 19
A Cognitive model of hypochondriasis 20
Cognitive factors 20
Affect/physiological changes 20
Behavioural responses 21
General treatment issues 21
Engagement in treatment 21
From cognitive model to case conceptualisation 22
Socialisation 22
Reattribution Strategies 23
Behavioural experiments 23
Verbal reattribution techniques 24
Dealing with health risk behaviour 26
Conclusion 26
Chapter 7 Social Phobia 28
The nature of Social Phobia 28
A cognitive model of social phobia 28
Anticipatory and post-event processing 28
Processing of the self as a social object 28
Assumptions and beliefs 29
From cognitive model to case conceptualisation 29
Eliciting information for conceptualisation 29
Negative automatic thoughts 30
Anxiety symptoms 30
Eliciting contents of self-processing 30
Ask about imagery 30
Identifying safety behaviour 30
Socialisation 31
Selling self-processing 31
Behavioural experiments in socialisation 31
Sequencing of treatment interventions 31
Modifying self-processing 31
Verbal reattribution 32
The social balance sheet 32
Thinking errors 32
Using rational self-statements 32
Defining fears 32
Dealing with anticipatory processing and the post-mortem 33
Behavioural Experiments 33
Interrogating the environment 33
Overcoming avoidance 33
Working with conditional assumptions and beliefs 33
Conditional assumptions 33
Generating alternative evidence 33
Rigid rules 34
Unconditional negative self-beliefs 34
Positive data log 34
Interpersonal strategies 34
Summary 34
Chapter 8 Generalised Anxiety Disorder 34
The nature of worry 35
The nature of worry in GAD 35
A Cognitive model of GAD 35
Eliciting information for conceptualisation 36
Verbal strategies for eliciting type 2 worries 36
From Cognitive Model to Case Conceptualisation 37
Socialisation 37
Modifying Meta-Worry and negative beliefs 38
Verbal Reattribution 38
Behavioural Experiments 39
Modifying positive beliefs about worry 40
Mismatch strategies 40
Worry abandonment experiments 40
Modifying Cognitive bias 40
Strategy shifts 41
New endings for old worries 41
Letting go of worries 41
Avoidance 41
The problem of co-morbidity 41
Chapter 9 OCD 41
Cognitive models of OCD 41
The Salkovskis model 41
Wells meta-cognitive model 41
Attentional strategies 42
A general working model 42
Maintenance 42
Developing a case formulation 43
Symptom profile and triggering influences 43
Eliciting dysfunctional appraisals 43
Socialisation 44
General aims of cognitive therapy 44
Verbal reattribution 44
Defining the cognitive target and detached mindfulness 44
DTR in OCD 44
Thought action defusion 44
Thought event defusion 45
Identify Images 45
Behavioural reattribution 45
ERP: the behavioural perspective 45
ERP a cognitive reconceptualization 45
Challenging specific beliefs 46
Response prevention: contamination fears 46
Absence of cognition 46
Additional considerations 46
Chapter 1 Cognitive Theory and models of anxiety:
an introduction
Wells uses a Beckian approach, so comes from a cognitivist
stance. The main premise being that client’s
distress arise from a dysfunctional interpretation of events and not the events
themselves. Behavioural responses that
arise from these interpretations have a maintaining factor in their distress.
Ellis sees that should, musts, commands and demands lead to
illogical cognitions and emotional disturbances.
Beck sees anxiety as accompanied by distortions in thinking
and a stream of negative automatic thoughts in the patient’s consciousness
which reflect the underlying activated schema.
Cognitive theory of anxiety disorders
In anxiety disorders there is a fixation on the concept of
danger and the inability of the client to cope. The problem with the anxiety
disorders is not in the affective response but in the cognitive processes which
interpret danger everywhere and then produce the affect. Likewise in the
cognitive process that drives the avoidant behaviour that reinforces the idea
that there is something to be scared about.
There is a vicious cycle that gets created which include the anxiety
symptoms which may themselves pose a threat. They can impair performance and be
interpreted as a sign of vulnerability.
Dysfunctional schema
Beck sees two types of cognition within a schema they are
beliefs and assumptions. Beliefs are unconditional and are taken as truths
about the self and the world. Assumptions are conditional and are the interface
between events and self-appraisal, if I show signs of anxiety then people will
think I’m weak.
Maladaptive schemas are usually seen as being as more rigid
and inflexible than adaptive schemas.
GAD has a belief around inability to cope and the positive and negative
beliefs about worrying. Panic patients tend to misinterpret bodily symptoms
catastrophically.
The beliefs can develop in childhood or can develop in
response to later year’s events.
Assumptions or rules lead a client to behave in certain
ways, if I believe showing anxiety will mean people will think I’m weak, then I
better say little to avoid this.
Negative automatic thoughts, worries and obsessions
NAT’s are appraisals of events and can be tied to a
particular behavioural or affective response.
Beck describe NATS are rapid and can occur outside of the focus of
immediate awareness, although they are amenable to consciousness.
Worry is a negatively affect laden thought chain aimed at
problem solving. NATs can occur in verbal and image forms.
The role of behaviour
When there is an appraisal of danger, then the cognitive
system facilitates caution by a series of self-doubt, negative evaluations and
negative predictions. The somatic manifestation consists of a range of feelings
such as unsteadiness, faintness and weakness. The effect of this according to
Beck is to terminate risk taking and to orient the self towards self-protection. In some areas e.g. social phobia this
response mechanism actually increase the danger that is faced.
The difficulty that these automatic anxiety responses have
for clients is that they maintain preoccupation with the fear and also prevents
its disconfirmation of dysfunctional thoughts and assumptions.
Chapter 2 Assessment: An Overview
Structured Diagnostic interview aims to establish a specific
diagnosis. A Clinical assessment is a semi structured interview that does not
aim at a diagnosis.
Aims of assessment
·
Identification of problem
·
Elicitation of information for case
conceptualisation
·
Determination of present and past levels of
client functioning
·
Objectification of presenting problems, e.g.
core scores.
·
Determine specific goals
o
Therapy goals e.g. reduce panic attacks
o
Process goals, e.g. do cognitive restructuring
Measurement
Depression
·
BDI
·
Hopelessness scale (HS)
Anxiety
·
BAI
·
State-Trait
Anxiety Inventory (STAI)
·
Fear Questionnaire
Panic
disorder and agoraphobia
·
Agoraphobic Cognitions Questionnaire (ACQ)
Health anxiety
·
Symptom
interpretation questionnaire (SIQ)
·
Illness Attitude Scale (IAS)
·
Health Anxiety Questionnaire (HAQ)
Social Phobia
·
Fear of negative evaluation(FNE)
·
Social avoidance and distress (SAD)
·
Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS)
·
Social Phobia Scale(SPS)
Generalised Anxiety
·
Anxious Thoughts inventory (AnTI)
·
Meta Cognitions Questionnaire (MCQ)
OCD
·
Maudsley Obsessive Compulsive Inventory (MOCI)
·
Padua Inventory (PI)
Cognitive Therapy assessment Interview
3 Aspects
1.
Detailed description of the presenting problem
2.
Analysis of cross-section symptom, cognitive and
behavioural details
3.
Longitudinal assessment
Detailed description of the presenting problem
Get SETB information and get a baseline score of frequency
and intensity. Look at the behaviours used to manage the problem.
Cross sectional cognitive behavioural analysis
Look at the maintaining factors, the modulators. Do an ABC
of the problem.
A= Antecedents or triggers, internal or external, so signing
a name in public, or heart racing
B=Beliefs, appraisal of trigger
C=Emotional and behavioural responses, behaviour can be
avoidance
Longitudinal analysis
Elicit historical data that has increased a client’s
vulnerability to the problem, also look to how they have coped with it in the
past.
Underlying assumptions and beliefs
To do a formulation then you need the underlying assumptions
and beliefs.
Structure of the assessment interview
1.
Review objective measures
2.
Explain the structure and the goal of assessment
3.
Ask patient to describe problem
4.
Determine cross sectional analysis, do an ABC
5.
Determine longitudinal analysis
a.
Critical incidents
b.
things you learnt from the past that contribute
6.
Feedback
Multiple Presenting Problems
Get problem list and prioritise. Determine any
interrelationships between the problems.
Chapter 3 Cognitive Therapy: Basic characteristics
Cognitive therapy is conceptually driven that accords to the
case conceptualisation. Socratic questioning both uncovers beliefs and also
challenges them.
Cognitive techniques
CT is concerned with uncovering and challenging
dysfunctional thoughts and beliefs. This
is done by Socratic questioning, CBA, behavioural experiments, exposure, role
play, continuum techniques
Behavioural techniques
Some behavioural strategies aim at modifying symptoms
directly e.g. relaxation and distraction techniques but their key to use is to
change the belief at the NAT and schema level.
Behavioural approaches are exposure experiments, min survey, activity
monitoring and scheduling, manipulation of safety behaviour and attentional
focus.
The structure of therapy
Initial sessions=Focus on alliance, socialisation,
assessment and conceptualisation
Middle phase=treatment planning, implementation, symptom
reduction
End phase=symptom vulnerability treated, consolidation and relapse prevention
The same techniques for modifying NATs can be applied to
schema.
Relapse prevention
1.
Check residual NATs
2.
Escape hatch routines
3.
Check any dysfunctional behaviour
Silly to say but CBT aims at the modification of the
variables of cognition and behaviour, that is all! To do this you need to
unearth the thoughts, rules and core beliefs at play and to see what is the
full detail of behaviours, if you fully understand reinforcement you can think
about substitution.
