Welcome to the Mind Campus Online Trauma Resourcing Course

Session 3

Welcome to your third OTR session. We’re really glad you’re here and using this resource in your trauma recovery. We would like to encourage you to work through all the sessions, even if you find resistance to some of the assignments. Resistance one of the effects of trauma and can defeat us in our recovery.

We suggest that you complete a session each week for six weeks. If you can, set aside a two-hour window on the same day each week to do this work. We know that schedules change and life happens. The important thing is not to rush this process and not to stop either! This is your time, your space and your recovery.

During this session, as well as tasks completed during the session, you will receive worksheets to be completed between this session and session 4. Completing these is important to your recovery as they will show you how your Index Event affects you in the here and now.

This session will cover:

• Staying on track
• Events, thoughts, and feelings
• Reviewing Task 2.7
• ABC Worksheet Daily Task

Staying on track

It is often said that you get from therapy what you put in. This OTR course can be challenging and its effectiveness is dependant on you doing the tasks. You are taking responsibility for your own PTSD recovery, it is an empowering process. You are going to start this session by reviewing your progress with the assignments so far.

Completing the daily tasks is a key part of the OTR course. One of the symptoms of PTSD recovery may be resistance to looking at your thoughts and feelings. If you haven’t been able to complete Task 2.7 following the guidelines it is recommended that you stop this session and take another go at it over the next 5 to 10 days before coming back to Session 3.

Event, thought and feeling = ABC

It is very common for people to label thoughts as feelings. An example of this is a participant who had completed an ABC Worksheet as follows:

When she reviewed her ABC Worksheets she realised that her answer for C was in fact another thought that should also be in B. She was then able to identify the feelings she had at the time and put them in C. Her updated sheet was as follows:

You may notice a small but important change in the language she used. When she moved “I feel like I’m fighting an unsuccessful battle” to B she replaced the word feel with think. She also added the word believe to her first statement. Often people say “I feel…” and then describe a thought. When completing your ABC Worksheets try to use language that reflects your process accurately.

Another common problem you may experience when completing ABC Worksheets is catastrophising or generalising thoughts. For example:

In the example there is a clear mismatch between the event and the thought, it doesn’t make logical sense. Often this happens when a thought specific to the situation, is quickly catastrophised or generalised. In this case the participant saw the mismatch and examined their thought process again. They realised that they had a thought, about the event that had become generalised and catastophised into the belief they recorded. The participant then rewrote the ABC worksheet as:

It was not necessary for the participant to record his generalised thought about himself. This is what we refer to as a secondary emotion, something that the mind makes up about oneself or the event.

It is important to avoid minimising what you write down. You may have picked up beliefs from your life experience about what it is ok to say, or even what it is ok to feel. It is often said that “the truth will set you free”, in the context of this OTR course this statement is true. 

In this situation, one version of the truth is definitely “I couldn’t have done anything”. The participant was the victim of a random robbery. However, her first clue that it wasn’t her truth, it wasn’t her first thought, was that she had written stupid as the consequence. When reflecting on this the participant realised that she had been telling herself that she shouldn’t have been there. That she was stupid for walking down a dark alley. This was her truth. She decided that it didn’t matter what it was ok to think and that she wanted to write her truth.

ABC Worksheets and the Stuck Point Log

Below is a copy of the Stuck Point Log. This is used to keep a record of stuck points from your Index Event and other worksheets. You may find it helpful to use separate sheets for your index event. 

Day-to-day these worksheets will help you to see the connections between your thoughts and feelings following events. Anything that happens to you, or anything you think about, can be the event to look at. You may be more aware of your feelings than your thoughts at first. If that is the case, go ahead and fill out column C first. Then go back and decide what the event was (column A). Then try to recognize what you were saying to yourself (column B). Ask yourself why you feel that way, and the answer is likely to be your thought. Try to fill out these worksheets as soon after the events as possible. If you wait until the end of the day (or the end of the week), you are less likely to remember what you were saying to yourself. Also, the events you record don’t have to be negative events. You may also have thoughts and feelings about pleasant and neutral events.

Review of Session 3

Well done for completing OTR Session 3!

Today you have:

• Looked at staying on track.
• Learned more about how events, thoughts and feelings relate to ABC.
• Reviewed your completed ABC Worksheets.
• Filled out your Stuck Point Log.

Between now and your next session do you best to complete at least one ABC worksheet everyday.

You have done a lot of work today so take a break and ground yourself now.