EMOTIONAL COPING TECHNIQUES

Among the strongest emotions: Anger, fear and depression can cause a great deal of personal stress. Catharsis is the release or active expression of these emotions, sometimes in negative ways (breaking things in anger), but more appropriately in positive ways (verbalize it, act it out, work it off) and other anger management or fear reduction methods.

Anger Diffusion: To prevent destructive and unhealthy effects of long-standing grudges or persistent anger experiences, it is important to break the cycle, to become aware of when you get angry or irritated and to find a way to calm yourself (e.g. count to 10, take several deep breaths and reinterpret the provocation). Then reinforce (reward) yourself for achieving the composure and continue warding off other unproductive stress thoughts.

Automatic Stress Thoughts: Day dreaming, mind wandering, and other unstructured thinking are some examples of automatic thoughts. These thinking patterns often feature topics of a stressful nature, and tend to gravitate toward negative and distressing outcomes. For example, anticipating an upcoming job interview usually leads to worry about inadequate preparation and about the disappointment and embarrassment associated with failure.

Print out and examine the list of Automatic Stress Thoughts.

What is your strongest emotion? (anger, fear) Explain.

Print out and do the Worry Inventory Checklist.

Worry: What do you worry about most?