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Word of the Day
to put your arms around someone and hold them in a loving way, or (of two people) to hold each other close to show love or for comfort
Like a bull in a china shop: talking about people who are clumsy
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noun as in assignment
Strongest matches
Strong matches
noun as in drill
Weak matches
noun as in lesson
noun as in practice
noun as in preparation
noun as in revision
Now, they log on to Zoom from their bedrooms, surrounded by unfinished homework assignments and tattered stuffed animals, waiting to be assigned calls, texts and emails by the trained therapists who oversee the program.
Yow started her homework and saw Frese had gone 35-22 with two winning seasons at Ball State, which hadn’t had a winning record in its previous nine seasons.
Do some homework before investing in a diamond, and that lifelong commitment.
Another poster included an image of their losses over what appeared to be online math homework.
As we countdown to Inauguration Day, I've been doing my homework—and looking to the past for inspiration.
“I can help my children with their homework and sometimes we text in English at my job,” Santos says.
Scheunemann, meanwhile, had no idea who Spencer was, and did some homework.
She jumped at the chance to watch RT, or jumped at the chance to skip calculus homework.
And we encourage parent-student “contracts,” for class attendance, homework submission and even extra-curriculum activities.
Adicéam did his homework, spending 50 days collecting pieces, many with unexpected stories behind them.
Much of this homework is done by a very bad light and the boy's eyes suffer much.
For homework we have prepared alphabets where the letters are printed in type-writing order.
His parents were always getting angry with him for losing his clothes, or his toys, or his homework.
Only at the time when he was going to Beauregard School, with his homework.
And once a week or twice a week she was sending her homework or something to him.
Words related to homework are not direct synonyms, but are associated with the word homework . Browse related words to learn more about word associations.
noun as in responsibility, task
noun as in practice, exercise
noun as in information taught
noun as in exercise, application
Viewing 5 / 7 related words
From Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.
The word “psychotherapy” often evokes images of nerve-wracked patients reclining on couches, a stern therapist with furrowed brows and a notepad, and a deep uneasiness linked to the identification and analysis of every childhood trauma you have suffered, whether you remembered it before the session or not.
Although this is an outdated and largely inaccurate idea of psychotherapy, it still may seem counterintuitive to combine positive psychology with psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy is typically reserved for those with moderate to severe behavioral, emotional, or personality issues—not people who are often happy and healthy, and also struggle with occasional stress.
How can this type of therapy, which deals with such serious and difficult subject matter, possibly be considered “positive?”
Fortunately, many respected psychologists have been working to develop a useful and evidence-based positive approach to psychotherapy over the last two decades.
These pioneering researchers have married the research of positive psychology and the science and practice of psychotherapy into a life-affirming alternative to traditional psychotherapy—one that focuses on your strengths instead of your weaknesses, and works towards improving what is good in life instead of mitigating that which is not (Seligman, Rashid, & Parks, 2006).
It does not replace traditional psychotherapy, but can act as an extremely effective supplement to help a person move from “just getting by” to flourishing and thriving! For more on this effective ‘supplement’, we share a variety of exercises, tools and a range of therapy sessions.
Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free . These science-based exercises will explore fundamental aspects of positive psychology including strengths, values, and self-compassion, and will give you the tools to enhance the wellbeing of your clients, students, or employees.
5 positive psychotherapy exercises and tools, 15 sessions – exercises and tools, a take-home message.
Here is an overview of some of the most effective exercises and tools in a positive psychotherapist’s toolbox.
One of the simplest yet most effective exercises in positive psychology is a gratitude journal . Evidence has shown that developing gratitude for the things in your life that you may otherwise take for granted, can have a big impact on your outlook and satisfaction with your life (Davis et al., 2016; Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006).
The practice of keeping a gratitude journal is quite simple and easy to explain to a client who might need a boost in positive emotions.
As a therapist or other mental health professional, instruct your client to do the following:
If your client is having trouble thinking of things they are grateful for, tell them to try thinking about what their life would be like without certain aspects. This will help them to identify the things in their life they are most grateful (Marsh, 2011).
Who doesn’t want to design a beautiful day for themselves?
This exercise is not only fun for most clients, but it also carries a double impact: the planning of the near-perfect day, and the actual experience of the near-perfect day.
As a counselor or therapist, encourage your client to think about what a beautiful day means to them.
What do they love to do? What do they enjoy that they haven’t had a chance to do recently? What have they always wanted to do but have never tried?
These questions can help guide your client to discover what constitutes a beautiful day to them. Direct your client to pick a day in the near future and design their day with the following tips in mind:
The self-esteem journal is another straightforward but effective exercise for clients suffering from feelings of low self-worth.
This Self-Esteem Journal For Adults provides a template for each day of the week and three prompts per day for your client to respond to, including prompts like:
The simple act of noticing and identifying positive things from their day can help clients gradually build their self-esteem and enhance their wellbeing. Sometimes all we need is a little nudge to remember the positive things we do!