A problem list gives a list of what is wrong. A goal is
detail of what the client would like to happen. To make a goal concrete it
needs to be described in observable terms.
Socratic dialogue
1.
Ask a question that the patient can respond to
2.
Questions open up subject areas
3.
The patient shouldn’t feel interrogated
4.
The therapist should genuinely attempt to
understand the clients experience
General questions can often be combined with probe
questions, so what did you feel in that situation, is a general question, when
you felt scared what went through your mind is a probe question. Again it can
be nice with questioning to include an aspect of summarising as well, so when
you felt (what you have just told me) how did you feel
General questions open up areas, probe questions get more
detail and often search for worst scenarios or the appraised consequence of not
coping.
Open questions are what, where, when and how, why is as well
but can be answered with I don’t know. You can ask a why question with for what
reason.
You can avoid creating a feeling of interrogation but good
pacing and summary.
Chapter 4 Cognitive Therapy: Basic techniques
Eliciting NATS
Important to distinguish between primary NATS and secondary
thoughts. In anxiety primary thoughts concern themes of danger and fear and
secondary thoughts concern themes of escape, avoidance. To elicit the primary
NAT then you should look at what the feared consequence of not engaging in the
secondary behaviour. There are other
thoughts the clients mentioned which could be seen to be surface thoughts. This
is where the thought is related to the NAT but its relation is obscure, for
example I thought I was going to panic.
NATs are different to the content of worry or intrusive thoughts, rather
it is the NAT about the worry or intrusive thought.
Ten methods for accessing NATS
1.
Worst case scenario
a.
What’s the worst that could happen if (coping
behaviours weren’t done, to the surface thought). It can also be useful if a
client can’t access a thought, but rather just a feeling. So then the question
would be what were you most aware about. Say emotions and behaviours, and you
could say what’s the worst that can happen
2.
Recounting specific episodes
a.
Determine emotional symptom first, then the
accompanying NAT. If you get a secondary
thought then ask did you think anything bad could happen if you didn’t do your
safety behaviour. If NATs are not coming
then eliciting of the emotions involved in the situation can help them access
the NATs.
3.
Affect shifts
a.
Sometimes when avoidance is high, then there
isn’t a recent occasion, in this instance affect shifts give indicators that
there are NATs are present. Some clients
are affective avoidance, cognitive affective avoidance is shown by a tendency
to discuss situations in fine details.
4.
DTRs
5.
Exposure tasks
a.
AS fear is activated then NATS will be present
so that you can use exposure to gain NATs. Often when the feeling isn’t evoked,
then the NAT isn’t so in high affective state these become accessible. So for social phobic exposure, then questions
like how do you think you seem to get an understanding of what they thought
others were thinking.
6.
Role plays
a.
Here the aim is to get the client to indicate an
increase in affect and at this point investigate the NAT
7.
Audio\Video feedback
a.
Record the client then play it back with the
client, when they show or indicate an affect shift then stop the tape and
investigate the NAT. This technique is useful when you can’t break in,
seamlessly into a situation. It is also useful when the affect itself may be
overwhelming
8.
Manipulation of safety behaviours
a.
Reducing safety behaviours will expose to fear
and make negative thoughts more obvious. Sometimes you can decrease safety
behaviours which will increase fear, sometimes you can increase safety
behaviours which will make symptoms worse and bring up NATs. This can work well
with misinterpretations of bodily sensations
9.
Symptom induction
a.
Behaviourally you can get someone to a panic
state by hyperventilation. Cognitively you can bring someone’s intrusive
thought to them and see how they respond. If they refuse, you can find out the
NAT by asking them what the worst that could happen if they had the thought or
bodily sensation
10.
Ask about imagery
a.
It NATs are difficult to get then ask about any
disturbing images.
Reattribution Methods
Durable modification of NATs requires changing the range of
variables for their maintenance at schema level
Verbal Reattribution
Operationalise
First of all you need to operationalize to find out what the
meaning of the NAT is. Indeed it might be secondary, I have to get away,
against a primary NAT of something’s scary.
To operationalize
1.
What does that mean
2.
What would it look life if…
3.
Downward arrow
4.
If you could do x how would things be different
Questioning the evidence
Once you get the evidence then you can reframe, look for
alternative explanations and generally weaken the NAT. You can also look for
thought errors.
1.
Where’s your evidence x will happen
2.
What makes you think that
3.
How do you know that it will happen
4.
What is your reason for believing that
Reviewing counter evidence
1.
What’s the evidence against x
2.
What’s another way of looking at the problem
3.
Where’s the evidence to support an alternative
view
4.
If the worst hasn’t happened why not?
5.
What’s the worst that could happen, what’s the
best that could happen, what’s the most likely
The aim of reattribution is to modify the belief in the
consequences, meanings and implications of distress. So I feel anxious, what’s
the worst that could happen. So instead of challenging I will panic, find out
what would be so bad if you did. This will contain the real fear rather than
the panic and will contain the areas that can be changed.
Labelling distortions
So identify the thinking error in the NAT. You will need to
educate a client in terms of why a thinking error is dysfunctional, once you do
that you can label it and reuse it.
Use of rational responses
After DTR’s, questioning the evidence and use of thinking
errors this should produce a rational response. These can be written on flash
cards and brought to mind when the original dysfunctional thought it had. This
could become a safety behaviour so caution should be exercised.
Cost Benefit Analysis
Two aims
1.
Increase patient motivation
2.
Elicit beliefs and assumptions
Rate the levels of belief in each statement and award
significance points, i.e. you may have only one item but it might be very
powerful
Wells 73
Pie Charts
Standardly used to reduce percentage of belief in
responsibility and catastrophic outcome. So get the list of possibilities, then
start with the most benign one and ask how much this could explain x.
Start with the belief beforehand do the pie chart and then
the belief afterwards
Education
When client’s information is inaccurate, then you can use
education. This can mean internet
research from reputable sites, books and hand-outs, maybe even surveys. To do
this effectively find the inaccurate belief, rate its belief, use education
then rerate this belief.
Continuous presentation of the model
This means both the cognitive triangle as well as the
formulation. This will reattribute the patient as it will understand their
problem in a different light.
Point and counter point
Here the client takes their dysfunctional belief and argues
against you, then you reverse roles.
Both people speak in the first person. Again rate belief for and belief
afterwards.
Imagery techniques
Explore the meaning of the image. If the image stops
prematurely then roll it forward to its conclusion, this technique finishing
out can be powerful as the client may well stop at the worst point. You can also use image modification, so for
instance introduce a best friend or caring adult. This is rescripting I think
Action plans
This means identifying new skills that are needed and
practicing them then making a plan to put them into action. They can then be role played or rehearsed in
memory to debug any tricky situations. Prime to relapse prevention is getting
action plans for difficult situations.
Finish 78
Behavioural Reattribution
Use of exposure in CT
Can be used to challenge NATs and Core beliefs. Can be
exposing to external or internal events.
Behavioural experiments
3 aims:
1.
Socialise
a.
So increase safety behaviours and increase
distress!
2.
Reattribution
a.
They can be reality testing
3.
Modification of affect
a.
Distraction, activity schedules can provide
temporary relief and can break the cycle of distress. Activity scheduling can
show how relief from NATs can improve mood.
Designing and implementing effective experiments
1.
Identify key target cognition
2.
Second key cognitions need to be operationalized
3.
Therapist and client decide which variables are
to be manipulated to test the belief. Do this by examining the patient’s avoidance
and safety behaviours.
4.
The belief must be rated
There are two aspects of an experiment, exposure and
disconfirmatory manoeuvre to unambiguously test a belief.
Stage 1. Elicit the belief, find out the evidence and
challenge to loosen it up for experiment
Stage 2. Identify
situations that elicit anxiety and identify behaviours that prevent
disconfirmation
Stage 3. Share the rationale for the experiment with the
client.
Stage 4. Expose and have the client do the disconfirmatory
move
Stage 5. Discuss the results
So PETS is the way to do experiments
Prepare, Expose, Test
and Summarise
The best way to find the patients disconfirmatory manoeuvres
is to ask them what they do to prevent their feared outcome from coming true.
Schema focused techniques in anxiety disorders
Schema work should be done after work on NATs and
intermediate beliefs and also after symptoms have been reduced. When doing
downward arrow, then if that were true what would it say about you, if that
were to happen. When you look at Meta cognitive beliefs, or type 2 worries,
then you would do a downward arrow about having the belief. So to do a Meta
downward arrow, what’s so bad about having that thought?
Imagery and schemas
Ask for the meaning of the image. Elicit it if it’s been
reported, then once you have the meaning do the downward arrow.
Restructuring of rules, assumptions and beliefs
You can write out the downward arrow with its various stages
and challenge each stage, you can
identify the thinking errors in each stage, or the move between stages.
Beliefs and assumptions guide interpretation of events and
influence behaviours and emotions. Some beliefs we learn from early childhood
and are not helpful to us anymore. Schemas often contain dichotomous thinking
so continuum work is useful to approach them.
Chapter 5 Panic disorder
Characteristics of panic attacks
Panic attacks are described as rapid escalations of anxiety
where there are at least four of the 13 symptoms from the DSM categorisation,
these four or more have to escalate within a ten minute period to be classified
as a panic attack. These symptoms
include palpitations, derealisation, sweating and shaking. Panics can either be situational, i.e. cued
or spontaneous. To be classified as
panic attacks then you need at least two spontaneous attacks. Panic attacks happen in other disorders such
as social phobia.
