Resources

Here is a list of psychological concepts, exercises, and worksheets that often come up in client sessions.

• The 3 C’s: Courage, Competence, Confidence
• Control: What is and is not within your control
• Demandingness words (should, must, have to)
• Emotional Processing
• Linguistics, Negations, & Conflated Words
• Mindfulness: Basics
• Reaction vs Response
• Socratic Method
• WH Question Words

The 3 C’s: Courage, Competence, Confidence

Courage is the willingness to take bold action despite feelings of fear or uncertainty. It involves stepping outside of one’s comfort zone, taking risks, and confronting obstacles head-on. You may feel afraid, but you do it anyway.

Competence is having the necessary skills, knowledge, and abilities to perform a task or achieve a goal. You build competence by being courageous, repeatedly.

• Competence forms the foundation of confidence because when individuals are proficient in what they do, they are more likely to feel confident in their abilities.
• This is done through behavioral practice.

Confidence is the belief in yourself, your abilities, and your judgment. It’s about trusting that you have the skills and resources needed to succeed, even in different or challenging situations.

🔝

Control: What is and is not within your control

Dichotomy of Control Worksheet

Your intended behaviors are within your control. You can learn and practice to think, act, and respond differently. You can condition yourself to create a space between reaction and response through practice. The consequences of your behaviors, however, are outside of your control.

• What you intend to think about (and you may get distracted).
• What you intend to feel (and you may feel something else).
• What you intend to do (and something else may happen).
• How you intend to respond to thoughts, feelings, and other people.
• Your intended behaviors only occur within the present moment (not the past or present).

Everything other than your intended behaviors is outside of your control. People encounter resistance when they try to control something beyond their control. If you want the weather to be different than it is and become upset or frustrated because it isn’t what you expected or wanted, you are creating that upset or frustration by trying to control something (the weather) that you cannot control.

• What others feel, think, say, and do is outside your control.
• How other people interpret what you say or do is outside your control.
• How others react or respond to you and the world is outside your control.
• External events, circumstances, and situations are outside your control.
• The past and future are outside of your control.

Reference Note: The Dichotomy of Control originally came from Stoicism. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) adopted this and called it the Circles of Control, but created a Venn diagram with the center representing what one can influence, along with what one can and cannot control. Then, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which is a form of CBT, came up with the Control vs. Acceptance Framework, which focuses on promoting psychological flexibility and encouraging individuals to distinguish between what they can control and to take value-based action, and what they cannot control, which requires acceptance.

🔝

Demandingness Words

Words of demandingness are “should” statements. When we tell ourselves, others, or are told by others that we “have to… need to… should… must” do something. There is an expectation or demand from ourselves, society, religion, community, family that we do things a specific/certain way. We are being told what to do in an absolutistic or rigid kind of way. In turn, we may avoid or resist doing that thing; get frustrated; and have a sense of failure if we do not do it… or if we do not do it “perfectly”. A couple things…

• What we resist, persists.
• There is no such thing as perfection.
• Absolutistic thinking is a rigid thinking process that views there is only one correct or universal way of thinking, behaving, or being; that one must, should, completely, never or always follow exactly. It is rigid, meaning, there is no flexibility or options.
• The category term, words of demandingness, comes from Rational Psychotherapy, aka REBT, and are viewed as irrational beliefs that lead one to experience emotional distress.

Linguistically, words of demandingness is called a modal operator of necessity. Modal operators are a mode of operating or being in the world. It is a deductive pattern – it brings things down to a point – and it forms the rules we live by.

Solution: to add options, flexibility, into the thinking by adding words of possibility and probability that allow you the individual to take on responsibility or ownership of the action. By using words such as could, would, might, maybe, may, can, am, try, will, want, etc. one introduces flexibility to their thinking. One can use the negation of the above words, as well. E.g., might not, won’t, do not want, can not, etc.

Demandingness Examples

• I should learn Spanish –> I want to learn Spanish
• I have to go to the store after work –> I am going to the store after work
• You have to call your mother –> You get to call your mother
• I really need to finish this assignment –> I am choosing to finish this assignment

🔝

Emotional Processing

1. Awareness: Become aware that you are feeling something.
2. Acknowledgment: Acknowledge the feeling sensation without judgment and name what you’re feeling.
3. Acceptance: Accept that, at this moment, what you are feeling is real, and accept it without judgment.
4. Understanding: Once you identify the emotion, work to understand its meaning and significance, exploring why you feel this way and what the emotion is trying to communicate.
5. Mindful Deliberation: Reflect on what led you to what you are feeling and the interpretations, assumptions, or appraisals you made.

🔝

Linguistics, Negations, & Conflated Words

The field of linguistics, including cognitive linguistics, neuro-linguistics, etc., studies the structure, meaning, and use of language and how we learn and are influenced by language. This includes how language shapes human thought processes and beliefs. Things like story telling, metaphors, sociocultural factors, and vocabulary can influence and change how we perceive and interact with the world. The words we use are reflective of our beliefs and how we construct our subjective reality.

