Social workers can experience increased emotional distress for many reasons.
- Organizational demands
- Negative feedback from clients
- Limited availability of community resources
- Fear of making the wrong decisions
Unfortunately, we cannot prevent stressful challenges, but we can choose how we THINK and RESPOND to them.
The thought skills you will learn in this module are techniques used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), developed by Dr. Aaron T. Beck.
The basic principle of CBT is how we think about a situation, which influences our feelings and behavioral responses. More importantly, our thoughts and beliefs are an INTERPRETATION of what is happening, not facts.
Check out the following video on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy.
Let’s apply these concepts to a real scenario experienced by some social workers.
Scenario: You are a social worker employed by a community mental health agency. You refer a client to a community partner, often used to help clients with rent and utility payments. Your client calls you back exasperated because the community partner told them they could not help due to a lack of funding resources.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
What can happen when we have negative thoughts?
We can get stuck in the negative thoughts and feelings.
Photo by Aubrey Odom on Unsplash
Intrusive thoughts such as “I’m not good enough” can have devastating effects if we don’t have the right reframing tools. These types of thoughts are also described as cognitive distortions or unhelpful thoughts, and they can contribute to hopelessness and perceptions that you are not doing an effective job.
Check out this video about Cognitive Distortions.
AWARENESS of our intrusive thoughts is an important first step.
That word awareness sounds familiar, doesn’t it? We learned about it in Module 1.
AWARENESS and EXPLORATION of our thoughts and feelings, whether real or imagined, help reduce the frequency of intrusive thoughts and help us step toward self-compassion and resilience.
CBT helps social workers focus on strength-based skills and identify areas for development instead of being stressed or distracted by disproportionate negative and critical self-evaluation (Grant & Kinman, 2014)
Photo by John Arano on Unsplash
CBT skills enhance our psychological flexibility by recognizing thoughts and feelings in the present moment and utilizing our internal resources to manage emotions and appropriately respond (Bringborg et al., 2011).
Photo by Aditya Ali on Unsplash
First Step…Catching Negative Thoughts
Photo by Miguel A Amutio on Unsplash
Let’s Practice: Help Sadie catch her negative thoughts.
Scenario: Sadie is a new social worker employed as an adult case manager with a community mental health center. She has been in this role for 6 months. Sadie meets with her supervisor during monthly supervision and receives constructive feedback regarding the timely completion of her case notes. Sadie is informed that she needs to complete her session notes within 24 hours of seeing the client. Sadie leaves the meeting thinking the following: “Oh no! I’m going to lose my job! I can’t believe I got so behind on my notes. It is impossible to write my notes within 24 hours of seeing clients. How can my supervisor expect me to do this? She’s going to fire me! I’ll never be able to get another social work job. I am such an idiot for thinking that I could do this.”
Second step…Spotting Thinking Errors
Photo by Jake Hills on Unsplash
Cognitive distortions or “thinking errors” are patterns of thinking that reinforce a negative view of an individual’s ability to function and cope, leading to the expectation that it will ALWAYS be the same or get worse (Grant & Kinman, 2014).
Here are a few common thinking errors: (Select each item below to explore).
Let’s help Sadie identify her thinking errors.
Identifying our patterns of thinking errors helps improve our ability to
challenge and change our thinking.
Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash
Step Three…Identifying Strengths
Photo by Lindsay Henwood on Unsplash
Let’s explore Sadie’s strengths.
Sadie remembers that she has experience handling and growing from difficult situations. She reminds herself of the skills that got her through undergrad. She’s good at planning. She’s organized. She has supportive friends, family, and coworkers. She recognizes that she has a supportive supervisory relationship. She realizes that she can apply these skills in responding to the constructive feedback she received from her supervisor.
Photo by Sarah Cervantes on Unsplash
Step Four…Develop Alternative Thinking
Photo by Isaac Benhesed on Unsplash
Let’s help Sadie develop alternative ways of thinking.
Just for Fun:
Sadie wants to help you with your thinking errors. Take a minute to think about the thinking errors you’ve experienced today. Drag the thinking errors into the box, and Sadie will ship them away.
Let’s review what we learned in this module:
Photo by Erda Estremera on Unsplash
Let’s explore another important skill: Critical Reflection and Connection.
Please move forward to the next module.