Panic attacks can happen nocturnally in which case the
client may wake in a state of acute anxiety. Panic common occurs with
agoraphobia.
Cognitive model of panic
Clark\Beck state panic is the client’s fear of certain
bodily or mental events, so stimulus, internal\external are appraised as
threatening and produce anxiety, this in turn leads to physical\cognitive
symptoms that are misinterpreted as threatening and in turn produce more
anxiety. The panic is then maintained increased attention to the body and signs
of panic, heightened self-attention focussing, avoidance and other safety
behaviours.
Selective attention
When you concentrate your attention on certain parts of your
body then they start to feel strange. It
also increases your sensitivity to bodily change.
Safety behaviours
These prevent disconfirmation of the misinterpretation, e.g.
holding onto a table as you think you might faint.
Avoidance
This also prevents disconfirmation what it also does is to
strengthen the dysfunctional belief, as they are reminded about its truth every
time they avoid something
From cognitive model to case conceptualisation
Assessment
This seeks to understand the pieces of the model, what is
the threat, what are the physical\cognitive symptoms what are the safety
behaviours and what is the misinterpretation. So the Clark model is a simple
model that can then be extended by the inclusion of core beliefs which might
explain some of the misinterpretations
Deriving the vicious circle
Go through a panic incident in slow motions: Felt unreal
(trigger) => What if I panic (Misinterpretation) =>Anxiety=>heart
racing (physical symptoms) =>I’m having a heart attack (misinterpretation
Developing the basis formulation
Whilst there are obvious avoidances there may be more subtle
ones, so ask are there any situations that you avoid because of your anxiety.
With safety behaviours then ask are there any things you do
to protect yourself against anxiety generally and then specifically within a
specific panic incident. When you have
safety behaviours then ask how likely it was the feared occurrence would have
happened if the safety behaviours hadn’t been performed.
Socialisation
First build the panic model and ask the client if it fits
and if not why not. Again you can psychoeducate with the rush of adrenalin that
is received from belief of catastrophe, that can cause anxiety.
Sample socialisation experiments
Paired associates
So get the client to note down their anxiety, then to read
word pairs e.g. breathless and suffocate, then get them to dwell on each pair
for 30secs then at the end get them to rate their anxiety, this doesn’t always
work but sometimes it does and that being the case then you can strengthen the
link between thoughts and emotions. If it doesn’t which in many cases it won’t
then you just say that it was an experiment to test cognitive sensitivity.
Body focus
Show how selective attention can increase the awareness of
bodily sensations and how it can enhance them, so get them to concentrate on
their finger. You can also do this with vision, i.e. stare at the back of your
hand and say what happens to the vision and what happens to a feeling of
unreality
Increased safety behaviours tests
Safety behaviours can be manipulated in session to show the
maintaining and enhancing effect of safety behaviours. So if deep breathing is used to prevent a
panic attack, then get the client to deep breathe to see what effects it
produces. Whilst when in a panic
situation they probably don’t breathe as heavily as they might do in session,
when they are having a panic they are a lot more sensitive so smaller changes
will be magnified.
Metaphors and allegories as socialisation
To illustrate the fact that safety behaviours prevent
disconfirmation, then you can use the allegory of the tribe that do a special
ceremony every year to keep the world spinning, if you tell them that’s silly
they say look its worked, how can you show them. So can you discover that nothing bad is going
to happen if you drop your safety behaviours?
If you are going to see safety behaviours aren’t needed then
you need to get the patient to push their symptoms during an attack and not use
safety behaviours.
Reattribution Strategies
Socialisation is important to provide a cognitive set which
enables the processing of disconfirmatory experiences. The key to CT with panic
attacks is to prevent the avoidance and safety behaviours that prevent
disconfirmatory experiences. The key element then is to reduce the belief in
misinterpretations and block avoidance so the feedback cycle that blocks
disconfirmation needs to be broken.
Behavioural strategies
Many of these experiments are panic inductions and are
aiming to challenge misinterpretations.
Guidelines for effective symptom induction experiments
When you provoke panic, you should get as close to the
symptoms experienced in the real panic attack.
The closer these symptoms are then the greater the reattribution that
will happen. So what you need to do is
to be clear on what symptoms the patient has, and what their safety behaviours
are to ensure they don’t do them. You then need their belief what would happen
if they don’t use their safety behaviours, then challenge this with the experiment.
The experiment might be weakened by the presence of the
therapist as a rescue factor, so in this case they might need to be out of the
room when the panic induction happens. Likewise some subtle safety behaviour
might be used during the panic induction
which needs
Hyperventilation provocation task
Use this to produce
1.
Dissociation
2.
Sweating
3.
Palpitations
4.
Breathlessness
So this task is useful in challenging beliefs of, I’m going
to have a panic attack, or go mad. Get them to stand up, you can use disconfirmatory
approaches, to show they aren’t going to fall over, by getting them to walk in
a straight line on one leg. You can also
use a bright light while hyperventilating to produce visual anomalies and
unreality. Do this for four minutes.
Follow this with a text reading exercise to show that vision hasn’t been
impaired. I suppose really the
disconfirmation is around the going mad if I don’t do my safety
behaviours. Again you can get someone to
think crazy thoughts when they’re having a panic induction to see if they can
force it to happen.
Hyperventilating can’t lead to fainting. Fainting only occurs when there is low blood
pressure, although in rare case of needle phobia it can occur. You can prevent
this with the blood phobia through using applied tension during exposure. You should not do forced hyperventilation
when the following medical conditions are present
1.
Asthma
2.
High blood pressure
3.
Pregnancy
Physical exercise tasks
Useful where the concern is about heart rate and concerns
about physical robustness
Chest pain strategies
You can create chest pain by get the patient to fill their
lungs then breathe around full lungs without letting all the air out and after
a few minutes discomfort is likely Again you can take a deep breath and push a
finger between the rib around the heart region slightly to the side of the
sternum, this can give a stabbing pain.
You really need to do this in conjunction with psychoeducation about
chest pain, and about possible causes, through repeated deep breathing and
strain on the thoracic musculature, alternatively the chest if full of delicate
muscles which can become tense when anxious and give rise to chest pain.
Strategies for inducing visual disturbances
Staring at visual girds of black and white will produce
visual anomalies. So when the patient
panics if they stare intently on something they would produce these
experiences. Key here is being able to reproduce their panic feelings
Dissociative experiences
You can get these with hyperventilation or staring at a
grid.
Acting as if experiments
Sometimes there are consequence of panic that are the
problem, such as falling over and how people might react. In this case model
it, then get the client to do it.
Verbal Reattribution Techniques
You must understand the exact nature of the feared
catastrophe and the evidence on which it is based. If there is evidence then do
a detailed analysis as it will quite often be the case say with fainting that
they voluntarily sat down rather than fainted.
Questioning the evidence
Useful to use prior to the experiment. So why hasn’t your catastrophe happened yet.
It is useful to not that reality testing is often someone panicking can’t do so
well, so you can get logical agreement outside the panic but not inside. Thus it’s important to conduct experiments to
provoke the anxiety, the panic to help with this ability.
The panic cognitions diary
The panic diary contains when the panic was, what the misinterpretations
were and the behavioural answers to the misinterpretation. Patterns in panics can challenge the organic
nature that people see as the root of panics. The answer to the negative
thought is only filled in after there has been some behavioural work to show a
disconfirmation.
Education and exploring counter evidence
Patient may believe anxiety can kill, cause insanity or lead
to fainting, but low blood pressure leads to fainting and anxiety increases
blood pressure. Patient may believe they
will suffocate through stopping breathing but breathing is automatic, but
becomes harder if you try to control it.
To challenge people have heart attacks because of anxiety, then how come
as many people with anxiety don’t die of heart attacks, why wouldn’t British
heart foundation advertise it, because its only people with heart problems that
have difficulties like this. Anxiety
produces adrenalin, but adrenalin is used to get the heart started again.
Counter evidence against stroke
Strokes are caused by blood clots starving the brain of oxygen,
but anxiety doesn’t cause blood clots
Counter evidence against panic sending you mad
Anxiety is there to help us respond to fear, and will allow
us to freeze or play dead.
Counter Evidence
Could die of a panic attack
|
Have you ever heard of this
|
Could have a heart attack
|
Adrenaline in panic attacks is used to
start hearts when people have heart attacks
|
Die of anxiety
|
Soldiers don’t die of anxiety
|
Anxiety increases blood pressure and
weakens the heart
|
Temporary increases of blood pressure
are similar to when you play sport but the only problem with this is when the
increase is prolonged
|
Symptom contrast
Get the client to say what the symptoms of panic are and
what the symptoms of fainting are and compare them.
Fainting
|
Panic
|
Everything goes black
|
Things seem fuzzy and blurred
|
Felt sleepy
|
Weakness in legs
|
Things slowed down
|
Heart racing
|
Felt warm
|
Felt warm
|
Dry mouth
|
Survey Techniques
Do a survey with the panic symptoms and make sure you
tightly specify the question
Dealing with avoidance
As soon as you see this in the client then you need to move
on it with ERP.
Prognosis
Finding out how distressing a future panic attack would be
gives a good guide as to what remaining work needs to be done
Chapter 6 Hypochondriasis: Health Anxiety
Whilst the DSM sees this as a somataform distress, it is
anxiety about health and can be treated under the anxiety umbrella. This treatment looks at Salkovskis’ model.
