Outline and Evaluate Psychological Stress Management Methods.

by vutantruong (student)

Psychological Stress Management

Stress Inoculation Training

Meichenbaum’s cognitive therapy, called stress-inoculation training, was developed especially to deal with stress.
Meichenbaum proposed three main stages to this process:

Assessment – The therapist and client establish a relationship, and the client is educated about the nature and impact of stress. For example, the client is taught to view perceived threats as problems to be solved and to break down stressors into components that can be dealt with. This enables the client to reconceptualise the problem.
Stress Reduction Techniques – Coping skills are taught and practiced primarily in the clinic and then gradually rehearsed in real life. A variety of skills are taught and are tailored to the individuals’ own problems. These include positive thinking, relaxation, social skills and time management. The skills taught are both cognitive and behavioural because they encourage the client to think in a different way, and because they involved learning new behaviours through rewards (conditioning).
Application (and follow-through) – Clients are given opportunities to apply the newly learned coping skills in different situations, which become increasingly stressful. Various techniques may be used such as imagery, modelling and role-playing. Booster sessions are offered later on.

Increasing Hardiness - Training

Kobasa argued that the concept of hardy personality could be turned into a stress management technique.
The three components of a hardy personality, commitment, control and challenge, will result in a reduced physiological arousal to potential stressors.
Reduced arousal means reduced blood pressure and stress related illness.
Maddi introduced a training programme, which aims to increase self-confidence and sense of control so that individuals can deal more successfully with change. Maddi and Kobasa suggested the following ways to train:

Kobasa argued that the concept of hardy personality could be turned into a stress management technique.
The three components of a hardy personality, commitment, control and challenge, will result in a reduced physiological arousal to potential stressors.
Reduced arousal means reduced blood pressure and stress related illness.
Maddi introduced a training programme, which aims to increase self-confidence and sense of control so that individuals can deal more successfully with change. Maddi and Kobasa suggested the following ways to train:

Focusing – The client is taught how to recognise signs of stress, such as muscle tension and increased heart rate and to identify the sources of the stress
Reliving / Reconstructing stress encounters – The client relives stress encounters and is helped to analyse his or her stress situations. This helps the client to an understanding of current stressors and current coping strategies.
Self-improvement – The insights gained can now be used to move forwards and learn new techniques. In particular the client is taught to focus on seeing stressors as challenges and thus learn to take control. Control, commitment and challenge are the basis of hardiness training.

SIT Strengths and Weaknesses

STRENGTHS:

Meichenbaum claims that stress inoculation has been shown to be successful with acute and chronic stressors.
Examples of acute stressors that have been treated with SIT include preparing for public speaking.
Examples of chronic stressors that have been treated with SIT include medical illness, occupational stress, and stressful events.
This method of stress management offers skills to cope with current problems, and also skills and confidence to cope with future problems.
The focus on skills acquisition provides long-lasting effectiveness.
Skills are taught, practiced and followed through. They are also dealt with on a cognitive and behavioural level, and tailored to the needs of the individual.
More generalisability across different situations

WEAKNESSES:

The training programme requires a lot of time, effort, motivation and money
The complexity of learning and practicing many new skills makes it a lengthy therapy, which would suit only a limited range of determined individuals.
It may be that the effectiveness of SIT is due to certain elements of the training, not all of it.
This means that the range of activities and time could be reduced without losing much of the effectiveness. For example, it might be equally effective to just learn to talk more positively and relax more.
Requires self discipline and commitment

Hardiness Training Strengths and Weaknesses

STRENGTHS:

Maddi et al assessed the progress of 54 managers in a hardiness training programme, comparing this with a relaxation/meditation condition and a placebo/social support control.
The hardiness training condition was more effective than the other two conditions in increasing self-reported hardiness, job satisfaction and social support while decreasing self-reported strain and illness severity.
Hardiness training teaches individuals to manage all stressors in their lives, not just a particular set of symptoms related to a particular problem.
This makes it a much more adaptable and effective therapy than using drugs.
Skills acquisition leads to longer-term effectiveness

WEAKNESSES:

The research conducted by Kobasa and Maddi largely concerns white middle-class businessmen and women. It may not be reasonable to generalise these findings to other sections of the population.
Control and challenge may be successful coping strategies for this target group, but not for all adults. For some individuals, high control is stress inducing.
It is possible that hardiness is no more than being in control, and commitment and challenge matter less.
Funk argues that low hardiness is the same as being negative, and it is negativity rather than lack of hardiness that leads to the ill effects of stress.

Similarities and Differences

Both treat the problem rather than the symptoms.
Both are concerned with skills acquisition, to provide lasting and varied strategies to cope with stress.
Both teach clients to view stress as a problem-to-be-solved.
Both require length training and highly motivated clients.
The success of SIT may be mainly due to positive thinking whereas the success of hardiness training may be due to increased control.