Mindfulness meditation can be an excellent tool to fight anxiety, depression, and other negative emotions, making it a perfect tool for therapists and counselors to use with their clients.
To introduce your client to mindfulness meditation, you can try the “ mini-mindfulness exercise ,” a quick and easy lesson that only takes a few minutes to implement.
Follow these steps to guide your client through the process:
Once your client is introduced to mindfulness meditation, encourage them to try it out on their own. They may find, as so many others have, that mindfulness can be a great way to not only address difficult or negative emotions but maintain positive ones throughout the day as well.
The VIA-IS is one of the most commonly used tools in positive psychology, and it has applications in positive psychotherapy as well. Completing this questionnaire will help your clients identify their dominant strengths— allowing them to focus their energy and attention on using their inherent strengths in their daily life, instead of getting distracted by the skills or traits they may feel they are lacking.
The VIA-IS is reliable, validated, and backed by tons of scientific research, and best of all – it’s free to use (Ruch, Proyer, Harzer, Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2010).
Direct your clients to the VIA website to learn about the 24 character strengths and take the VIA-IS to discover their own top strengths.
These strengths are organized into six broad categories as follows:
Once your client has taken the survey and identified their top 5 strengths , instruct them to bring in their results and have a discussion with them about how they can better apply these strengths to their work, relationships, recreation, and daily life.
The order of sessions outlined below is merely suggestive but there are some essential components that should be maintained to increase long term effectiveness and enhance learning.
While every session introduces new exercises and tools, it is also recommended that some form of restorative technique is used at the beginning and at the conclusion of every session.
For each session, we also suggest one homework assignment to facilitate maintenance in between sessions.
If you are a therapist who regularly assigns homework to your clients, we recommend checking out the platform Quenza to help digitize and scale this aspect of your therapy practice.
The platform incorporates a simple drag-and-drop builder that therapists can use to craft a range of digital activities for their clients to complete in between therapy sessions. These activities can include audio meditations, reflections, self-paced learning modules, and more.
Once done, the therapist can then share these activities directly to their clients’ devices, such as the Daily Reflection on the right, track their progress using Quenza’s dashboard, and send follow-up reminders to complete the activities via push notification.
Additionally, one size does not fit all when introducing any practice including mindfulness, so fit should be carefully considered and special attention should be paid to cultural considerations.
Goal : Exploration of strengths and positive attributes is accomplished by inviting the client to share a personal story that shows them at their best as a form of introduction.
Tool : Positive Introduction prompt
Rationale : Initial session is intended to set a positive tone for the on-going practitioner-client interaction. Building rapport both at the outset and throughout the relationship are key factors to better outcomes from a therapeutic process.
One positive psychotherapy practice recommended for this session is a positive introduction. A positive introduction is based on principles of Appreciative Inquiry and involves asking a client to recall a positive event in his or her life that ended very well.
Positive memories can generate positive emotions and improve mood regulation. Positive narratives also help restore healthier self-concept and allow the client to build resources in terms of new ideas and perspectives (Denborough, 2014).
In-session Resources:
Describe an event in your life where you handled a difficult situation in a positive way and things turn out well. It does not have to be a major event but try to think of something that brought out the best in you. Write about the situation in form of story with a beginning, middle and positive end: ____________
Discussion questions:
Homework : As homework, clients can create anchors out of these positive memories by collecting pictures or artifacts that remind them of the pleasant memory. The practitioner can also provide the client with an option to seal this positive introduction in an envelope to be opened at a later date and kept by the practitioner for safekeeping.
Lastly, the client should be encouraged to write similar stories and keep them handy for a quick pick me up.
Practitioner can also suggest that client asks others to share their inspiring stories, that client share more stories like this one and pay attention to what they say about themselves, what themes keep recurring, how their stories change depending on audience, what role they play in their own stories and whether they are a victim or a survivor.
Clinician notes:
Pay careful attention and take notes as the narratives will tend to form sequences.
If a client has a difficulty recalling positive events, they can ask family or friends to recall for them or they can tell a story of someone they admire.
Goal : To assess signature strengths and to cultivate engagement through daily activities by choosing tasks that speak to one’s strengths.
Tool : Signature Strengths Assessment
Rationale : Exercising specific strengths can facilitate goal progression and contribute to wellness and personal growth (Linley, Nielsen, Gillett, & Biswas-Diener, 2010). Psychology of motivation teaches us that there are keystone habits that spark positive changes in other areas related to the one being made, so can certain strengths support the healing and growth process. Strength assessment is given, and the concept of engagement is explained.
Preparation:
Prior to the session, the client should ask three people to report on their strengths.
In-session Worksheets:
Read carefully the descriptions of 24 character strengths below. They can be found in the VIA Institute on Character website .
