Welcome to the Mind Campus Online Trauma Resourcing Course
Session 5
Please complete 5 to 10 days of Challenging Questions Worksheet (Task 4.4) and Session 4 before starting this session.
Welcome to your fifth 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 is 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.
In this session you will review and then build on the Challenging Questions work you have been doing since the last session.
This session will cover:
- Reviewing Task 4.4
- Patterns of problematic thinking
- Patterns of problematic thinking daily task
Reviewing Task 4.4
You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.
Maya Angelou
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.
TASK 5.1
Write a few sentences in answer to each question.
- Have you completed Task 4.4 (daily Challenging Questions Worksheet)?
- Write one thought that is stopping you and one that is motivating you.
- What feelings do you experience with these thoughts?
- Can you come up with a challenge for the thought that is stopping you?
- How does it feel when you use the challenging thought?
- Have you noticed any patterns or recurring thoughts when you come to write your daily task?
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 4.4 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 5.
TASK 5.2
Review your Task 4.4 Challenging Questions Worksheets. Write a few sentences to answer each question.
- Read the worksheets you have written since the last session to yourself.
- Are there any questions you are finding hard to answer? If so go back to Session 4 and review the Challenging Questions section.
- Have you answered any questions with a yes/no answer? Try to expand your answers to full sentences.
- Is there anything that you want to add to your Challenging Questions Worksheets? Go ahead and add it now.
- Write a list of all the stuck points you covered.
- Comparing this list to your Stuck Point Log, are there any Stuck Points you are avoiding looking at?
- Are there any Stuck Points you have discovered that you should add to your stuck point log?
- If there are stuck points you are avoiding try to write a Challenging Questions Worksheet about them now.
- Which Stuck Points have changed for you by completing the Challenging Questions Worksheets?
- Which Stuck Points have not changed for you by completing the Challenging Questions Worksheets?
- If you become distracted or overwhelmed by the feelings and thoughts use a simple grounding exercise before carrying on. Reach out to your support network if you need to.
Patterns of Problematic Thinking
In Patterns of Problematic Thinking, you will learn how to look at your overall ways of thinking. This section will help you to look at Stuck Points and reactions to events that happen in daily life to identify tendencies in your thinking that may be problematic. These patterns may have existed in your thinking before the index event occurred, they have come from another event altogether. These patterns become deep-seated, an automatic way of thinking. They create negative feelings and before you are even aware of your response can lead you into self-defeating behaviour. This could be avoiding close relationships because you believe no one can be trusted. Some people will turn to a substance to avoid a painful emotion. Through this work, you will start to see and address your patterns of problematic thinking.
This section introduces a new concept to OTR, mind-reading. You will be familiar with the other concepts in this section. Mind-reading is the human tendency to assume that other people are thinking badly of them without actual evidence for this. Have you ever thought that someone would reject you if you spoke the truth about yourself only to find that they didn’t? That is mind reading.
Listed below are several different patterns of problematic thinking that people use in different life situations. These patterns often become automatic, habitual thoughts that cause people to engage in self-defeating behaviour. Example answers are in italics.
1. Jumping to conclusions or predicting the future.
[Victim of childhood sexual abuse:] If a man is alone with a child, then the man will hurt the child. But I know my husband will not hurt my kids so this belief is causing problems in my marriage.
2. Exaggerating or minimizing a situation. (blowing things way out of proportion or shrinking their importance inappropriately).
[Traveler:] I saw a dead body and riots, but I didn’t get hurt and others saw worse, so my reaction to the situation was wrong. I was weak.
3. Ignoring important parts of a situation.
[Robbery victim:] I keep forgetting the fact that the perpetrator had a gun, which is important information about how much control I had.
4. Oversimplifying things as “good-bad” or “right–wrong.”
[Police officer:] Not everyone is all good or all bad. I may have done some things in my life that were not that good, but that does not make me a bad person.
5. Overgeneralizing from a single incident (e.g., a negative event is seen as a never-ending pattern).
[Adult rape victim:] I was raped by a man, so all men are dangerous. Maybe I am using this belief to stay away from men?
6. Mind reading (in particular, assuming that people are thinking negatively of you when there is no definite evidence for this).
[Victim of childhood physical abuse:] My dad yells now, so I assume he must be angry. But it’s not true a lot of the times, because he yells sometimes because he is deaf in one ear and going deaf in another. He yells because he doesn’t know he is yelling.
7. Emotional reasoning (using your emotions as proof—e.g., “I feel fear, so I must be in danger”).
[Survivor of a traumatic bereavement:] I feel guilt over my friend’s death, so I must have done something wrong.
TASK 5.3
- Complete each section (1 to 7) of the Patterns of Problematic Thinking Worksheet.
- For this session try to use examples from your Index Trauma, Stuck Point Log, and Challenging Questions Worksheets.
- If you become distracted or overwhelmed by the feelings and thoughts use a simple grounding exercise before carrying on. Reach out to your support network if you need to.
DAILY TASK 5.4
- Complete each section (1 to 7) of the Patterns of Problematic Thinking Worksheet everyday between now and session 6.
- For this task use examples from your Index Trauma, Stuck Point Log, and Challenging Questions Worksheets. You can also use situations which occur on the day you write the sheet.
- Start Session 5 in 5-to-10 days from now.
- If you become distracted or overwhelmed by the feelings and thoughts use a simple grounding exercise before carrying on. Reach out to your support network if you need to.
Review of Session 5
Well done for completing OTR Session 5!
Today you have:
- Reviewed your completed Challenging Questions worksheets.
- Been introduced to the Patterns of Problematic Thinking Worksheet.
- Completed your first Patterns of Problematic Thinking Worksheet.
Between now and your next session do your best to complete one Patterns of Problematic Thinking Worksheet every day.
You have done a lot of work today so take a break and ground yourself now.
Your next session is: