About this module
Toxic stress is physically and emotionally overwhelming. Stress caused by the sociopath (psychopath, narcissist) curtails your ability to deal with the problems they cause. You may first need to extinguish the multi-alarm fire of emotional crisis, and in this course, Dr. Liane Leedom teaches you exactly how to do it.
The STOP skill means, stop, take a step back, observe and proceed mindfully. When your emotions are trying to make you act without thinking, this skill helps you stay in control.
The TIP skills, such as placing your face in cold water, help you change your body chemistry quickly, calming your extreme emotions and racing mind.
Finally, analyzing and changing your own behavior helps you problem-solve for the future.
Highlights
- How toxic stress prevents you from seeing reality
- Crisis survival skills and how to use them
- Pros and cons of acting on crisis urges
- Behavior change for repeated distressing events
- Tips for using behavior change strategies effectively
Learning objectives
After completing this course, you should be able to:
- Recognize and alleviate the toxic stress in your life
- Use the STOP skill to stay in control in stressful situations
- Use the TIP skills to calm your body when it is roiled by emotion
- Analyze your own behavior — what you’re doing and not doing
- Increase the probability of behaviors you want
Program agenda for Recovery from the bodily effects of toxic stress
Class 1
- Goals of distress tolerance
- Overview of crisis survival skills
- When to use crisis survival skills
- Stay in control with the STOP skill
- Evaluating the pros and cons of acting on crisis urges
- Changing your body chemistry with TIP skills
- Using cold water, step by step
- Paired muscle relaxation, step by step
- Effective rethinking and paired relaxation, step by step
Class 2
- Strategies for distracting yourself from distress
- Self-soothing and grounding
- Body scan meditation step by step
- Strategies for improving the moment
- Sensory awareness, step by step
- Behavior change for repeated distressing events
- Analyzing behavior and planning for problem solving
- Chain analysis for understanding behavior
- Chain analysis step by step
- Missing links analysis — why did behavior not occur?
- Strategies for increasing the probability of behaviors you want
- Strategies for decreasing or stopping unwanted behaviors
- Tips for using behavior change strategies effectively
- Identifying effective behavior change strategies
You are emotionally overwhelmed but the demands of life must still be met. You have intense pain that can’t be resolved quickly. This is when you need crisis survival skills to help you slow down, calm down and think. Dr. Liane Leedom teaches you what to do.