Circle 5 of the strengths that you find yourself exercising most often and that you feel characterize you the most:
creativity | zest | humility |
curiosity | love | prudence |
judgment | kindness | self-regulation |
love of learning | social intelligence | spirituality |
perspective | teamwork | gratitude |
bravery | fairness | hope |
perseverance | leadership | humor |
honesty | forgiveness | appreciation of beauty and excellence |
List your 5 signature strengths and then answer questions and prompts to determine the key markers of your signature strengths.
Pick one or two and try to describe specific experiences or anecdotes associated with expression of that strength: _____________
Now consider the client’s peer feedback. The reports will probably not be identical, but some significant overlap is highly likely.
Circle any areas of considerable overlap and try to identify the following:
Homework : Instruct clients to take VIA strengths survey assessment and ask that they observe if using signature strengths produces greater engagement.
Clinician notes :
Reminders are tangible cues in our environment that focus our attention on a particular commitment we made. Reminders help anchor a new habit of thought and behavior.
They can be simple or more complicated and creative like a screen saver on the clients’ phone, a bracelet or a keychain that reminds them of their signature strengths, a picture on the wall of the person who motivates them or an entry in their planner with times for a podcast that encourages them to practice and reflect.
Goal : To gain a deeper understanding of optimal levels of usage of strengths. Use your signature strengths to be happier as well as to develop skills. Use your strengths to manage your negatives.
Tool : Optimizing Strengths exercise
Rationale : Biswas-Diener, Kashdan, and Minhas (2011) argue against just identifying one’s strengths as it represents a fixed mindset and decreases motivation. He suggests that we should treat strengths as “potentials for excellence” to foster belief in the possibility of improvement where therapy can lead us to develop them further.
Development of practical intelligence can be initiated through considering how client’s strengths can be translated into concrete purposeful actions that enhance commitment, engagement and problem-solving.
Read the common scenarios below and reflect on the potential of under and overuse of strengths:
Discussion questions :
For between sessions assignment, ask the client to describe a current challenge and then reflect on the following questions:
In imparting practical wisdom strategies make sure clients perceive this as the development of a strength, not merely as use of a well-developed strength. Practical wisdom strategies are:
Goal : Visualize a better version of yourself.
Tool : You at Your Best Worksheet
Rationale : Our visions of who we wish to become in the future, be it our best selves, our ideal selves or simply our better selves, reflect our personal and professional goals and are created by imagining a better version of who we are today and then striving toward it.
Cultivating and sustaining desirable action can bring us closer to that future self and it may require that we refrain from behaviors that deter us and change old habits that don’t serve us.
Ideal selves reflect our hopes, dreams, and aspirations, and speak to our skills, abilities, achievements, and accomplishments that we wish to attain (Higgins, 1987; Markus & Nurius, 1986).
Research supports this phenomenon of movement toward ideal selves and shows that it predicts many positive outcomes: life satisfaction, emotional wellbeing, self-esteem, vitality, relational stability, relational satisfaction (Drigotas, 2002; Drigotas, Rusbult, Wieselquist, & Whitton, 1999; Kumashiro, Rusbult, Finkenauer, & Stocker, 2007; Rusbult, Kumashiro, Kubacka, & Finkel, 2009).
1. Find your story.
Recall a recent time or event when you were at your absolute best. You might have been overcoming a serious challenge, or perhaps you made someone else’s life better.
Think about what made you feel happier, more alive. Maybe you were:
Describe your story as clearly as possible, allowing the details in your narrative to demonstrate your strengths and values.
What happened? What was your part in it? How did you feel?
3. Beginning, Middle, End
Craft your narrative with a start, middle, and powerful ending. It may help to replay the experience in your mind as it happened.
Highlight or circle any words that you feel might relate to your personal strengths.
5. Find your Strengths
List the strengths you’ve identified from the exercise.
Homework : Commit to specific actions for the week. Name someone who is willing to support you. Decide on how often this person will check in on your progress and how.
Clinician notes : Remind the client that less is more, and that a long list is bound to fail because cognitive overload is likely to lead them to do nothing. Modest aspirations translate into small wins that lead to gradual change. Reinforcing new behaviors takes time and failure is a normal part of the process. Remind the client that they are more likely to succeed on their fifth or sixth attempt.
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Goal : Open and closed memories are reappraised through four different methods.
Tools : Open and Closed Memories Questionnaire, Positive Reappraisal exercise
Rationale : Personal written disclosure is employed to explore resentment and painful memories and to encourage cognitive processing using your strengths in order to re-file them so that they don’t drain your energy.
The purpose of positive appraisal is not to change the event or the person involved in these negative memories but to refile then in a way that does not continue to drain us emotionally or psychologically.
Please answer the following questions to determine if you have open memories:
Now apply the following positive reappraisal strategies to one of your memories:
Homework : Apply one of the strategies to a new challenge and reflect on it in writing before the next session.
