483 - Enhancing Hardiness and Resilience

Sponsored by TherapyNotes.com

Manage your practice securely and efficiently. Two free months of TherapyNotes with coupon code “CEU”Hardiness and Resilience

Presented by: Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes

Executive Director, AllCEUs

Host: Counselor Toolbox

Objectives

- Define resilience

- Identify characteristics that make people more resilient and ways we can enhance those characteristics

- Define Hardiness

- Examine what hardiness is important to resilience

Resilience

- Resilience is the capacity to bounce back

- Characteristics of resilient people:

- Awareness of and minimized vulnerabilities

- Healthy self-esteem

- Strong social support system

- Self-awareness

- Self-Efficacy

- Problem Solving Skills

- Practice acceptance

- Can tolerate distress

- Have an optimistic viewpoint

Awareness of Vulnerabilities

- Emotional Distress

- Emotional Eustress

- Mental Distress

- Mental Eustress

- Physical Distress

- Nutrition (poor nutrition, dieting, too much caffeine)

- Sleep

- Exercise (pain, exhaustion)

- Pain

- Illness

Vulnerabilities cont…

- Social Distress

- Social Eustress

- Environmental Distress

- Environmental Eustress

Self Esteem

- Ability to provide validation and acceptance of self

- Identify personal strengths and positive characteristics

- Separate who you are from what you do

- Explore cognitions about:

- Why other people’s opinions matter

- Attributions

Strong Social Support System

- Social supports are our greatest buffers against stress

- Relationships can be one of the greatest causes of stress

- Identify characteristics of healthy vs. unhealthy relationships.

- Explore ways to nurture and enhance healthy relationships.

- Identify ways to deal with unhealthy people

- Learn about temperament and complimentarity

Self-Awareness

- Temperament

- Needs

- Wants

- Values (Truly important, driving forces)

- Goals

- Is what I am doing getting me closer to or further away from what is important to me

- Physical and emotional state in the present

- Triggers (positive and negative)

Self-Efficacy

- Believing in one’s own capacity to accomplish goals (effectiveness)

- Identification as a survivor not a victim (Locus of control)

- Hardiness

- Commitment: Motivation

- Control: Realistic understanding of what is within one’s control

- Challenge: Not too easy, but not overwhelming. Exciting opportunity

Problem Solving Skills

- Ability to conceptualize problems

- Willingness to seek out help

- Motivation to actually take action

- Don’t bring me a problem unless you have an idea for at least one realistic solution.

Acceptance

- Sometimes things just are…

- Unfortunate

- Inaccessible

- Unchangeable

- Willingness to accept life on life’s terms without

- Judging

- Trying to change the unchangable

Distress Tolerance

- Ability to feel a feeling without having to react

- “I am angry”

- “I am having a feeling of being angry”

- “I am angry but can choose whether or not to stew in it”

- Note

- There are no “You made me” (victim stance)

- There is no active attempt to change it at this point

- Feelings are there to tell us something. Fighting them or nurturing them only prolongs them.

Optimism

- Finding the silver lining

- Failure = Learning opportunity

- Relationships = Compassion

- Rainy day = Watering the plants

- Life change = Opportunity to find a new direction

Summary

- Resilience is the capacity to bounce back

- Resilience is a quality we can enhance in our clients while also helping them reduce distress.

- Characteristics of resilient people:

- Awareness of and minimized vulnerabilities

- Healthy self-esteem

- Strong social support system

- Self-awareness

- Self-Efficacy

- Problem Solving Skills

- Practice acceptance

- Can tolerate distress

- Have an optimistic viewpoint