Stress Inoculation

1
Stress Inoculation

• Summarised for revision

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2
Biomedical models

• These view the person receiving the therapy as a
  patient.
• This implies they receive support from the
  therapist.

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3
In contrast

• Psychological models view the person receiving
  the treatment as a client.
• It offers a more participative approach from
  client and therapist

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4
Meichenbaum and Cameron

• Applied a cognitive-behavioural approach.
• The mind is retrained to either
• Reduce perceived demands
• Learn to cope with the demands

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5
Stress inoculation

• Three phases
• Conceptualisation
• Skills training
• Real-life application

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6
Conceptualisation

• Clients relive the stressful situation and
  analyse their responses.
• Once they learn to recognise their trigger they
  can be more realistic about the demands.

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7
Applied example

• What is it about the examination process that
  causes students to be stressed?
• The circumstances?
• Fear of personal failure?
• Presence of strangers?
• Feelings of inadequacy?
• Anything else?

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8
Skills training and practice

• Clients are taught strategies for learning to
  cope
• Specific (make sure revision is adequate)
• Non-specific e.g. Relaxation techniques (make
  sure that reactions under examination conditions
  are controlled)

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9
Real life application

• The client now puts the training into a real life
  situation
• Contact with the therapist continues, but the
  relaxation itself acts as reinforcement in any
  case

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10
Evaluations (AO 2)

• Strengths
• It deals with causes and symptoms
• It works well
• Weaknesses
• It takes time and money and a high level of
  commitment from the client
• It is always difficult to change habits developed
  over a lifetime

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11
Give a brief account of and evaluate one
psychological method of stress management.

• Note You may need to criticise this method in
  the light of other methods, so dont just rely on
  these notes, but do your own additional research.

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