Central feature is the belief that you have a disease on the
basis of a misinterpretation of bodily symptoms. To be a DSM category it has to be present for
6 months and cause significant distress, the belief isn’t of delusional
intensity. There is frequent reassurance seeking from doctors. Hypochondriacs tend to react with immediate
effect from a doctor reassurance but it only lasts a couple of days.
A Cognitive model of hypochondriasis
The main distress is from the misinterpretation of bodily
symptoms. Huge similarity with panic, but panic sees the disaster as immediate,
the hypochondriac, sees it as coming in the future. Hypochondriasis tends to get activated due to
trigger situations that activate health schemas
Salkovskis model
Previous experience
Dysfunctional schemas formed
Critical Incident
Activates schemas
NATS
Cognitive Emotion Behaviour
Selective attention Depression Reassurance seeking
Worry Anxiety Avoidance:
Bodily checking
Self-focus Anger Safety\Prevention
Thinking errors
Physiological changes
Increased arousal
Bodily sensations
Sleep disturbance
The NATs are quite often in the form of images of the body
giving out
Cognitive factors
You get selective attention and hypervigilance on specific
parts of the body and on the excreta of the body. Also you get selective
attention for negative health stories in the media, in the consulting room.
Worry will also be a thought process type as an outcome of hypervigilance.
Common cognitive distortions are discounting of alternatives, selective
abstraction and catastrophising.
Affect/physiological changes
The affective response to misinterpretations is usually
anxiety and these symptoms get mistaken for a symptom of ill health.
Behavioural responses
The maintaining behavioural factors are
1.
Checking
a.
Makes the client more sensitive to change
b.
Can create a bodily problem, e.g. soreness
c.
Continually tells them to worry about the
possibility of their core belief coming true
2.
Avoidance
a.
Certain physical activities
b.
Thought control of illness thoughts
3.
Safety behaviours
a.
Taking supplements and things to ward of the
illness
b.
Excessive resting
c.
Adopting certain body positions, or controlling
certain bodily functions, e.g. swallowing, breathing etc.
4.
Reassurance seeking
a.
From doctors, friends etc., either overtly have
I problem, or talking about symptoms
b.
Reading medical books
Some of the negative implications of illness are
1.
I won’t be able to work, where work is important
to self-image
2.
I won’t be able to look after myself
3.
I will die but still be conscious
General treatment issues
The precise aim of treatment is not only to challenge the patients’
belief that they are ill but to offer an alternative credible explanation. Thus
to socialise to the model is to move their frame of reference from the disease
model. With panic you can expose and
show they don’t go mad or faint. With hypochondriasis you can’t expose them to
their symptoms and show they don’t have cancer, rather what you do is to do
experiments to strengthen the cognitive model.
Engagement in treatment
Treatment can be difficult when the patient has negative
attitudes to health professionals. Indeed a client may engage as they just want
to show they haven’t got a psychological problem rather a physical one.
How to manage this:
1.
Present therapy as a nothing to lose opportunity
to discover what the problem may be. If their current strategies have been
unfruitful, then an alternative maybe useful. Likewise you could just treat the
anxiety, and then sell it on the basis of you can make better decisions when
not anxious and look after your health better.
2.
Challenge patients erroneous perception means
that psychological means it’s all in the mind, whereas their symptoms are real.
3.
Enter treatment with an open mind
4.
Shift the patients focus from signs and symptoms
to emotions and misinterpretations
5.
Say that GP’s will treat them better if they
have ruled out psychological approaches, if their relationship with their GP has
broken down
From cognitive model to case conceptualisation
If panic is with hypochondriasis conceptualise and treat
this first.
Panic=Trigger=>misinterpretation=>anxiety=>bodily
symptoms=>safety behaviours & safety behaviours=>misinterpretation
After that conceptualise either using the standard Salkovskis
model above or an idiosyncratic one that has the maintaining cognitive and
behavioural aspects and the physiology, go via a current incident and ask
questions that pertain to the varies aspects of the formulation.
With big emotions when you want to stay on track, say its
ok, take your time, I can see this is upsetting for you, but... Hypochondriacs
can have superstation’s that protect them from ill health.
Socialisation
Socialising is so important with hypochondriasis as the
client strongly believes a physical explanation but you want to peddle a
psychological one. Behavioural
experiments are important as they have a strongly physical element. If they have panic then it can help to begin
socialising and conceptualising with this.
Sample socialisation experiments
Treatment depends on building a credible alternative model
to the one that they have
Tracking symptoms patterns
Patterns when you monitor may well be present, which can be
used to challenge the disease based model. When you see a pattern firstly ask why if it was a
physical disease they would have this, and if there are any alternative
explanations such as low blood sugar, alcohol withdrawal and stress.
Other questions to elicit patterns
1.
What happens to your symptoms when the doctor
tells you they are not serious
2.
If reassurance makes you feel better, would this
be the case if it was a physical disease
The ‘intelligent disease’ metaphor
If reassurance works how would the brain tumour know that it’s
being reassured. If there are no patterns and reassurance doesn’t decrease the
symptoms then look for places that increase symptoms such as medical
programmes. If this was the case does the tumour have a brain to be able to
respond to new information coming in?
Selective attention experiments
Do a self-attention focussed experiment on a body part that
is known to be normal.
1.
Does it make you more sensitive to how the body
part is
2.
Does it crease new sensations when you pay
attention to it
You can also do other attention focused tests, when going
bald =cancer, then look at bald people and establish if they think they have
cancer.
Reattribution Strategies
Cognitive restructuring can fail when there are strong
beliefs in the physical cause of their distress, so the move is to move away
from looking for signs and symptoms to thoughts and behaviours. Cognitive restructuring can be used but
really only as a loosening of beliefs, which then needs to be augmented with
behavioural experiments to support the cognitive model.
Behavioural experiments
Testing patient predictions
With their avoidant behaviours then you can get a prediction
to test, in what would happen if you didn’t avoid.
Survey methods
Ask others if they have similar symptoms and what they make
of them
Paradoxical procedures
So increase safety behaviours and see what happens, if it
makes the symptoms worse, then if you decrease them, or eliminate them then
they will make them better.
Medical consultation during CT
It is important to know that they do not have a physical
illness, but you will want to get them to suspend any medical tests during the
course of CT. If they refuse, or have
tests booked, then use these to establish how their symptoms change in the light
of reassurance.
Reducing reassurance seeking
Look at the clients’ behaviour, how they seek reassurance
from a variety of sources and get conflicting information which then fuels
their thoughts that doctors are incompetent, which then means they search out a
new one, when it was the sense of ambiguity that was the cause of the
problem. A CBA should be drawn up for
repeated reassurance seeking.
Developing a plan for medical consultation
Encourage clients to develop a diary and to not to recheck
their problem for a week, if their problems are still a concern then they may
decide to seek consultation. The client
should move towards developing a blueprint of when to seek consultation, i.e.
have they waited a week, have they consulted on it before and symptom
persistence.
Self-monitoring
As much as symptom monitoring is useful then monitoring
other variables is important e.g.
1.
Caffeine
2.
Alcohol
3.
Sleep quality
4.
Stress levels
Once this is done chart it back to when the symptoms seem
worse to see if you can see any connection.
Verbal reattribution techniques
Some hypochondriacs will take all session describing in
detail their symptoms seeking reassurance if they do or don’t have an illness,
this will derail therapy and they should be challenged as to what the benefit
of doing therapy like that is. It should
also be explored. One assumption that there is is that the therapist should
know everything about their symptoms to be able to assess their cause, or that
health professionals miss details so given the opportunity to talk, it will be
done in detail
The standard therapeutic drift is away from negative
appraisals and assumptions on to symptoms and signs. To correct this elicit the meaning of
client’s thoughts and meaning of thoughts when they are preoccupied with health
anxiety.
The health anxiety thought record
Modifying the standard DTR is useful by dropping the
evidence for column which would be excessive and adding one for the trigger for
health anxiety. Again adding a response
to thought column is useful, so what did they do about it, what was their
rational response?
Pie Charts
Health anxiety people overestimate of there being serious
causes of sign and symptoms. It is best
to do this after some loosening work, say attention on finger, looking for
patterns etc. To do the pie chart then
list the individual reasons first, then give them percentages most benign
first.
Inverted pyramid
This is closely related to the pie chart and intended to
demonstrate a tendency to catastrophisation, again best done after some
loosening work has been done.
Start with how many people in your city have the same
symptoms
How many still have the symptom at the end of the day
How many people still have the symptom the next day?
And after 3 days
How many people would test their symptoms?
How many people would it be found have something serious?
How many people are told it’s what you are frightened of?
Thinking errors
In the context of the pie chart and the pyramid procedures,
then there is identification of thinking errors, catastrophisation, selective
abstraction and black and white thinking.
In cases like this it can be useful to bring out the thinking error,
label it and ask the client to look for other times that they do it.
Answering thoughts and image modification
The labelling of thinking errors can be used as an initial
step before doing DTRs and image modification.
The therapist can show how images can have effects by checking their
suds level, then getting an image that is anxiety making for them, although not
in health anxiety, getting them to do it and note the response. Patients typically block or suppress their
image before they reach the worst point. Again they may block the cognitive
significance of the image or the image entirely for fear that they will make it
come true.
If images are suppressed then a two stage approach is
required.
1.
Say how blocking it, keeps the fear active as
you can’t challenge the image or the meaning attached to it
2.