One important concept is that our brain does not process a negation. Don’t think of an elephant. Do not think of a pink baby elephant in a tutu. Don’t do it. Don’t touch the stove. In order to understand what not to do, we have to understand what is being said. Some people will visualize the elephant or touching the stove to understand the concept being mentioned and then have the cancel it out in their mind. Whatever we are talking about is what we are eliciting in someone’s mind – including our own – even if we are saying not or don’t in front of it. So, discuss what you do want to discuss, think about, talking about, or do. Use “positive language” instead of negations or “negative language”.

Some common words that are conflated:

• Expect vs. want: I expect Maryland weather to be unpredictable because of my past experience with Maryland weather. I want it to be a nice, warm, sunny day. I may not get what I want.
  • An expectation is predictive behavior based on past experience and available information. It is a projection or forecast of how a person or thing will act, react, respond, or what a situation will be like.
  • A want is what one would like to possess or have happen. It is self-contained within the individual – it is their wish or desire. The individual has to act to bring it to fruition (if it is within their control).
  • When we confuse what we expect to happen and what we want to happen, then we take things personally and get upset.
  • When we want things to be a certain way that are outside of our control, we get frustrated or upset. E.g., if I want it to be 70 degrees and sunny and I open the door and it’s cold and rainy then I may get upset because reality is not as I want it to be. But I cannot control the weather, so it is silly for me to get upset and being angry punishes myself.

🔝

Mindfulness: The Basics

Mindfulness Overview Worksheet

Mindfulness is the act of shifting one’s awareness to the present moment experience. It involves recognizing and acknowledging the reality of a situation – what actually is.

Shawn outlines the mindfulness process in four steps.

1. Awareness of the present moment
2. Acknowledge that this is reality
3. Accept what actually is
4. Mindful deliberation

A few mindfulness techniques

• Body scan technique
• Five senses grounding exercise
• Three-step mindfulness exercise
• Moving awareness exercise

🔝

Reaction vs Response

Reaction vs response: The difference between a reaction and a response is a space. There is a pause; a moment of conscious awareness.

• A reaction is an automatic, unconscious, programmed action that is triggered by a stimulus. Reactions are involuntary thoughts, emotions, and movements that are impulsive and outside of one’s control.
  • E.g., someone broke a glass and you yell at them. Did you choose to yell at them or was it an automatic behavior?
  • E.g., someone broke a glass and you checked to see if they were okay. Reactions are not inherently good or bad, they just are.
• A response is a deliberate action in a given situation. One filters their thoughts, considers their options, and chooses how to express themselves, if at all.
  • E.g., someone broke a glass and you noticed yourself getting upset so you took a breath, counted from 5-to-1, and then checked on them to see if they were okay. You learned how to control yourself through training, practice, and self-awareness.
• How to create a space:
  • Behavioral training which includes mindfulness to cultivate self-awareness and stillness, along with practice to re-condition how you act.
  • Taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling creates a space.
  • Deliberation creates a space between reaction and response.

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

🔝

Socratic Method

The Socratic Method Steps Worksheet

The Socratic Method is used to understand what someone believes and why they believe it by identifying the topic of discussion (and their beliefs) and then breaking it down into small parts through clarification and open questions to understand them and ensure you are both on the same page.

• Clarification
• Examining the Evidence
• Considering Alternatives
• Reflection
• Summarization

🔝

“WH” Question Words

Most language is directional. Meaning, when we communicate, we direct someone’s attention. When a question is asked, our brains tend to go on a search to find an answer. If it is a general, non-exact or non-literal question, then our brain does a “transderivational search”. This is when someone’s mind is looking through their memories and mental representations to find a possible meaning, answer, or match. There are patterns to certain questions we ask, such as the “WH” question words, aka interrogatives. Each “WH” question operates as a directional cue. So, be aware of what you are asking and why. What’s your outcome?

• “What” questions elicit the representation, structure, definition, or identification of something; it’s about content and specifics. It encourages someone to provide details or to clarify the situation.
  • What kind of x do you want? What do they need? What would happen if x?
    • You are asking to identify, define, or to gain clarity on something.
• “How” questions elicit a process, method, steps, means, or the epistemology (knowledge) of something. It encourages exploration to identify descriptions of the way something occurs, is achieved, or is known.
  • How do you know?
    • This is called “the reality question”. It elicits the evidence of what someone says, believes, or thinks they know to be true, i.e. the epistemology of experience.
  • How can you make this situation better?
    • You are identifying a strategy.
  • How do you feel (about the situation)?
    • This calls for self-awareness and self-reflection on what someone is experiencing – what is happening – a process.
• “Why” questions elicit the justification, reason, motivation, cause, or meaning of something. Use it to search for a reason, but use caution when asking “why” to someone who is angry or depressed because they will give you all the reasons to justify why they are feeling that way, which will in turn prolong that emotional state. Asking someone why keeps them in the state that they are in. Why questions can sometimes lead to defensiveness, as it often invites a justification or rationalization for someone’s behavior.
  • Why did you do x?
    • It asks for the justification for doing x.
• “Who” questions focuses on identity or relationships; they identify a specific person or group.
• “When” and “Where” questions elicit temporal and spatial coordinates of something, respectively.

🔝