Clinician notes : A level of caution needs to be exercised when exploring painful memories. Encourage the client to explore a memory that is not too traumatic. Start the session with a mindfulness practice and ask the client to monitor their emotional state.
Goal : Model of forgiveness is introduced, and the letter of forgiveness is assigned to transform bitterness.
Tool : REACH Forgiveness worksheet and Forgiveness Letter.
Rationale : Forgiveness is a choice, although not an easy one. It is a gradual process that requires commitment. Decisional forgiveness is only the first step. Empathy is key and ultimately forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself.
Everett Worthington (n.d.), leading research in forgiveness, designed a model that outlines the necessary components of effective emotional forgiveness and the worksheet below is based on his REACH method.
One model of forgiveness therapy that places empathy at its center and stresses emotional forgiveness is Worthington’s REACH forgiveness model based on the stress and coping theory of forgiveness. Each step in REACH is applied to a target transgression that the client is trying to change.
R = Recall the Hurt E = Empathize with the Person Who Hurt You A = Give an Altruistic Gift of Forgiveness C = Commit to the Emotional Forgiveness That Was Experienced H = Hold on to Forgiveness When Doubts Arise (Worthington, 2006).
Follow the reach model in your written narrative of forgiveness:
A key to helping a person develop empathy for the transgressor is to help the client take the perspective of the other person. To assist the client, write the five Ps on a sheet of paper as a cue to the client and ask them to answer the questions using the five prompts:
Homework : Leslie Greenberg and Wanda Malcolm (2002) have demonstrated that people who can generate fantasies where they vividly imagine the offender apologizing and being deeply remorseful are ones who are most likely able to forgive successfully.
Ask the client to vividly imagine the offender apologizing and then write a letter of forgiveness to this person. The client does not need to do anything with the letter itself.
Clinician notes : Although relaxation techniques should be used at the outset and at the conclusion of every session, this one, in particular, is important.
If the client has a difficulty finding compassion for the transgressor, one of the most effective ways to help a client experience empathy is to use the empty-chair technique.
The client imagines sitting across from the offender, who is imagined to be in an empty chair. The client describes his or her complaint as if the offender were there. The client then moves to the empty chair and responds from the point of view of the offender. The conversation proceeds with the client moving back and forth between chairs.
The objective is to allow the person to express both sides of the conversation personally, and thus experience empathy. In doing so, the person might imagine an apology or at least an acknowledgment of the hurt that was inflicted.
Goal : To establish realistic expectations of progress. Good enough mindset and concepts of satisficing versus maximizing are introduced, and an action plan to increase satisficing is devised.
Tool : Maximizer v. Satisficer Assessment, Strategies to Increase Satisficing
Rationale : According to psychologist Barry Schwartz (2004), maximizers always aim to make the best possible choice. They take their time and compare products both before and after making purchasing decisions.
Maximizers are more prone to depression due to overly high expectations and fear of regret. Maximizers, like perfectionists, seek to achieve the best, but perfectionists have high standards that they don’t expect to meet, whereas maximizers have very high standards that they do expect to meet, and, when they are unable to meet them, they become depressed (Chowdhury, Ratneshwar, & Mohanty, 2009; Schwartz et al., 2002).
The questionnaire below will help to assess if your client is a maximizer or a satisficer. There are several techniques for increasing satisficing and developing a “good enough” mindset.
Read the following statements and carefully rate to what degree they are true and descriptive of who you most often are. Rate them on a scale of one to seven, where one means completely disagree and seven means strongly agree.
Rate 1 – 7 | |
---|---|
I think about all possibilities when faced with a choice even those that are not present at the moment. | | |
I am always on the lookout for new opportunities even when I’m satisfied with my job. | | |
I always check what other stations are playing when I’m listening to radio even when I’m satisfied with what is on. | | |
I have to channel surf even when I’m already watching a show. | | |
I expect a lot from relationships and am always looking for a perfect fit. | | |
Picking a gift for a friend is very difficult. | | |
I can never find clothes I really love. | | |
When picking a book or article to read I struggle with picking the best one. | | |
I love ratings and I’m always scanning lists of rankings. | | |
Even when I send a simple email, I always do several drafts. | | |
I hold myself to the highest standards in everything I do. | | |
I always tell people to never settle for the second-best. | | |
I always fantasize about having another better life. | | |
Now add the scores for your answers. The average score is 50, the high score is 75 and the low score is 25 or below. If your score is below 40, you are on the satisficing end of the scale. If you scored 65 and above, it is likely you have maximizing type behaviors that may impact your wellbeing. Consider some of the strategies to increase satisficing listed below.