Question the evidence of the content of the
image and present corrective information.
This corrective information may then be included into the
image such that when it occurs then the image can run to its natural
conclusion.
The dual model strategy
Draw two columns, one evidence that my problem is physical,
one evidence that my problem is psychological, or better stated, Evidence that
my problem is: I have a heart problem, belief that I have a heart problem. In
the evidence for the heart problem then each item should be reframed.
Dealing with rumination and worry
Some hypochondriacs have long periods of worry in that they
may spend long time thinking about alternative causes of their symptoms and if
the worst is true the implications of this. These worries may because of
positive beliefs about worry, in that if they don’t worry it will lead to
catastrophe, or if they worry they avoid some punishment from god. Conversely
if they think positively it might tempt fate.
Likewise they believe that worrying will prepare them giving them early
warning signs for the disease and therefore preventing it. You can do some experiments around the
thought that thinking positively will cause problems, by getting them to do it
and see what happens. Likewise you can
CR through thinking about how the causal mechanisms from thought to illness
might take place.
You can then look at the advantages and disadvantages of
worrying. Again you can use general GAD
approaches, maybe the worry tree, checking problem orientation, positive
beliefs about worry and intolerance of uncertainty.
Modifying assumptions and beliefs.
There are some assumptions around health anxiety
1.
Punishment from god
2.
Costs of illness such that a family wouldn’t
cope
3.
Loss of respect from others
4.
Existence after death
5.
My body must be symmetrical
6.
Any change in the body is a sign of aging
7.
Stress and anxiety can damage a body
8.
Things in the past have damaged my body
Metaphysical beliefs are not amenable to behavioural
experiments so should be approached with dissonance induction in Socratic
questioning.
BTW:Worms are vegetarian, bodies decompose through bacteria
Imagery techniques
Three levels of intervention
1.
Events portrayed in the image can be modified at
the NATS level
2.
Meaning of having images can be altered
3.
Images can be used to gain access to beliefs and
manipulated to change belief.
If an image is seen as a sign of something, then this can be
challenged.
If an image stops before its worst point then it should be
rolled forward to after the worst point, i.e. finishing out.
You can also rescript the image, so get relatives laughing
at the funeral
Dealing with health risk behaviour
Sometimes health anxiety patients continue with potentially
damaging behaviour e.g. smoking which can be taken as evidence that premature
death is likely. One goal of therapy can be to reduce these risky
behaviours. This can help redefine the
client as a strong healthy person
Conclusion
The main work is around decatstrophising the feared outcome,
looking for how the health anxiety is maintained, working with the core beliefs
of vulnerability and changing the catastrophic misinterpretation of symptoms.
Chapter 7 Social Phobia
The nature of Social Phobia
Social Phobia is the fear of negative evaluation for some
failed performance. The negative evaluation leads to social rejection and loss
of self-worth.
DSM 4 Social Phobia is a marked and persistent fear of
social\performance situations where embarrassment may occur. For diagnosis to happen, then the social
situation must more than provoke a feeling of dread or a desire to avoid, and
this must significantly impair a person’s functioning.
SPCs are worried that they will be seen as weak, stupid,
boring or crazy.
A cognitive model of social phobia
Social Situation=> activate assumptions (I must be funny
to be liked)=>NATs (I’m so boring)=> Processing of self as a social
object (I look stupid)=> Safety behaviours (force jokes) & =>Somatic
and cognitive symptoms
SPC’s have a strong desire to make a favourable impression
but have a strong fear of the ability to do so.
SPC’s see a social situation as dangerous, and that it will lead to
catastrophic consequences in terms of loss of status and humiliation.
This appraisal of the feared situation then provokes an
anxiety reaction, which is then responded to with safety behaviours, processing
the self as a social object and NAT’s. The vicious cycle then evolves as the
reaction to the anxiety decrease the social performance, through having less
cognitive facilities and being less aware of the other and then increases the
anxiety. SP’s generate an image of
themselves that they think others see, but this is generated out of their
introspective data, i.e. because I feel boring therefore I must look boring.
Safety behaviours then both make the anxiety worse and don’t
challenge either the rules that the client has for acceptable social
performance or indeed the feared catastrophe should they break these rules.
Two mechanisms contribute to the creation of the self as a
social object, pre and post event processing
Anticipatory and post-event processing
SPC’s ruminate about upcoming events. They may plan and
rehearse conversations and behaviours. It is at this point that the distorted
self-image as asocial object is activated.
Post mortem processing doesn’t add any new data indeed because the
Social Phobic was self-focussed rather than other focussed, it also means they
ruminate on how bad they felt, and derivatively how bad they must have looked
and it stands to be confirmatory of how bad their performance was.
Processing of the self as a social object
The processing of the self is from an observer perspective
and is constructed from introceptive data. The distorted sense of self as a
social object is the primary target for treatment.
Assumptions and beliefs
The fears of the Social Phobic can be realised, they can be
stared at humiliated or rejected. Whilst these events happen to the
non-pathological the problem with the SPCs is the meaning they attach to
them.
Whilst SP’s misjudge how they look to others then they also
misjudge others, they think everyone else is looking at them and judging
them. Often NATs come out as a
self-commentary, my hands will shake, so it is important to find out what the
consequences are of this, which will be a belief about others, i.e. my hands
will shake and people will think I look stupid.
There are three types of information at schema level
1.
Core self-beliefs, e.g. I’m boring
2.
Conditional assumptions, if people think I’m
nervous then they will think I’m incompetent
3.
Rigid rules for social performance: I must
always sound fluent and confident.
Social Phobia can often stay dormant whilst rigid rules are
maintained and only surface when the rule is badly broken.
The image of the self as a social object can be constructed
visually, I look boring, or aurally I sound weak and pathetic, dependent on
where the self-consciousness is will depend how the safety behaviour manifests
so if you think you sound weak, then you might mentally rehearse what you are
going to say.
Symptoms of self-consciousness are also used as evidence
that the self-image and the NATs are correct. The construction of the self as a
social object also leads to attention being directed to the self and away from
other people.
Safety behaviours maintain the problem and contribute to
·
Heightened self-focus
·
Prevention of disconfirmation
·
Feared symptoms, e.g. mental blanks and sweating
·
Drawing attention to self
·
Contamination of the social situation, i.e. make
the phobic appear unfriendly
Pre and post mortems maintains the preoccupation with
feelings and distorted self-image, it also primes the negative self-processing
prior to social encounters.
From cognitive model to case conceptualisation
Eliciting information for conceptualisation
Either use a recent situation or construct one in session
with the aid of your colleagues.
Negative automatic thoughts
Thoughts occurring prior to the situation and in situation
generally show the same themes. To get these ask about the thoughts when the
feelings of anxiety, or somatic symptoms first occur. You need to get the
meaning and implications of thoughts, what if I sweat, how much do you think
you might sweat, what does this mean, well others will think that I am stupid,
so here there are two aspects how much they think they will sweat and what
others will think of that.
Anxiety symptoms
Anxiety symptoms are maintained by negative appraisals and
are often the focus of negative appraisals.
Anxiety symptoms are either cognitive or somatic and the ones that are
most troubling are the ones that are observable to others, such as quivery
voice or saying something stupid.
It is important to construct an idiographic formulation of
symptoms, so ask, what symptoms bother you most, how conspicuous do you think
these symptoms are and if people notice your symptoms then what would that
mean.
Eliciting contents of self-processing
1.
Explore the contents of the heightened
self-focus, so what does a person think they look like
2.
Question the appraisal of conspicuousness of the
self
3.
Determine if safety behaviours link to any
aspect of the construction of self
So to do this ask:
·
When you were self-conscious what symptoms where
you most conscious of
·
Did you have an impression of how you seemed to
others
·
How did you think you appeared
·
If I could have seen you at the time what would
I see
Safety behaviours are a channel to provide feared self-image
as they are an attempt to manage it so a person who looks down is trying to
hide their face as they think it looks stiff or abnormal.
Two questions to probe safety behaviours.
When you try to conceal your symptoms how do you think that
you look?
If you didn’t engage in safety behaviours how do you think
you would look?
Ask about imagery
The self being seen from the observer perspective usually
exists as an image, thus getting the client to describe this can get a detailed
description of
Identifying safety behaviour
There is overt and covert safety behaviour, so over would be
avoiding eye contact. Covert safety
behaviour is rehearsing what to say before saying it.
To identify safety behaviour then ask is there anything you
do to stop your feared outcome, looking boring, or stupid etc. Do you do
anything else to improve your performance or manage your symptoms?
What is the effect of your safety behaviour?
·
Your self-consciousness
·
Your performance
·
How friendly you appear
·
Your symptoms
If you create an in-session exposure then you need to be
very clear about the active ingredients that create anxiety, so ask for details
about the situations in which it occurs what they have in common and times when
the phobic situation isn’t a problem.
Socialisation
You can use guided discovery to find out where the evidence
is for the rules and assumptions and for the self-image.
Selling self-processing
Do a guided discovery to why they think others are looking
at them, and what they see, where’s the evidence kind of springs to mind.
Behavioural experiments in socialisation
These should demonstrate the effects of safety behaviours on
physical symptoms, on social performance and on self-processing.
So the experiment is to in a social situation then to use
all of the safety behaviours and see what happens, then to drop them and see
what happens. Patients should also be
asked to do another experiment where they monitor themselves and then don’t
i.e. pay attention to others, again they need to monitor this in terms of
consequences in physical symptoms, social performance and self-processing.
