Coping Skills for a Stressful World

A Workbook for Counselors and Clients

Michelle Muratori, Robert H. Haynes

• Publisher: American Counseling Association
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781119684893
• eBook ISBN: 9781119684923
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

This comprehensive counseling tool kit for stress management provides clinicians with hundreds of client exercises and activities. Representing a variety of therapeutic approaches, this workbook offers creative techniques for helping clients handle traditional concerns, including anxiety, depression, anger, and grief in addition to heightened present-day issues, such as natural and human-made disasters, the misuse of social media, political divisiveness, social injustice, and mass shootings and other violence.

Drs. Muratori and Haynes give their personal and professional perspectives on successfully working with clients therapeutically and also invite a number of expert clinicians to share their experiences and exercises they have used that have been effective with clients. The final section of the workbook presents strategies for counselor self-care and client life after counseling.

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Part I
Introduction and Central Role of Resilience

In Part I you will find foundational materials that set the tone for subsequent parts. Chapter 1 provides a road map for navigating the workbook, offering a rationale for and an overview of the workbook as well as practical tips for using the exercises and activities. One of our overarching goals is to help clients develop greater resilience in an increasingly stressful world, and Chapter 2 is devoted to the topic of resilience. It begins with a brief discussion of the concept of resilience and includes an explanation of resilience especially for clients. The chapter concludes with a series of client activities, exercises, and questions designed to be a catalyst for clients as they explore a variety of topics and issues related to resilience.

Chapter 1
Introduction

Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.

— Lily Tomlin

• • •

Coping Skills for a Stressful World: A Workbook for Counselors and Clients is a clinical tool designed for counselors and other mental health practitioners who are looking for exercises and activities that can assist clients struggling with stress and other mental health concerns related to or exacerbated by the stressful times in which we are living. The materials in this workbook can be photocopied and assigned to clients as therapeutic homework and subsequently discussed or processed in session. We have included concrete tools to facilitate productive therapeutic work, and it is our hope that this resource will enhance the therapeutic process with your clients and make your job easier and more efficient.

This chapter is primarily addressed to the counselors, therapists, and other mental health practitioners working in any number of professional settings. We provide our rationale for creating the workbook along with suggestions for how to get the most out of it. We describe how we came to collaborate on this project and the disturbing trends we both see unfolding in society that undoubtedly add to the stress levels of clients and the counselors who serve them. We describe the organization of the workbook, offer information about therapeutic homework compliance, and discuss relevant ethical issues in the use of out-of-session activities. We conclude with instructions and guidelines for using the out-of-session exercises with clients, and we encourage you to refer to this section as often as needed.

Need for and Purpose of the Workbook

Our goal is to provide tools for counselors to use in assisting their clients in navigating stressful situations they encounter in daily life. We emphasize building upon the internal resources clients possess. Clients tend to be much more resilient than they think they are, and they often find strength and creative solutions to the challenges they face even in problem-saturated stories. Most people have some degree of resilience upon which they can build.

Stories of resilience inspire and instill hope in us, but the truth is that people are not all equally resilient. As a mental health professional, you may serve individuals who are fragile or vulnerable (to varying degrees) and who may lack the social support to respond to adversity in a resilient manner. After all, clients tend to seek the support of a therapist when they are having difficulty coping with their circumstances— not when they are handling life’s stressors effectively and with ease. We believe resilience is a much-needed skill in today’s stressful world. American society is fractured along lines of ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, social class, culture, religion, values, and partisanship, and the mental health needs of clients will continue to grow in these divisive times. A driving force behind our decision to collaborate on this workbook was the need to create a resource that would assist clients in developing or strengthening their resilience.

The New Normal

We live in a global community, and we can expect to hear about misfortunes occurring virtually anywhere and at any time. Sometimes this news hits close to home, and other times the news is happening halfway around the world. Within the span of a single day, we may hear stories about the effects of climate change and severe weather events that wreak havoc; crises affecting immigrants, asylum seekers, the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, women, or other vulnerable or marginalized groups; mass casualty tragedies caused by gun violence; terrorist plots carried out or foiled; and accusations of sexual misconduct. To make matters worse, all of these news stories arrive against the backdrop of a constant barrage of “breaking news” about political developments. Disturbing trends have gained momentum in the United States and around the world: an increase of neo-fascism/authoritarianism, cybercrimes, terrorism, hate, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, bullying/cyberbullying, misogyny, and other oppressive forces. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is almost impossible to keep up with the news today. Our exposure to stressful news and information is continuous through the proliferation of social media platforms and 24-hour news channels. Everyday living has become exponentially more stressful in today’s world. This is the new normal.

Stress and Resilience in Troubled Times

In today’s stressful world, an increasing number of clients will need support in dealing with crises and long-term stress. A recent American Psychological Association (APA, 2017b) survey about the state of stress in the United States found that Americans are stressed about the future of the nation. Some 59% of adults surveyed indicated that they find this to be “the lowest point in our nation’s history that they can remember—a feeling that spans generations, including individuals who have lived through World War II and Vietnam, the Cuban missile crisis, the Sep...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• About the Authors
• About the Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Downloadable Materials (for clients)
• Part I: Introduction and Central Role of Resilience
• Part II: Addressing Common Mental Health Issues
• Part III: Coping With Trauma, Disaster, and Adversity
• Part IV: Emerging Crises and Intensifying Stressors
• Part V: Going Forward: Counselor Self-Care and Client Life After Counseling
• References
• Appendix A: Additional Exercises for Common Mental Health Issues
• Appendix B: Internet Resources for Counselors
• Technical Support
• End User License Agreement