Check the facts & opposite action SKILL

SESSION ONLINE VERSION

Theme song: Watch ‘What’s Going On” video.

MINDFULNESS “WORDS IN THE SAND” EXERCISE ACTIVITY

The purpose of this exercise is to create a space between ourselves and our thoughts

Step 1: Close your eyes. Imagine a vast desert with sand dunes expanding all across the horizon.

Step 2: Calm your mind, and try to become aware of your thoughts. What are you thinking the most about today? Are your thoughts neutral? Are they negative? Without judgment just notice what your mind is thinking about.

Step 3: Try to imagine your thoughts written across the sand as words.

Step 4: Imagine now that the wind is blowing the words off the sand. As that happens you let the thoughts go. Thought by thought, you notice how your mind becomes calmer and clearer.

Step 5: As you notice the sand around you become smooth again, you witness that your thoughts are just products of the mind that don't have power over you.

Discuss: What was your experience like? What did you notice? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Review your commitments from What & How – DBT Skill session:

·      Complete the “Let Go of Judging Worksheet”.

·      Use the “What & How Skills Practice Worksheet” to practice these skills.

·      Complete the Weekly DBT Diary.

·      Come prepared to the next session to share your experience using DBT principles and skills.

1.Changing beliefs and assumptions about a situation can help you change your emotional reactions to it. This requires that you first “Check the Facts”. Checking the facts is a basic strategy in Cognitive Therapy as well as in many other forms of therapy. (Cognitive Therapy helps people learn how to identify and change destructive or disturbing thought patterns that have a negative influence on behavior and emotions.) When emotions do not fit the facts, and knowing the facts does not change your emotion, then acting opposite to your emotions will change your emotional reactions. When your emotions fit the facts of the situation and you want to change your emotions, then the situation is the problem. Solving problems will reduce the frequency of negative emotions.

Watch: “It’s Not Easy Being Green” video.

2. Even if you are a frog, it’s not always easy being green. We need to check the facts to determine whether the problem is as we view it. Sometimes emotions fuel our thoughts, and the problem turns out to be smaller or different than we thought it was. Emotions are often reactions to thoughts and interpretations of an event, rather than the actual facts of an event. Sometimes we might feel stuck and need more help figuring out skills or generating solutions to cope effectively. Imagine that your car got a flat tire on a freeway off ramp. It’s a dangerous place to try and change a tire alone so you are hoping someone will stop. You see your best friend or a family member exiting the freeway down your off ramp. They look right at you, speed up, and pass right by. You try reaching them on their cell phone, but they don’t answer.

Discuss: How would you feel?

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3. You discover later that a small child was in the car that you didn’t see, and the child was seriously hurt and your friend or family member was desperately trying to get to the hospital to save the life of the child.

Discuss: Knowing this new fact, would you feel any differentially? ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. When we respond to incorrect facts, learning the correct facts can change our emotions. Checking the facts to determine whether the problem is really as we view it and then changing appraisals and assumptions to fit the facts can help us get un-stuck. In addition, knowing the actual facts of a situation can help us problem-solve emotional situations. That there is always more than one way to see a situation and one way to solve a problem is consistent with the DBT assumptions discussed in the “Acceptance & Change” session.

5. When an emotion is justified by the situation, avoiding or changing the situation may be the best way to change one’s emotion. Problem solving is the first step in changing difficult situations. If the situation is the problem we can go through the steps on the “Problem Solving Worksheet” to brainstorm solutions, attempt a solution, evaluate it, and try a different solution if the first one does not work.

Discus: Have you been able to solve problems with the first solution you tried? Are there problems that required multiple attempts before getting solved? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

PROBLEM SOLVING ACTIVITY

Identify one thing in your life that you want to be different, to change. Enter this into Step 1 in the “Problem Solving Worksheet”. (You will work on this problem in-between sessions.)

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Watch: “Kindergarten Cop” video.

6. Every emotion has an action urge associated with it. It is natural to want to act on the urge, and you may feel that doing so will relieve the emotion. If it does seem to relieve it, like what you witnessed with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in “Kindergarten Cop”, it’s only in the immediate short term. The problem with acting on these urges is that they just keep the emotion around. When you decide that an emotion is not helping you or is very painful the DBT “Opposite Action” skill to the current emotion can help decrease its intensity and help you return to emotional baseline. This skill is particularly useful when the emotion does not fit the facts or is not justified by the actual situation.

Discuss: What could Arnold’s character have done instead of responding to his emotional action urge and yelling “SHUT UP!’?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7. Opposite action is also helpful if your emotion is too intense, has lasted too long, or if acting on the emotion will not be effective, like in a room full of out-of-control kindergarteners. The “Opposite Action to Change Emotion Handout” includes ideas for responding to some specific emotion action urges. For this skill to be effective you need to “go all the way” including using the opposite behavior, words and thinking, facial expression, voice tone and body posture. You may need to continue to do the opposite action until the emotion goes down enough for you to notice.

8. “You have to get back on the horse that threw you”. A well supported research finding is that if you repeatedly face what you fear your fear will go down. If you are depressed you can make yourself, feel less depressed by becoming active, resuming exercise or going out to socialize even when you are not in the mood. We can change our emotions by acting opposite to how we feel.

Watch: “The Black Stallion” video.

OPPOSITION ACTION ACTIVITY

Step 1: Pick an unwanted ineffective emotion that you experienced in the past couple of days.

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Step 2: What was your initial action urge that went with that emotion?

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Step 3: Looking back, did your emotion fit the facts of the situation? (Y/N)

Step 4: If yes, was your acting on the urge of that emotion effective?

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Step 5: Looking back, did you want to change the emotion? (Y/N)

Step 6: If yes, what could you have done as an opposite action? (Look at the “Opposite Action To Change Emotions Handout”)

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Discuss: Share what you learned about opposite action from this activity.

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Watch: “Check the Facts & Opposite Action End Credits” video.

As we roll the Check the Facts & Opposite Action DBT Skill end credits think about what is the most important thing you learned in this session and what will you do differently because of what you learned. Write your thoughts below.

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Session Commitments

Use the “Check the Facts Problem Solving Worksheet” to work on one thing you would like to change in your life.

 Respond more effectively to emotion action urges by referring to the “Opposite Action to Change Emotions Handout”

 Complete the Weekly DBT Diary. 

Come prepared to the next session to share your experience using DBT skills.