Sequencing of treatment interventions
So the sequence would be increase safety behaviours and then
remove and see the difference, taking the focus of attention of the self at the
same time, then to shift the content of the negative self-image.
The model for Social Phobia is complex and should be
presented in stages. For exposure to
happen then the client needs to shift their processing of the self and drop
safety behaviours. Manipulations are needed to reduce negative anticipatory
processing which can get in the way of exposure tasks.
Modifying self-processing
Exposing to the true self-image is accomplished via audio
and video feedback. To do exposure here
then you need to get the client to specifically say what they will look like
before, objectively so, as otherwise they may
activate their self-consciousness and skew the results, saying yep there
it is that’s what I thought I was going to look like . You need to contrast the
self-generated image and the video image. You can also get the client to
exaggerate their fears to get them to see what they look like. Patients can then use rational
self-statements, sparingly so I may feel shaky but the symptoms feel worse than
they look
Verbal reattribution
Negative self-appraisals and the negative thoughts
concerning the reaction of others should be targeted.
Verbal reattribution consists of
1.
Disputing its validity
In some cases there is good reason for their beliefs, so
people are rejecting. In that instance then consider strategies for changing
the situation.
The general strategy is
1.
Where’s the evidence
2.
Where’s the counter evidence
3.
What’s so bad about it if it was true
4.
If one person thinks something does it make it true
5.
Do a continuum
The social balance sheet
To disconfirm NATs you can use a social balance sheet, which
consists of internal evidence, external evidence and counter evidence. This can
show that initially that internal evidence is more used to justify beliefs more
than external evidence, in time the external evidence should come more to the
fore.
Thinking errors
The predominant thinking errors in Social Phobia are mind
reading, fortune telling, personalisation and catastrophising. Social phobics
also engage in projected self-appraisal where they think others hold their
views of themselves.
Using rational self-statements
Once a balanced view via DTR’s has been made then this can
be used as a means of preventing full activation of self-focussed processing,
however this should not be used as another safety behaviour, so they should be
used once, and not repeated. They can be
effectively used to prevent anticipatory anxiety.
Defining fears
Fears are often ill defined, so if they are made precise
then you are in a better place to challenge these fears
Dealing with anticipatory processing and the
post-mortem
Anticipatory processing fuels in situation self-processing,
i.e. both self-image and self-focus. It can also be safety behaviour where
verbal and physical behaviour is rehearsed.
The advantages and disadvantages of this should be discussed. Was it
useful, was it accurate?
Again with post-mortem processing because the situation was
processed from the basis of self-perception it adds little to an understanding
of the situation , again advantages and disadvantages should be looked at.
The final position should be to see that anticipatory
processing and post mortems are not useful and should be banned, although this
is only the case when the processing is from the self, if you are thinking
about what other people said, and to understand them as others then this can be
useful
Behavioural Experiments
Doing cognitive restructuring alone is weak as social
situations are generally ambiguous so hard to disconfirm beliefs, what you need
is a targeted behavioural experiment on one of the beliefs.
Interrogating the environment
So if the client thinks that people are thinking certain
things about him, then establish what behaviour would be a reasonable test of
this. Once you get this established then
you get the client to act in a way that should provoke this, and you can see if
there belief is correct. They may be unwilling to do this, so you can model
this behaviour yourself in a social situation. What this aims to do is to
decatastrophise the feared event and expose the client to it.
Overcoming avoidance
To counter avoidance then expose to the situation without
the safety behaviour which
Working with conditional assumptions and beliefs
Conditional assumptions
Assumptions need firstly clear definition and then to be
operationalized in a testable format. Firstly then evidence and counter
evidence should be reviewed and then a behavioural experiment performed. You
can also get the client to ask probe questions of their audience, I notice I didn’t
say very much during that conversation, how was it for you.
Generating alternative evidence
So a social phobic might think having certain symptoms might
mean people think that he’s weak, but then you can do a responsibility pie
chart to show there are a number of things people might think. Likewise if the
client is afraid people are looking at him because he is anxious, then do
Socratic questioning about some acting strangely.
Assumption If I get my words wrong people will think I’m
inadequate. List all the things an inadequate person lacks, and see how many
your client has
Rigid rules
Social phobics generally have rigid rules about social
interaction
1.
I must fit in
2.
I mustn’t draw attention to myself
These rules can be challenged with the aim of increasing the
bandwidth of acceptable behaviour for a client.
So you can set up a behavioural experiment to challenge them and see the
outcome.
Unconditional negative self-beliefs
For instance I’m stupid, so you can challenge this by
positive data logs, continua
Positive data log
Once the negative belief has been challenged then you can
set up positive data logs, where you can list all the times that the rational
response is justified.
Interpersonal strategies
Sometimes people can over compensate, so thinking they are
dull, they can attempt to be very interesting and have a deleterious effect on
social interactions.
Summary
So social phobia is the desire to be approved of by people
and the fear that you haven’t the performance ability to do this.
It is conceptualised as:
Situation= Social
Rules= I must be interesting to be accepted
NAT=I’ve got nothing to say
Self-Image=Seeing self as boring Person
Emotional Outcome=anxiety
Safety Behaviours=ask a lot of questions
The key to working with this, is firstly to psychoeducate,
then to show that the safety behaviours are fuelling the anxiety, then to
cognitively restructure the rules and NATS through experiment, and do bandwidth
expanding experiments for the behaviour
Chapter 8 Generalised Anxiety Disorder
Much of it about 3% in sample population and lifetime
prevalence 5%. A person to have GAD needs worrying more days that not, over a
range of subjects and find the worry difficult to control and should report at
least 3 of the following symptoms:
1.
Restless, keyed up or on edge
2.
Tension
3.
Difficulty of concentrating
4.
Irritability
5.
Sleep disturbances
6.
Muscle tension
The anxiety and worrying should cause significant impairment
to functioning
The nature of worry
The content of worry for Gad clients is the same as normal
worry, however GAD clients find it less controllable. Worrying is defined as a
chain of thoughts and images, negatively affect laden and relatively
uncontrollable
The nature of worry in GAD
There can both be the worrying activity and also the feeling
of being worried. Initiation of a worry
chain may be voluntary or involuntary, but it is important to distinguish this
aspect from the maintenance aspect. The
maintenance of worrying is under conscious control whereas the initiation is
less so.
A Cognitive model of GAD
Type 1=standard content of worry
Type 2=worrying about worry
GAD clients have positive beliefs about worrying even though
in this model they have type 2 worries. The GAD client may also feel compelled to
reason out the worry to find a solution or to prevent catastrophe. They may
believe that you need to worry in order to keep a level of subjective safety,
however excessive worrying may decrease vigilance.
Positive beliefs about worrying
1.
Worrying helps me be prepared
2.
Worrying helps me solve problems
3.
Worrying prevents bad things happening
Negative impact of worrying
1.
Makes you more sensitive to threat related
information
2.
Generates more worries
3.
Doesn’t challenge the underlying belief of I can’t
cope
Worrying may start as problem solving then become pure worry.
Once type 2 worries set in then this produces more problems:
1.
Behavioural responses
2.
Thought control attempts
3.
Emotional symptoms
So what happens?
Trigger=> Positive beliefs about worry=>Type 1
worry=> negative beliefs activated=> Type 2 worry=>(behaviour, thought
control and emotions)
Behavioural responses
Two types:
1.
Avoidance
2.
Reassurance seeking
Avoidance can be linked with type 1 or type 2 worries. So to
avoid type 1 worries, then you would avoid any triggers that could get you to
Type 1. To avoid type 2 then you would avoid putting yourself in situations
that you could worry. So if your worrying on choking on nuts then you might
chop your nuts up small so you don’t have to worry about it, if you come home
after your partner so you don’t have to sit worrying about her then that’s type
2 avoidance as you’re not preventing the object of worry coming true but rather
you are preventing worry.
Reassurance seeking also aims to interrupt the worry cycle.
Reassurance doesn’t work as it reminds you there is something to worry about,
you can get ambiguous advice therefore meaning you can seek more reassurance
and it only temporarily allays worry and needs to be repeated.
Thought control
As GAD clients have both positive and negative views about
worrying, then worry may be practiced in strict limits that are intended to
maximize the benefits and reduce the costs. However thought control, or worry
control suffers from the enhancement and rebound effect. Again worry itself may
be cognitive or emotional avoidance. Some patients use distraction to avoid
worrying, however this prevents disconfirmation of the negative beliefs about
worrying.
Emotion
Type 1 leads to increase in anxiety and tension, or
decrements if the goals of worrying are being met. However with the anxiety
around type 2 then these escalate and prove that type 2 concerns are true. If
these get too much then a panic attack may ensure, linking panic attacks and
GAD.
Eliciting information for conceptualisation
Verbal strategies for eliciting type 2 worries
1.
Guided questioning
2.
CBA
3.
Identifying control behaviours
4.
Experimental strategies
Guided Questioning
·
What is it that bothers you most about worrying
·
Do you think anything bad will happen if you
worry
·
What would it mean if you can’t control your
worries
·
What’s the worst that can happen if you don’t
control your worries
·
Could anything bad happen if you stopped
worrying
CBA
This will give the positive and negative beliefs about worry
and the negative should give the type 2 worries.
Identifying control behaviours
Are there any thought control behaviours to stop worrying, e.g.
reassurance seeking, rationalising. What would happen if you didn’t do these?