Strategies to Increase Satisficing
To make choices versus simply have choices means to be able to reflect on what makes a decision important, what makes particular choice say about you, or even create new options if no good options are available. To practice these skills, try the following:
To generally do more satisficing, try the following:
Reflect on what pursuing all the available opportunities costs you:
Imagine there is no going back. Make your decision irreversible and final to limit the amount of time you waste processing the alternatives:
Practice attitude of gratitude and being grateful for what you have and the good aspects of the choices you have made and resolve not to ruminate what was bad about them:
Having regrets can influence our ability to make a decision to a point of us avoiding to make them. Make an effort to minimize regret where appropriate:
Adaptation, also known as the hedonic treadmill, robs us of satisfaction we can get from a positive experience. Combat adaptation and develop realistic expectations about how experiences change over time:
Lower your expectations. Our satisfaction with experiences is determined to a large extent by our expectations. To increase satisfaction with results, try the following:
Beware of social comparisons. Practice not comparing yourself to others as quality of experience can be significantly reduced by comparing yourself to others:
Appreciate constrains. Our freedom of choice and ability to decide decreases as our options increase. Our society provides rules by which we are limited in forms of laws and norms of behavior.
Homework : Ask the client to practice one or more techniques of satisficing throughout the week.
Clinician notes : Repetition just like regular reminders can aid the client in creating lasting change. Together repetitive action and repetition create ritual over time. Encourage clients to build new positive habits of thinking and behaving.
The Positive Psychology Toolkit© is a groundbreaking practitioner resource containing over 500 science-based exercises , activities, interventions, questionnaires, and assessments created by experts using the latest positive psychology research.
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Goal : The notion of counting one’s blessings and enduring thankfulness is discussed, gratitude exercise is introduced, and blessings journal is assigned.
Tool : Three Good Things and Gratitude Visit
Rationale : Extensive research shows that enduring thankfulness has many health benefits (Emmons, 2007). In one clinical study, the gratitude condition participants reported significantly better mental health than those in the expressive and control conditions.
This session introduces the client to the practice of gratitude by counting one’s blessings daily and planning a gratitude visit. Clients are also asked to keep a gratitude journal between sessions.
Three Good Things
Before going to bed, write about three good things that happened to you that day. Reflect on those good things by answering the following questions:
Gratitude Visit
Gratitude is oriented toward others. Think of a person to whom you would like to express gratitude. Write a letter to them. Try to be specific in describing the way in which their actions have made an important difference in your life. When finished, arrange a visit with that person without explaining the purpose. Try to make it as casual as possible.
When you see them after you settle in, read your letter slowly, with expression and eye contact. And allow the other person to react unhurriedly. Reminisce about the times and specific events that made that person important to you.
Homework : Blessings journal is assigned, and client is asked to write about three good things that happened that day before bedtime every night for a week in a way that was introduced during the session.
Suggest that clients socialize with more people who are grateful and observe if that improves their mood. People who are thankful have a language of future, abundance, gifts, and satisfaction.
You can also ask clients to find ways to express gratitude directly to another person. While doing so, ask them to avoid saying just thank you and express gratitude in concrete terms.
Clinician notes : Considerable effort and time to manage the logistics are required to write a letter and arrange a visit. Be sure to provide clients adequate time and support to complete this practice over the course of therapy. You can discuss the timeline, periodically remind them, and even encourage clients to read their Gratitude Letters so they can make changes and rehearse the experience of writing it and reading it out loud.
Be sure clients have the opportunity to share their experiences of the Gratitude Visit.
Goal : One Door Closes, One Door Opens exercise is introduced and the client is encouraged to reflect on three doors that closed and what opportunities for growth it offered.
Tools : One Door Closes, One Door Opens, and Learning Optimism prompts
Rationale : Essentially, hope is the perception that one can reach the desired goals (Snyder, 1994). Hopeful thinking comes down to cultivating the belief that one can find and use pathways to desired goals (Snyder, Rand, & Sigmond, 2002).
Optimism can be learned and can be cultivated by explaining setbacks in a way that steers clear of catastrophizing and helplessness. Optimistic people see bad events as temporary setbacks and explain good events in terms of permanent causes such as traits or abilities.
Optimists also tend to steer away from sweeping universal explanations for events in their lives and don’t allow helplessness to cut across other aspects of their lives (Seligman, 1991).
Painful experiences can be re-narrated as it is the client who gets to say what it all means. Like a writer, a sculptor or a painter the client can re-create his or her life story from a different perspective, allow it to take a different shape and incorporate light into the dark parts of their experience.
Think of times when you failed to get a job you wanted or when you were rejected by someone you loved. When one door closes, another one almost always opens. Reflect and write about three doors that closed and what opportunities for growth it offered. Use the following questions to help with your reflections:
Learning Optimism
Think of something that happened recently that negatively impacted your life. Explore your beliefs about the adversity to check for catastrophizing.
Homework : As a weekly exercise explain and write down your broad outlook on life in one or two sentences and then monitor if daily stressors have an impact on your overall perspective. If so, brainstorm ways to help your perspective remain constant.
Alternatively, to practice hope, ask the client to reflect on one or two people who helped to open the doors or who held the opened doors for them to enter.
