Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a type of psychotherapy that helps people gain insight into how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are connected. Understanding the concept of CBT can help a client better understand their reactions to triggers. People often react quickly when they feel triggered or overwhelmed, and the [...]
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Stress is a natural part of life. Everyone experiences stress, and when it goes unaddressed, it can affect a client in therapy in many uncomfortable ways. Oftentimes, clients do not realize the link between their stress and other symptoms, like irritability, anxiety, sleep issues, and depressed mood, so educating clients o [...]
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Cognitive distortions, or thinking errors, are common patterns of thinking that can influence a client's mental health. They are habitual ways of interpreting situations in ways that are often inaccurate or unhelpful. Cognitive distortions can reinforce negative thoughts, trigger strong emotional reactions, and lead to unh [...]
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A key part of using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help clients cope with their triggers is teaching them about cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are common patterns of thinking errors. They can strongly influence how a person feels and responds to stressful situations. By learning to recognize and challe [...]
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Practicing effective self-care is an important part of mental health. Without self-care, people cannot grow and learn how to cope with the stress of their daily lives. It is particularly important to practice self-care when struggling with your mental health. Self-care helps promote skills to maintain healthy coping and me [...]
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Thought patterns influence how people interpret difficult situations. When a client practices healthy thinking, they can build healthier reactions to distressing issues. Errors in thinking, known as cognitive distortions, can cause us to misinterpret situations and act in ways that do not reflect our true character. Cognit [...]
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Staying in touch with emotions can be difficult, especially when they are triggered by unexpected or complex experiences. Some clients are aware of the reasons behind their emotional responses, while others struggle to identify what is contributing to how they feel, which can make it challenging for them to cope. When cl [...]
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An important practice in therapy is reflecting on the progress and growth the client has made while working on themselves. Reviewing key points of change between the past and present can help encourage clients to internalize their progress and build confidence in their ability to take care of themselves. Reflecting on th [...]
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Cognitive distortions are errors in thinking that can cause a person to misinterpret situations and see themselves in a negative light. They are powerful and can affect a person's self-esteem, mood, and reactions to challenging situations. Teaching a client in therapy about how cognitive distortions may be impacting their [...]
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When working with clients on methods to boost self-trust, self-esteem, and emotional resilience, it is important to ensure that they are aware of their protective factors. Protective factors promote confidence, hope, and trust in their abilities to care for themselves in times of trial, challenges, or confrontation with t [...]
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Managing anxious thoughts can be challenging, especially without proper tools for coping. Anxious thoughts can be triggered by many things, like prolonged stress, low self-esteem, or unexpected issues. When left unmanaged, those thoughts can affect confidence, motivation, and the ability to cope with trials healthily. Cl [...]
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Stress is a natural part of life. We all feel stressed sometimes, whether it is due to work, relationships, or dealing with life's challenges. Some people can manage stress well, while others struggle to cope. Stress can lead to other issues, like anxiety, depression, low motivation, and relationship challenges, so it is [...]
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It is important to have a list of goals and objectives for the client and therapist to work toward when beginning a new therapeutic relationship. Setting goals creates a foundation that helps the client and therapist stay on track when helping them address their mental health needs. Goals also empower clients to stay con [...]
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Ruminating or negative thoughts are a common struggle for clients in therapy. Having difficulty controlling overwhelming thoughts can be frustrating for a client, as it contributes to ongoing challenges with anxiety, depression, and more. Ruminating thoughts are distracting and prevent clients from feeling comfortable and [...]
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Emotional eating is a common way clients in therapy cope with stress. When life becomes overwhelming, food can be a relief from uncomfortable feelings. While emotional eating can temporarily provide feelings of relief, it has long-term consequences that can impact a client's mental health. Learning about emotional eating [...]
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In therapy, a client learns a lot about their emotions and gain perspective on their life challenges. Through self-exploration, they learn different ways to cope with the challenges they face. Therapy teaches coping skills that help clients relieve their symptoms in real-life situations. They learn valuable life skills i [...]
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Emotional eating is a common stress reaction. Most of us may turn to food for stress relief or reward sometimes, but using food as a means to cope can hurt clients and affect their mental health. People who emotionally eat face potential consequences, including eating disorders, medical issues, and worsening anxiety and d [...]
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People can develop unhealthy eating habits for different reasons. Some people use food as a reward, punishment, or comfort. Others may struggle with maintaining their appetite or overeat when feeling stressed. Establishing and maintaining a healthy diet is a critical part of mental health. Without a healthy body, a client [...]
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The first step to managing stress is learning how to recognize stress. People who are stressed often ignore their symptoms. Some do not even know they are experiencing symptoms of stress until they are taught how to identify symptoms in therapy. Stress is a normal part of life, but ignoring its symptoms can cause long-te [...]
