Lesson 2: The Tools You Need to Succeed

Lesson Goals

Learn about the ABCX model and how to apply it to your life.
Learn what Cognitive Behavioral therapy is and how to apply it to your life.

Introduction

Now that we have talked about the basics of stress and coping we wanted to go into some greater study of a few tools that help to explain stress and what can be done to help you. This lesson isn’t to be confused with the lesson involving coping methods, which will follow directly after this one, but think of it as additional help.

ABC-X Model

As Boateng shares with us, the ABC-X Model was created by Reuben Hill around the time of the Great Depression (2017). As Hill studied families during this time he put together this model, which has been expanded by McCubbin to form the Double ABC-X Model, shown below.

A first look at this chart may seem overwhelming, even stressful, but we promise that it isn’t as scary as it looks. As you can see, this chart is broken into three sections: Pre-Crisis, Crisis, and Post-Crisis, or for the visual learners circles, a triangle, and squares. Hill’s ABC-X Model ended with the crisis or triangle, and McCubbin added the rest to show what could happen if stress piled up.

In the Pre-Crisis/Circle stage an individual or family experience a stressor (a). This could be something as small as a paper cut or spilled milk, something as extreme as the death of a loved one or a new baby coming, or anything in between. When one experiences stressful events, for good or for bad, they look to two things: the resources available (b) and how the stressor is perceived (c). Beneficial resources could be family, professionals, or community groups. How one perceives the stressor involves the outlook on life one has, as well as how major of an issue it is. If one feels like there are plenty of resources to rely on and feel confident in overcoming the stressor, a crisis (x) is avoided. This is the goal for everyone: to deal with stress in such a way to avoid crisis.

A personal experience with Hill’s portion model occurred when I got into a little fender bender not too long ago. I had just dropped my husband off to his class when I was driving through a parking lot to go home. The driver in front of me turned right and pulled over just outside of the exit, and since I was turning right also I was watching for cars on my left. When the coast was clear I pulled out and hit the other car’s back bumper (left side if you care to know). This was an obvious stressor (a) because it had been many years since I had been in an accident, and it’s terrible being at fault for any accident, no matter how small. A police officer (b) was conveniently in that same parking lot, so the other driver and I were able to get to exchanging information right away. The other driver (b) was very reassuring, and I was able to call my husband (b) who came to my aid. It took me a little bit after getting back home to completely calm down, but I was able to rely on my husband’s comfort and cheerful attitude to help me realize that it was ok. While my perception of the stressor wasn’t very positive (c), I had strong resources that helped me avoid a crisis. -Jessie’s Story

To finish off with McCubbin’s part of the model, it is assumed that a crisis occurred and wasn’t fully resolved. When a crisis isn’t completely or entirely resolved pile up (aA) occurs, which is when more stressors are added to the situation and the stress literally starts to pile up (“I need to pick up the kids from school and cook dinner and prepare my Relief Society lesson, and I have to get it all done today!”). Similar to the first portion of the model, as one tries to cope with multiple stressors they need to look at their resources (bB), some of which may be new, and their perception of the crisis and new stressors (cC). As time goes on the individual or family start to adapt to everything that’s going on. If they are able to adapt well, they eliminate certain stressors or positively cope, and this is known as bonadaptation. The individual or family comes out on top and is able to face similar problems head on. If, however, the adaption goes poorly, maladaptation (xX) occurs. This leaves the individual or family in a worse position than the start; relationships are strained and health may suffer.

Boateng writes that prolonged family crisis impacts not only the family dynamic, but also roles and responsibilities of family members. If one spouse is feeling particularly stressed and is in crisis mode, the other spouse or even some of the older children may need to step up and fulfill responsibilities that the stressed spouse/parent normally does (Boateng, 2017). Families need to work together and communicate effectively in order to handle stress well.

The following clip gives an example from a movie of what a stress in life can feel like, and how ineffective communication can affect the relationship.

https://youtu.be/5q3QERdvXSc

Reflection Questions:

Please reflect on these questions in your journal or discuss with a friend of spouse.

What are some resources available to you when you are experiencing stress?

What are some positive and negative reactions that you have when you are experiencing stress?

In what ways is the stress in your life like a roller coaster? Like a merry-go-round?

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

We learned about the physical effects that stress can have on our body, now we will focus on just how important our thoughts are and how they influence the way that we respond to the challenges that we face. The brain is affected by the thoughts that we have, we can learn how to literally change the way that we think. We can turn a negative experience into a positive one just by changing our perception. The book titled “When Panic Attacks” David D. Burns, M.D tells us how this happens. Chapter 1 of his book is titled, “I think, therefore I fear.” Dr. Burns tells us that we can change the way that we feel without medicine. Have you ever experienced anxiety, fear, shyness, panic attacks, phobias, worry, nervousness, uptightness, public speaking anxiety, compulsions and obsessions, or depression? If so then CBT can help you. (Burns, 2003)

Reflect on this question in your personal journal before moving on.

When you have felt anxiety or any negative emotion, why do you think you felt that way? What emotions are behind the feeling? What are you telling yourself?