Experimental strategies
Clients may be unwilling to talk about their fears about GAD
so elicit it in the room to see what happens and how they respond to it.
Questionnaire assessment
·
GADS (Generalized anxiety disorder scale)
·
TCQ (Thought control questionnaire)
·
PSWQ (Penn State Worry Questionnaire)
·
WDQ (Worry Domains questionnaire)
From Cognitive Model to Case Conceptualisation
So the type 1 worry creates emotions, physiological
responses, then type 2 creates these and thought control and behaviours.
Socialisation
Ask if you were to stop worrying about x would that solve
your problem. Client would usually say no there would be something else to
worry about. Therefore you can argue would it be better to deal with what keeps
the worrying going rather than an individual worry. Once this idea is in place
you can suggest part of the problem that keeps worrying going is what you think
of worrying. Everyone worries, why is it
a problem for you, should lead to some negative appraisals of worrying, some
type 2 stuff.
Worrying Thought Record
This has a column for worry about worry and can help the
type 2 worry awareness.
Socialising experiment
Suppression experiment
So do a white bear experiment. This should lead to a banning
on control behaviours.
What if experiment
Some patients report worrying as an attempt to solve
problems and increase coping strategies. The aim of this experiment is to show
how a worrying style of thinking exaggerates problems. So start with something bad happening and
follow it with what if something else bad happened and take it on to utter
disaster. Ask how useful this is with reducing stress and helping you cope, ask
about what emotions were produced.
Selling worry as a motivated strategy
At a later stage in treatment you need to show the patient
that their use of worry to solve problems is supported by their positive
beliefs about worry. Do this by a CBA.
Modifying Meta-Worry and negative beliefs
Here the aim is to challenge type 2 beliefs.
Verbal Reattribution
Questioning the evidence
What makes you think worrying can make you go crazy.
Operationalize crazy, find out the evidence that worry can take you there. You could also try a behavioural experiment
to make yourself crazy by worrying.
Questioning the mechanism
Question the causal mechanism that sees worry leading to
catastrophe, so for instance, worry creates stress, stress causes people to have
mental breakdowns, so therefore all soldiers have mental breakdowns. Humans
have evolved from highly stressful situations how could this have been the case
if stress makes you go mad. Individuals suffer stress but don’t go mad.
Challenging uncontrollability appraisals
Worry is complex and demanding mental activity and is
generally displaced by competing mental activities. As soon as you see this
then you can see the controllability of worry. So are you worrying when you are
just about to go to sleep, do you worry when you are having a conversation with
a friend. So ask when they worry and when did eventually stopped, then show
that something took their mind off it, so worry must be controllable. Look though at the problems of trying to
control worry.
Education (normalising worry)
Worry is a normal phenomenon, most people worry on a weekly
basis. In a study at least 79% of people
worry over a two week period.
Dissonance techniques
Positive and negative beliefs about worry provides some
dissonance that can be used for motivation. So expose and highlight the two
contradictory beliefs that the client holds.
Then ask which one would the client go for within the contradiction.
Imagery techniques
Images can be a worry trigger, in this case they can be
finished out, or rescripted, but care needs to be taken that this doesn’t
become a source of reassurance or safety behaviour.
Behavioural Experiments
Controlled worry periods
Borkovec thought that worry is learned as a coping response
to an initial fear reaction and represents a cognitive reaction to avoid future
trauma. However Borkovec saw worry as
uncontrollable. So what Borkovec is arguing for is that worrying has got
stimulus control, in that if we see fear, or to prevent future trauma we worry.
So what the worry period is to do, is to increase discrimination ability and
restore the power of when to worry and when not to.
Stimulus control technique as advocated by Borkovec is
1.
Identify worrisome thought
2.
Establishment of a 30 minute worry period to
take place at the same time and location each day
3.
Catching oneself worrying and postponing the
worry to the worry period and replacing the worry with attending to the present
moment
4.
Use the 30 minute worry period to worry about
ones concerns and to engage in problem solving to eliminate those concerns
Wells criticises this as it introduces worry control which
may support type 2 beliefs and that he believes worry can be useful. For Wells the worry control period is used to
challenge beliefs about the uncontrollability of worry.
Wells worry control period
Set up.
Worrying is a complex and demanding thought process. Whilst
it may seem uncontrollable this is to the case, as you can see when you stop
worrying for instance when driving and something happens, or a phone call from
a dear friend.
1.
Set up a 15 minute time during the day when you
can worry
2.
When you first notice that you are worrying
postpone your worry by telling yourself that you can worry in your worry
period.
3.
When that time arrives if you feel like worrying
then worry about the things you have previously thought about
You should rate the belief in the uncontrollability of worry
before and after.
Loss of control experiments
You can also use a worry period to challenge the belief I
could lose control, so get the client to worry as hard as they can and see if
they can lose control.
Pushing worry limits in situ
Get clients in vivo to exaggerate their worries and to
record the reaction of others and on the situation again to challenge their
beliefs that they will go mad, lose control etc.
Abandoning thought control
Get a behavioural experiment where the client worries
without their safety behaviours to show they are unnecessary. Once this has
been succeeded then thought control should be banned
Surveys
The possible negative responses of others towards worry can
be challenged through surveys.
Modifying positive beliefs about worry
Standard verbal reattribution techniques can be used
1.
Questioning the evidence
2.
CBA
Mismatch strategies
Implicit in the assumption that worries prepare you for the
future is that worries provide an accurate view of the world. Therefore you should explore the content of
worries and what actually happens, although you would need to go back in time a
bit to find the worry that relates to the therapy period.
Retrospective mismatch
Think back to a time, e.g. before an important social event
when worry occurred, identify what the content of worry was and what actually
happened. The power of this is to
describe in as much detail as possible. When this is pulled out, then get the
description of the actual event. Of course this can be prone to self-fulfilling
prophecies, but chance worth taking.
Prospective mismatch
You can get the client to enter worried about situations,
with a clear understanding, through homework of what was going to happen, then
a comparison with what actually did. This can also reverse avoidance.
Worry abandonment experiments
Worrying more can also challenge the positive beliefs about worrying.
So have a problem and worry a lot more about it than usual and see if the
problem is fixed, or that mental performance is increased. Compare this against
a non-worry period.
Modifying Cognitive bias
Individuals are hypervigilant for type 1 and 2 worries. So if the individual repeatedly searches for
data consistent with his worries, get them to search for information
inconsistent with their worries. If the client repeatedly searches for
worrisome information then when finds it worries, ask them why they don’t just
do it once.
However searching for inconsistent evidence shouldn’t be
used as a way of averting the danger of the type 1 worry, it may still happen,
what you need to understand is that the probability of it will diminish.
You can also do experiments to see how hypervigilance affects
the sense of vulnerability, does doing it a lot make you feel more vulnerable
or less.
Strategy shifts
New endings for old worries
Owing to long standing use of worry, i.e. negative cognitive
rehearsal, clients have limited experience of other ways of responding to
mildly uncertain or negative events. The
aim here is to look for more positive outcomes from the mildly uncertain
events, the aim here is to make the thinking process more flexible so good and
bad events can be considered.
Letting go of worries
Acknowledge the presence of the worry and let it go, you
could even say to yourself, here’s a worry it doesn’t mean anything so let it
go, or you can think of the leaves on a stream, or trains in a station.
This is best used later on in therapy so it doesn’t become a thought
control technique
Avoidance
Avoidance could be about type 1 or type 2 worries so you
need to know which to be able to do exposure on them
The problem of co-morbidity
Worry is a characteristic of most emotional disorders. If depression is comorbid then it should be
treated first as it will interfere with treatment.
Chapter 9 OCD
OCD is ego dystonic where the client thinks there obsessions
and compulsions are unreasonable.
Obsessions and compulsions are part of normal human behaviour what
distinguish the diagnosis from normality is the distress\disruption levels.
Cognitive models of OCD
Perfectionism=McFall, inflated responsibility=Salkovskis,
cognitive deficits in decision making Reed, thought action fusion Rachman, meta
cognitive beliefs Wells.
The Salkovskis model
Salkovskis brings together previous thinking around inflated
responsibility, belief about thought and action with behavioural principles and
the primary determinant of OCD being the misinterpretation of the intrusion. So having an intrusive thought is like
performing the action, so not neutralising the thought is akin to doing the
action. Negative appraisals of the
intrusion are amplified in depressed states due to the accessibility of the
negative schemas.
Inflated responsibility is key in Salkovskis, but Purdon
argues this is an over-emphasiation and it is the metacognitive beliefs on the
need to control thoughts that should be given special consideration. Wells
argues that cognitive beliefs concerning the danger and power of intrusive
thoughts and the attentional strategies used by obsessionals are significant in
OCD.
Wells meta-cognitive model
Intrusions activate beliefs about the significance of the
intrusion. Rachman introduced TAF. Having TAF beliefs will result in thought
control behaviours, and actions to attempt to invalidate the
thought\action. Thus a person has a
thought and therefore thinks they have done it, or it will happen. Under
standard conditions they would refute this but under triggering conditions it
seems more believable. People with TAF
blur internality with externality.
Whilst some behaviours are designed to neutralise the
thought others are intended to relieve worry.
Neutralising behaviours are designed to reduce stress but may well
become a source of distress themselves as they are seen to be time consuming,
irrational and uncontrollable.
IN summary Wells believes that the central aspect of OCD are
the beliefs connecting thought and action and positive and negative beliefs
about worry and neutralising. In short a meta-cognitive position, no surprise
there then.
