stress inoculation therapy

• stress inoculation therapy - a stress management technique which helps individuals to develop coping skills and then exposes the individuals to moderate amounts of stress
• SIT is a type of CBT

  the client works with the therapist to try and change the way the client thinks about a situation that they think stressful

  the therapy aims to change the person's thinking in order to change their behaviour and reduce the stress
• there are three stages to SIT; cognitive preparation, skill acquisition and application training
• cognitive preparation - clients think back and relive stressful situations and analyse what was stressful about them in order to come to a more realistic understanding of the situations demands.
• skills acquisition - the client is taught positive thinking, time management etc
• application training - client can put what they have learnt into practice in the real world - they are taught to view setbacks as temporary and not as failure
• + has lots of support from studies - Sheehy and Horan
• + sit is very flexible and can be changed to meet a clients needs
• -- sit might be more complex than it needs to be
• -- sit requires time and effort which most people will drop out because of - have a high attrition bias - tends to need 9-12 sessions over a 3-4 month period