And to practice optimism, ask the client to help a friend with a problem by encouraging him or her to look for the positive aspects of the situation.
Clinician notes : The benefits of optimism are not unbounded, but they do free us to achieve the goals we set. Our sense of values or our judgment is not eroded by learning optimism , it is enhanced by it.
Suggest to your clients that if rumination keeps showing up, they consider positive distraction and volunteer the time they normally spend analyzing problems to endeavors that make an impact on the world. Not only will they distract themselves in a positive way but may also gain a much-needed perspective on their problems.
Goal : Posttraumatic growth (PTG) is introduced and practiced through writing therapy.
Tool : Expressive Writing
Rationale : Many patients following trauma develop Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but many also experience Posttraumatic Growth (PTG). Without minimizing the pain and while respecting clients’ readiness, exploration of the possibility for growth from trauma can help them gain insight into the meaning of life and the importance of relationships.
Research shows that PTG can lead clients to:
Positive reinterpretation, problem-focused coping, and positive religious coping facilitate PTG. Although time itself doesn’t influence PTG as it remains stable over time, intervening events and processes do facilitate growth.
James Pennebaker’s strategy, known as the Writing Therapy, showed that writing about a traumatic or upsetting experience can improve people’s health and wellbeing (Pennebaker, & Evans, 2014).
While assuring complete confidentiality, clients are asked to write for 15 to 30 minutes for three to five consecutive days about one of their most distressing or traumatic life experiences in detail and to fully explore their personal reactions and deepest emotions.
Using a note pad or journal, please write a detailed account of a trauma you experienced. In your writing, try to let go and explore your deepest thoughts and feelings about the traumatic experience in your life. You can tie this experience to other parts of your life, or keep it focused on one specific area.
Continue to write for at least 15 to 20 minutes a day for four consecutive days. Make sure you keep your writings in a safe, secure place that only you have access to. You can write about the same experience on all four days or you can write about different experiences.
At the end of four days, after describing the experience, please write if the experience has helped you with the following:
Some reactions to the trauma, adversity, or losses can be so strong that we deliberately avoid associated feelings.
Homework : Ask the client to continue writing for three more consecutive days for 15 to 30 minutes each time. Remind the client to make sure to keep their writings in a safe, secure place that only he or she has access to. They can write about the same experience on all four days or they can write about different experiences.
Clinician notes : To better understand the context in which clients are living, the practitioner should continue discussing therapeutic changes with clients without necessarily asking about growth. It also helps to accept the fact that it may be difficult to pinpoint the start and end that marks when growth from trauma occurs.
Focusing on themes of change may help identify when additional support is needed to amplify PTG while keeping in mind that some clients for reasons outside of their control will not continue to experience long-term growth.
Goal : Tendencies toward busy behavior are assessed and savoring exercise is assigned based on the client’s preference and strategies to safeguard against adaptations are discussed.
Tool : Busy Behavior Assessment and Savoring Techniques
Rationale : According to Carl Honoré (2004), we live in a multitasking era where we have become addicted to speed. Evidence shows that people who are cognitively busy are also more likely to act selfishly, use sexist language, and make erroneous judgment in social situations.
On the other hand, research also shows that when people are in a relaxed state, the brain slips into a deeper, richer, more nuanced mode of thought (Kahneman, 2011). Psychologists actually call this “Slow Thinking,” and one method for achieving this cognitive state it to practice what is known as savoring .
Fred Bryant, a pioneer in savoring, defines it as a mindful process of attending to and appreciating the positive experiences in one’s life (2003). Bryant describes four types of savoring: basking, thanksgiving, marveling, and luxuriating. Research shows that savoring fosters:
Savoring requires effort that involves deliberately working against the pressures to multitask. Learning to savor requires time and becomes more natural the more we practice it.
Kinds of Savoring Experiences:
Reflect on whether or not you find yourself constantly busy and how this manifest in your daily life by answering the following questions:
Savoring Techniques
Practice the following strategies to increase savoring. All of the strategies to slow down mentioned here require active engagement. Select one or two of the following Savoring Techniques:
Brainstorm specific actions you will take to practice one or more of these techniques and think about who will support you or what can inhibit your progress.
Discussion questions : When, where, and how frequently can you use it to increase positive emotions in your daily life?
Homework : Pick a favorite or a different savoring technique and practice it between sessions. Reflect and write your personal list of actions which can sustain and enhance savoring.
Clinician notes : Savoring requires practice and some clients may struggle with savoring practices because they overthink the experience which tends to interfere with their ability to notice and attend to their senses.
The focus of the Savoring practices is positive but if the clients are feeling distressed, see if they are able to put aside their negative thoughts and feelings by using the diversion strategy from Session Five: Open and Closed Memories to optimally benefit from this exercise.
