Helping Clients Deal with Adversity by Changing their Attitudes: A Concise Therapist Guide

Description

Helping Clients Deal with Adversity by Changing Their Attitudes: A Concise Therapist Guide provides an outline for therapists wishing to help clients deal with life’s adversities by encouraging them to change their attitudes. Divided in two parts, this book first provides a thorough, but concise, introduction to attitude-based approach to therapy, then applies these ideas to therapy. By redefining established concepts of ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’ beliefs in terms of the ‘rigidity’ and ‘extremity’ of client attitudes, Professor Dryden puts forward a language and an approach that is more acceptable to both clients and therapists. Helping Clients Deal with Adversity by Changing Their Attitudes will be a great asset to clinical and counselling psychologists, counsellors, and psychotherapists as well as trainees in these areas. It will be particularly of interest to CBT practitioners and students who do not cover REBT in their training, but are looking for a concise guide to how its attitudinal focus can be understood and applied in clinical practice. Cover Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Table of contents Introduction Part 1 The role of attitudes in psychological disturbance and health in the face of adversity Introduction Adversity Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy The role of attitudes Rigid versus flexible attitudes Rigid attitudes Flexible attitudes A brief overview of the consequences of rigid and flexible attitudes The case of Frank The importance of inferences Frank holds a rigid attitude Frank holds a flexible attitude The consequences of rigid and flexible attitudes The consequences of rigid attitudes Secondary attitude consequences of rigid attitudes Awfulising attitude Discomfort intolerance attitude “Devaluation of self / others / life” Emotional consequences of rigid attitudes Behavioural consequences of rigid attitudes Other thinking consequences of rigid attitudes The consequences of flexible attitudes Secondary attitude consequences of flexible attitudes Non-awfulising attitude Discomfort tolerance attitude Unconditional acceptance attitude towards self / others / life Emotional consequences of flexible attitudes Behavioural consequences of flexible attitudes Other thinking consequences of flexible attitudes Notes Part 2 Helping clients change their attitudes towards adversity Introduction Understanding-oriented techniques to promote intellectual insight Have the client examine attitudes in pairs The true-false standpoint The sense-nonsense standpoint The healthy-unhealthy standpoint Encourage the client to make a commitment towards their flexible / non-extreme attitudes Ask the client which attitude they would teach their children Techniques to promote emotional insight: Helping clients to develop conviction in their flexible and non-extreme attitudes Cognitive techniques The rigid-flexible dialogue Help the client identify and respond to doubts, reservations and objections Behavioural techniques Encourage the client to make a commitment to act Encourage the client to make their attitudes, behaviour, talk and associated thinking work in harmony Other methods and principles Use imagery rehearsal Understand the change process Expect that the first response to an adversity will be problematic and respond to it in healthy ways Attitude dissonance Feelings are often the last to change The practice principle: It’s like going to the gym Helping the client to deal with the thinking consequences of rigid / extreme attitudes The client can use the TCs to identify and respond to their rigid/extreme attitude and then develop and rehearse... The client can respond to these TCs and then return to the rigid/extreme attitude that spawned them and respond... The client can acknowledge the existence of the TCs, but not engage with them Notes Appendix 1: A guide to the eight emotional problems and their healthy alternatives with adversities, basic attitudes and associated... Appendix 2: A list of inferential (cognitive) distortions, their realistic and balanced alternatives, descriptions and examples Appendix 3: Arguments to help clients examine their rigid/ extreme and flexible/ non- extreme attitudes Suggested further reading References Index