Dr. Burns tells us that when we feel “anxious, worried, panicky, or afraid, you’re telling yourself that you’re in danger and that something terrible is about to happen.” People have panic attacks when they feel as if they have lost control. Dr. Burns then says, “If you ask yourself about the thoughts that flood through your mind when you’re feeling worried or nervous, you’ll tune into the frightening messages that trigger your feelings. The thoughts will seem completely realistic, but they’re not. When you feel anxious, you’re telling yourself things that simply aren’t true.” (Burns, 2003)

Please view this entire video of Dr. David Burns. He is speaking at a TEDx event about cognitive behavioral therapy. He did an amazing job and at the end of the video he gives a heartfelt personal experience that he had from using CBT in his own life.

Click on the link and watch this video until the 8 minute mark. Feel free to take notes while watching this video. https://youtu.be/H1T5uMeYv9Q

Please reflect on these question in your personal journal.

Have you struggled with depression or anxiety?

What kinds of thoughts are you telling yourself?

Are you willing to give cognitive behavioral therapy a try?

Now please watch the rest of the video.

Reflection

Please reflect on these questions in your journal or discuss with a spouse or friend.

What thoughts did you have while viewing the video?

What are some takeaways you have from the video?

What aspects of the video do you want to apply to your own life?

Now in your journals, please make a list of the accomplishments that you have done in your own life.

Next time you have negative feelings, We encourage you to write your thoughts down.

Research to Back it Up

A study was done to examine the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on anxious youth. The results of randomized clinical trials showed that child focused cognitive behavioral therapy significantly reduced anxiety in 50-80% of youth. The children who had family dysfunction and parental frustration at pretreatment did not show as much improvement. Studies show that 80% of anxious youth have parents with an anxiety disorder (Podell & Kendall, 2011).

Parents and children can all benefit from the wonderful effects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. When parents are healthy and happy, their children are more likely to be happy and show greater success.

Another study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on spiritual well being and emotional intelligence of elderly mourners living in nursing homes. Spiritual Well-Being questionnaire and Emotional Intelligence questionnaire were used for data collection. The results showed that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps confront the emotional drain and grief acceptance, increasing the spiritual well-being and emotional intelligence of the elderly bereavement (Khashab, Kivi, & Fathi, 2017).

Application

This worksheet was created by Brigham Young University Idaho. Please download this and complete the exercise. This will help you apply these principles to your own lives.

Emotional Distress Worksheet - Document is at the end of the lesson.

Mood Logs- Now complete this mood log regarding something that you currently have negative feelings towards. Feel free to do as many mood logs as you want and as often as you want. -Document is at the end of the lesson.

Conclusion: Please reflect on these questions in your journal. And then share some of the things you learned in this lesson with a friend or family member who will benefit from it.

*How has this lesson helped you?

*Can changing the way we think help alter our perceptions of events we once viewed negatively?

*How will you apply this lesson to your everyday life?

*Now we ask that you get your personal journal out and write down at least one positive thing that is connected to a trial that you experienced that day. Remember to do this every evening.

*Please take a minute and complete this end of lesson survey by clicking on the link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3LNBFYZ

References

Burns, D. B., M.D. (2003). When Panic Attacks. Dublin: Newleaf.

Boateng, W. (2017). Family stress dynamics, domestic violence and their combined impact on perceived health status of women in Ghana. Gender & Behaviour, 15(1), 8393-8405.

Khashab, A. S., Kivi, H. G., & Fathi, D. (2017). Effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on Spiritual Well-Being and Emotional Intelligence of the Elderly Mourners. Iranian Journal Of Psychiatry, 12(2), 93-99.

Podell, J., & Kendall, P. (2011). Mothers and Fathers in Family Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Anxious Youth. Journal Of Child & Family Studies, 20(2), 182-195.

Student Name:

EMOTIONAL DISTRESS WORKSHEET

You have read the articles regarding the physiology of stress and anxiety. Now it is time for you to apply the principles in examining some stressor response you have experienced recently.

Choose a fairly recent event, one in which you felt genuinely distressed—strong feelings of grief, anxiety and/or unhappiness. It needs to be an event which you recall with enough detail for this to be a meaningful learning activity in preparation for what you will soon read. It would be particularly valuable if this situation were one affecting your family, but it can be something you experienced without direct family participation.

What was the actual stressor event or circumstances to which you were reacting?

Briefly describe the event or precipitating circumstances. (Ex: Someone I thought might be a likely marriage partner stopped returning my messages and then told a friend that he would rather not go out again.)

[Replace this text with a short, non-judgmental description of what took place.]

What emotions were you experiencing while you were distressed regarding the event or circumstances?

[Replace this text with your comments.]

What were your thoughts regarding the event or circumstances?

Write—word-for-word—at least five thoughts that went through your mind regarding the precipitating events and/or the emotions associated with the experience. (ex: "This is horrible! I am never going to get past this. No one will ever be as good a match for me. I just want to drop out of this stupid school!")

Thought 1