Clients should attend mindfully to all aspects of a savoring experience, including its cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects. However, tuning in too much to feelings or thoughts may backfire and could interfere, eventually dampening the savoring experience so encourage the client to monitor their experiences for adaptation.
Goal : Seeing best in others and developing strategies for cultivation of positive relationships
Tool : Strength Spotting Exercise
Rationale : Recognizing the strengths of one’s loved ones has been proven to have significant positive benefits on relationships and wellbeing of those who practice it actively.
Understanding one another’s strengths foster a greater appreciation for each person’s intentions and actions and promote empathy. Ultimately, positive relationships buffer us against stress. The central positive psychotherapy (PPT) practice covered in this session is learning to see strengths in others and creating a Tree of Positive Relationships.
Answer the following questions about people you have close relationships with:
Homework : If practical, ask your family and friends to take the VIA strengths survey. Create a Tree of Positive Relationships to help you and people you are close to gain greater insight into each other’s strengths.
Encourage clients to have uninterrupted, quality conversations with their loved ones at least once per week.
Clinician notes : To maintain progress, suggest that clients brainstorm a way to celebrate each other’s strengths. Suggest they focus on bonding activities that establish communication patterns, routines, and traditions both through daily, casual ways of enjoying each other’s company as well as more elaborate planned celebrations and vacations.
Goal : Positive communication is addressed through learning about Active Constructive Responding and client is encouraged to look for opportunities to practice.
Tool : Active Constructive Responding (ACR)
Rationale : Shelly Gable and her colleagues found that sharing and responding positively to good events in our lives increases relationship satisfaction and strengthens our bonds (2004). When we capitalize on positive events in our lives by allowing others to partake in the good news not only do we amplify it, but also increase feelings of being valued and validated.
Read carefully the following descriptions of different styles of responding to good news. Check off which type of responses you identify with most of the time.
Now let us try ACR in session. We will take turns sharing good news and then allowing the other person to respond. Think of something positive and recent that happened to you and tell me about it.
Homework : Ask the client to practice ACR beyond his intimate relationships and use it with family member and friends.
Clinician notes : If the client is proficient in ACR, consider expanding the practice of positive communication into positive affirmations where partners offer each other words and actions that confirm the partners’ beliefs about themselves and behave in ways that are congruent with their partner’s ideal self (Drigotas, 2002).
Ask the client to practice perceptual affirmations where partners’ general view of each other is aligned with their ideal self, where we perceive our partners as trying their best, where we are forgiving of shortcoming and sympathize with the pain of failure, and finally, where we shine the light on qualities.
Ask the client to also practice behavioral affirmations where partners elicit behaviors that are in congruence with the other person’s ideal selves as well as create opportunities for expression of those ideal selves while decreasing situations that can negate them and behaviors that conflict.
This paves the way toward movement in the direction of being the most valuable self through skill development and reflection on aspirations congruent with deeply help hopes and dreams.
Goal : Therapeutic benefits of helping others are introduced and the client is encouraged to Give the Gift of Time in a way that employs their strengths.
Tool : Gift of Time
Rationale : Helping others and practicing altruistic behavior has been shown to significantly increase a sense of meaning and purpose in life. In addition to making a difference, we also benefit from shifting our focus away from ourselves and indulging in our own thoughts (Keltner, 2009).
Research shows that material gifts lose their charm and value over time, but positive experiences and interactions continue to pay dividends through increased confidence that you can, in fact, do good (Kasser & Kanner, 2004).
Think of ways in which you could give someone you care about a Gift of Time. Brainstorm ways of doing something that requires a fair amount of time and involves using your strengths. Using your strengths to deliver the gift will make the exercise more satisfying.
Write about your experience, recalling the details of what was involved in planning and reflect on how it made you feel.
Homework : To maintain progress, suggest that the client performs a few random acts of kindness or consider volunteering for a cause they care about in a way that would allow them to use their strengths.
Clinician Note : Exercise caution if the self-care of clients is already compromised and make sure that their altruistic endeavors don’t negatively impact their self-care needs. To help clients decide on the scale of their altruistic endeavors, explore carefully client’s level of distress and wellbeing as it may reveal their exposure to a potential vulnerability.
Goal : The concept of a full life is explained as an integration of enjoyment, engagement and meaning and ways of sustaining positive change in the future are devised.
Tools : From Your Past Toward Your Future and Positive Legacy
Rationale : Cultivation of meaning helps us articulate our life goals in a way that integrates our past, present, and future. It provides a sense of efficacy, helps create ways to justify our actions and connects us to other people through a shared sense of purpose.
Cultivating long term life-satisfaction is closely tied to meaningful pursuits and our lives provide opportunities for meaningful stretches if one is willing to look.
In this final session, we combine the positive introduction with a better version of the self, and the hope of leaving a positive legacy.