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Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) offers useful tools for teaching clients in therapy how to handle distressing or upsetting situations. DBT teaches healthy coping skills for distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and the reduction of mood swings and panic attacks. It provides tools that help a client learn how to c [...]
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Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has become a leading form of treatment that mental health professionals use when working with their clients. Part of the process of CBT is focusing on interaction between a client's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. A tool that is used to help explain how these three components affect a [...]
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Teaching emotional intelligence skills is important when working with young children. Often children have feelings they may not understand, which makes it difficult for them to express how they are feeling and if they are upset. This struggle can cause confusion and frustration for caretakers. It also affects the child's [...]
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Helping a client build self-esteem can be a challenging process. Many people in therapy suffer from low self-esteem, which contributes to other challenges they may be facing. Low self-esteem makes anxiety, stress, relationships, and depression more difficult to cope with and holds clients back from reaching their full pot [...]
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Cravings to engage in dangerous, impulsive, or indulgent behaviors, like drinking, using drugs, or overeating, are difficult things for a client to work through. Each time a client experiences a craving or a trigger to engage in something they know is not good for them, they are confronted with the conflict between doing [...]
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When it comes to teaching children healthy behavior it helps a great deal to have a system in place in which the child can watch their progress grow. Such tools for positive reinforcement help motivate children to continue to grow and work hard to learn healthy behaviors and responsibility. Especially when working with c [...]
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People who suffer from mental health challenges may find themselves having a hard time staying on track with a healthy diet. Whether they are inclined to eat too much or not enough, it can become difficult to maintain healthy eating habits while struggling with mental health. Clients in therapy can benefit from a food jo [...]
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Sometimes we get caught up in the day and forget to focus on what we are feeling. This can cause us to miss important signs of our changing mood, which can affect our ability to use healthy coping skills. When we are struggling with understanding our mood patterns it helps a great deal to have a method of tracking change [...]
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Having coping strategies is an important part of maintaining good mental health, but sometimes a person can develop unhealthy coping strategies without realizing the impact they have on their quality of life. Unhealthy coping strategies may be effective, but that does not necessarily mean that they should be used to cope [...]
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Being aware of a client's triggers is a critical component of learning how to cope with symptoms of mental health challenges. Triggers are situations that can cause a person to react in an unwanted or unhealthy way. Triggers can cause a person to struggle with unwanted thoughts, feelings, and impulses. They are especiall [...]
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Anxiety is an oppressive emotion for people to feel. People with chronic anxiety tend to suffer from cycles of anxiety, panic and avoidance. It is not uncommon for these people to not realize the cycle of anxiety they fall into, nor how the cycle affects them. In order to learn how to manage anxiety, a client must first [...]
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Change takes time. Change can be challenging for people to accomplish, and it is often something that people resist. Change is scary, but can also be exciting, healthy, and liberating. Some changes cause pain while others cause relief. Whatever the need is for change, it can be difficult for a client to facilitate change [...]
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Managing symptoms of mental health conditions can be challenging, especially for clients who prolonged mental illness or clients who are new to managing their mental health and wellness. It is common for clients to give in to their symptoms and allow them to take control, which can feel good at the moment, but causes a wo [...]
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People who suffer from anorexia nervosa face many challenges with their self-esteem and body image. It is a condition that causes a person to go to extreme efforts to not gain weight. For a patient and their families, it can seem like the disorder only affects body image, but that is not the case. People who suffer from a [...]
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Rational emotive behavioral therapy (REBT) is a form of therapy that can be very effective in helping clients. It offers a means to gain perspective on challenging situations. REBT suggests that the way people understand situations causes them to be reactive. The concept of REBT implies that a situation is neither positi [...]
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Goal setting can be a great method of promoting good mental health. When people set goals for themselves, they set themselves on the path for success. While that path can be challenging at times, goals can give people a sense of purpose and value. A great way to help people who are struggling with their mental health is [...]
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A big part of therapy is learning how to experience one's own emotions. It can be hard to experience emotions and learn how to be comfortable with feeling them. It is not uncommon for people in therapy to struggle with identifying and embracing how they feel. This can cause them to transfer all of their feelings into one [...]
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Everyone has stressors in their lives. When people are in therapy, different stressors can serve as triggers for different conditions. Most people in therapy will have significant triggers that can cause them to think, act and feel in ways that are not healthy for them. An important part of therapy is helping clients ide [...]
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Catastrophizing is a common issue that people face in therapy. It is a term that refers to people feeling anxious because they feel the worst will happen in a challenging situation. Catastrophizing causes people to feel a great deal of anxiety. It often causes people to act irrationally and in a way that worsens the situa [...]
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