OCD clients have an intrusion, then dwell on it to dispute
its validity, which increases its significance to the point that it has to be
neutralised with compulsion. The compulsion breaks the worry chain through
distraction and is associated either with the initial intrusion or meta beliefs
about it.
Attentional strategies
Attentional strategies are seen to maintain OCD. The attentional strategies are those of
monitoring for certain thoughts. They argue that internal events are given
priorities to external events, so even if something is done, the imagined
consequences of not performing it are fantasised about. To make more important
fantasies and doubts, reduce the reliance on memory, and confidence in action.
A general working model
Trigger=> activates meta beliefs=> Appraisal of
intrusion<=>Beliefs about rituals
||
Behavioural response and emotional response
There are two types of behavioural response, positive and
negative. Positive to prevent the content of the intrusion happening or to
prevent the bad feeling that comes from the intrusion. The negative is my
compulsions are out of control I have to stop them.
Maintenance
Emotional
The feedback loops
that happen are the anxiety produced by the trigger, the appraisal and the
behaviour then goes to feed the negative interpretation that something bad is
really happening. So anxiety can support the idea that I’m out of control, or
that my appraisal of my intrusion is true.
Again a lowered emotional state can make you more prone to triggers and
more sensitive to obsessional intrusions. Again the production of anxiety might
support the idea that one is being overwhelmed by the feelings generated by
your intrusions and you must perform your compulsions.
Behavioural
They prevent the disconfirmation of the metabelief about the
intrusion as they keep the client safe. If the behaviour is thought suppressing
then you get maintenance through the rebound and enhancement effect. Checking
can set up associations between a variety of things and the original intrusion.
Compulsions provide a continual preoccupation with obsessions.
Developing a case formulation
In order to develop a case formulation you need to
1.
Establish trigger situations
2.
Establish precise detail of obsession and compulsion
3.
Establish meaning of the obsession and meaning
of the compulsion
Symptom profile and triggering influences
It is useful to find out what profile the triggers have so
what is the pattern during the day. You
can also find it hard to elicit the intrusive thoughts as the client is only
aware about their compulsions. You can do this through self-monitoring and
behavioural tests.
Eliciting dysfunctional appraisals
Appraisals of intrusions
·
When you had your intrusion how did you feel
·
When you
felt x what went through your mind
·
Did you have any negative thoughts about the
intrusion
·
What does it mean to you to have these
intrusions
·
Could anything bad happen to you as a result of
these intrusions
·
What would happen if you couldn’t get rid of
these intrusions
Appraisals of behavioural responses
Check the appraisals and beliefs in the behavioural
responses
·
What would happen if you didn’t do your compulsions
If you get compulsions without obsessions it suggests that
the compulsions are not aimed at reducing danger around a specific thought but
it doesn’t mean there is no appraisal. It could mean that the compulsion is
aimed at reducing emotions or that there are emotional consequences of not
doing the compulsion. So there could be a feeling of distress and the appraisal
that if they don’t do their compulsion then this distress will be unmanageable.
There can be feelings generated around doing the compulsion which can again
form into a feedback loop. I do my compulsions to manage negative feelings but
my compulsions create negative feelings.
·
Do you do anything to prevent the catastrophe
happening from your intrusion
·
Negative outcomes
o
Could anything bad happen from following your
compulsions
o
What’s the worst that could happen from following
your compulsions
·
How much control do you have over your
compulsions
·
Positive outcomes
o
Do your compulsions keep you safe in some way
·
Have you tried to stop, in which case why
·
What happens to your thoughts and feelings when
you are prevented from following your compulsions
So just to recap you need to
understand the obsession and what the appraisal is. The obsession might be a
thought or an emotion. Then you need to understand the compulsion and what the
positive and negative aspects about it are. You need to understand what the
trigger situations are and you need to find out the pattern of when the OCD
relationships happen.
Socialisation
To socialise share the conceptualisation! You can do the
white bear to show thought suppression doesn’t work. You can also look to see if the client
thought the intrusions were normal and not harmful then would there be a
problem, them saying yes opens up the meta cognitive space.
General aims of cognitive therapy
The aim in this framework is to reduce the negative
appraisal of intrusions. There can also
be a worry component around OCD and a negative belief in its uncontrollability
in which case you should use worry windows, to show that worry is controllable.
The overall aim is to get the client to
generate a detached acceptance of either an intrusion or a worry as not
anything that needs to have anything done about.
Verbal reattribution
Defining the cognitive target and detached
mindfulness
So the client is encouraged neither to worry nor to
neutralise their obsessional thought. This can be either done with a worry
window or a letting go of the thought. A reduction in symptoms using this
approach can be used to show it is the appraisals about the intrusions rather
than the intrusions themselves that are the problem.
Clients can be unwilling to stop their worry or neutralising
tied up with negative thoughts of what may happen. These negative beliefs should be surfaced and
challenged.
Once the role of negative appraisal is accepted, you should
normalise intrusive thoughts in that 90% of people have them.
DTR in OCD
Separating worries about intrusions from intrusions helps
clients discriminate their types of thought. The dtr in ocd has Situation,
trigger, Intrusion, emotion, worry about intrusion, answer to worry and rerate
emotion. DTRs don’t change beliefs overnight so should be repeated.
Thought action defusion
So reattribution:
1.
How does thinking cause action
2.
Is the person who is concerned about what they
think, going to be concerned about how they act
3.
Have you been unable to neutralise a thought,
did you act?
So TAF can be worked on by
1.
Questioning the mechanism
2.
Incongruence that if you care about thoughts you
are likely to care even more about action
3.
Historical review, where compulsions haven’t been
performed did the feared action take place
Thought event defusion
Thought event fusion is where you think it and it will
happen\is true. So I think I have knocked someone over.. Thought action fusion
is where you think it and you will do it, I have a thought about harming kids
therefore I will do it. With TEF there’s the belief my thought is true, then
the compulsion happens to reduce the worry.
To socialise to TEF you need to look at the tacit belief of
how catastrophic it would be or how responsible they would feel if the thought
were true. You can then weaken the type 1 worry as the level of awfulness if it
were true is seeming to make its truth stronger, do you have thoughts that you don’t
believe, what’s the difference.
So the therapist should work at the meta-cognitive level,
challenging why they think this thought is valid and get the client to give up
their counter-productive invalidation strategy.
·
What prompts you to your compulsion
·
If you didn’t believe your obsession would you
do your compulsion
·
How does checking affect your confidence in your
memory
·
How does your checking affect your ability to
distinguish between imagined and real events
Rational responses can be this is just a thought, just a
fantasy and not reality and I don’t need to reason with it, detached
mindfulness. Indeed you could in session do ERP and get them to think the
thought and not to respond to it, just to think about it as a thought.
Identify Images
An image can be a trigger, in which case examine the
evidence of where the evidence is that makes the image real. If feelings
predominate then use this to explain the concept of emotional reasoning.
Behavioural reattribution
ERP: the behavioural perspective
This is that the compulsions reduce the fear\anxiety of the
obsessions and are thus negatively reinforced. So they prevent habituation occurring
with anxiety. So expose to the fear allow anxiety to reduce of its own accord
and become habituated. Steketee showed 40-75% improvement on target symptom
measures. ERP doesn’t work so well on
pure obsessions. ERP doesn’t work so well with people with higher depression
levels and who show higher belief in their ideas (Foa 1979)
ERP a cognitive reconceptualization
In wells framework compulsions prevent disconfirmation of
misinterpretation of the obsession. Compulsions also maintain preoccupation
with the obsession indeed some may increase them. Compulsions may also deplete cognitive
resources needed for meta cognitive operations needed for belief changes.
So this ERP exposes to the obsessional thought, to see that
nothing bad happens, suspending the compulsion also means reducing its maintaining
and enhancing effect.
Challenging specific beliefs
·
Increase frequency/intensity of obsessions to
challenge feared outcome
·
Test specific fears, so if a client fears they
will stab someone but doesn’t want to then get them to be closer to knives
·
If a person thinks that thinking certain thoughts
will make them come true, then get them to have bad thoughts about you and see if they come true, ensure though
you know what their safety behaviours are
Response prevention: contamination fears
Use a magic solution that has some of the toxic element in
but is invisible so can’t be washed off.
Absence of cognition
Some clients report a general feeling of distress associated
with not performing their compulsion. The first step is to determine the nature
of the distress. There may be fears of the distress not receding or an
inability to cope and these should be explored. There may be images or impulses
that are the trigger obsession.
In the case of distressing urges or images, ritual
prevention can be sold on the basis of teaching greater emotional tolerance.
As the client tries to eliminate it without success you can
try to enhance it, to see what they can tolerate. So if they have an image get
them to turn the brightness up on it. You can also do a paradoxical twist on
intrusions seeing them as an opportunity to practice acceptance and something
to be welcomed, this will reduce the type 2 problems.
Additional considerations
Rituals and emotional avoidance
Some clients have very time consuming rituals and you should
look for them to have other ways to structure their day. Some clients don’t have
any obsessions to speak of, in which case you should find out what would happen
if they didn’t do their compulsions.
Doubt reduction
The occurrence of constant checking has been linked with
memory deficits, however the evidence is inconclusive, rather it is more likely
checkers show reduced confidence in their memory. There are techniques to enhance memory, such
as making an image of that which you did, or to use coloured shapes to indicate
certainty and to remember the coloured shape when they do their action, but
these seem to miss the point that checking increases doubts about memory.
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