If available, please read your Positive Introduction from Session I. If not, simply recall your story of resilience from our first session. Answer the following questions:
Positive Legacy
Envision your life as you would like it to be and how you would want to be remembered by others. What accomplishments and strengths would they mention? What would you like your legacy to be? Describe in concrete terms. _____
Now look back at what you wrote and ask yourself if you have a plan that is both realistic and within your ability to do so.
Homework : Resolve to keep this in a safe place and read it again a year from now. At that point ask yourself if you made progress, if you need to revise your goals, or if new goals have emerged for you.
Clinician notes : Some client may struggle to find purpose and meaning in their life, especially if they are struggling with a significant loss, trauma or severe depression. Nevertheless, it is very important for the client to be asked about meaning. Irvin Yalom (2020), the author of Existential Psychotherapy states that every one of his clients expressed concerns about the lack of meaning in their lives.
Expand your arsenal and impact with these 17 Positive Psychology Exercises [PDF] , scientifically designed to promote human flourishing, meaning, and wellbeing.
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We hope that you found this overview of effective positive psychotherapy tools to be helpful.
What has your experience been using these positive psychotherapy exercises? Leave a comment below. We would love to hear and learn from you.
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I am very happy to see this post because it really a nice post. Thanks
This article is very informative and comprehensive. It has broadened my knowledge and perspective on Positive Psychotherapy. The exercises can benefit my clients as well as myself in the pursuit of happiness.
This is indeed one of the most rarely well thought and designed positive therapy/ coaching exercises which I am certain that will have a good impact on the client. Millions of thanks
This article has made me more effective in my work and I thank you dearly!
you are a genius!!!!!!
Beautifully executed. Focused on the positive. Clients would feel enthused to pursue it. A positive psychology CBT.
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Education an exercise that is set as homework.... Click for English pronunciations, examples sentences, video.
As nouns the difference between exercise and homework is that exercise is any activity designed to develop or hone a skill or ability while homework is work that is done at home, especially school exercises set by a teacher. As a verb exercise is to exert for the sake of training or improvement; to practice in order to develop.
5. While exercise is designed to benefit physical health, promoting endurance, muscle strength, and overall well-being, homework targets cognitive and educational growth, enhancing understanding and mastery of subjects taught in school. Exercise contributes to immediate physical health benefits and long-term wellness, reducing the risk of ...
Homework - Wikipedia ... Homework
These include to: establish and improve communication between parents and children about learning. help children be more responsible, confident and disciplined. practise or review material from ...
Teachers should also make it clear that homework is a meaningful formative assessment where both they and their students can understand what students know and where there are knowledge gaps. Step Three. Third, some students may be quite unhappy when being mandated to do specific work. Therefore, teachers should stress the choices a student gets ...
The Pros and Cons of Homework
HOMEWORK definition: 1. work that teachers give their students to do at home: 2. work that teachers give their students…. Learn more.
HOMEWORK meaning: 1. work that teachers give students to do at home: 2. to prepare carefully for a situation: . Learn more.
Definition. Homework is a work or a task assigned to a student by a teacher to be completed during a non-school hour, whereas an assignment is a task assigned to a student in the course of study. In contrast to homework, an assignment usually provides the student with a clue about the objectives of the assigned task. ...
«Homework exercise» Meaning of homework exercise in the English dictionary with examples of use. Synonyms for homework exercise and translation of homework exercise to 25 languages.
Homework may serve to tie the school more closely to the home. It is a demonstration of teacher expectations to both pupil and parent. By definition, homework is a task initiated and/or motivated in the classroom related to the objective of the course studied which is normally completed during out-of-class time.
(exercises assigned by a teacher) The term homework generally implies that the work is mandatory and worth marks; exercises that are optional are usually referred to as practice problems, review problems, extra practice, exercises, etc.
The teacher told us to do thirty exercises for homework. If you are teacher you can also say: For homework I want you to do thirty exercises. But if you set thirty exercises as homework then one 'unit' of homework would be thirty exercises, so 'exercise' isn't the unit for 'the homework received from one pupil'.
homework - WordReference English dictionary, questions, discussion and forums. All Free. ... "Are the exercise too many", "Is the homework too much" or "Are there too many exercises today"? Are you done with your homework? asked the children if they did their homework. [past simple + past simple]
Effective Practices for Homework
Definition of 'homework exercise' homework exercise in British English (ˈhəʊmˌwɜːk ˈɛksəˌsaɪz ) noun. education. an exercise that is set as homework. ... In this study, researchers evaluate a homework exercise assigned before a standalone information literacy session. Joseph E. Goetz, ...
The role of homework
HOMEWORK definition: 1. work that teachers give students to do at home: 2. to prepare carefully for a situation: . Learn more.
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HOMEWORK meaning: 1. work that teachers give their students to do at home: 2. work that teachers give their students…. Learn more.
Find 159 different ways to say HOMEWORK, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at Thesaurus.com.
20 Positive Psychotherapy Exercises, Sessions and ...