Thinking Errors
What is catastrophizing?
Assuming the worst will happen.
What are coping skills used for?
Coping skills help you manage, tolerate, or reduce stress, emotional pain, and difficult situations.
Healthy or Unhealthy: Going for a walk to clear your head.
Healthy - Moving your body and giving yourself time to process how your feeling is an example of emotional regulation.
What message might you be sending if you are standing close to another person, frowning, and pointing at them?
You might be angry or upset with the person.
True or False: Going to be therapy means someone is crazy or broken.
False. Therapy is a tool for anyone who wants added supports to understand and build coping skills.
Name the thinking error: "I only took $20 out of the wallet; there was a lot more money than that."
Minimization - making big things into small things.
When you are feeling sad, what are some coping skills that may be the most helpful?
Talking to a friend or trusted adult, journaling, or engaging in a hobby that brings you joy.
Name a good way AND a bad way to handle this situation: Someone cuts in front of you in the lunch line.
Healthy - communicating with the person and asking for them to move to the back of the line or talking to a trusted adult.
Unhealthy - shoving, yelling, swearing, or fighting with the person.
Name 2 songs that automatically brighten up your mood. Explain why these songs uplift you and how it makes you feel.
Any answer works for this!
True or false: Everybody experiences anxiety at least once in their lifetime.
True - Anxiety is a normal and healthy emotion designed to protect us. It only becomes a problem if it is negatively impacting daily life.
Name the thinking error: "Everything bad always happens to me"
Victim thinking - Thinking that you have no control over your life.
Name 5 different coping skills that can be helpful for emotional regulation.
Name a good way AND a bad way to handle this situation: Your mom yells at you for something your sister did.
Good: wait for your mom to stop speaking before explaining what happened - accepting a consequence if you were also involved Bad: yelling back, throwing a tantrum
What body signals come up when someone is anxious?
Stomach pain, heart beating rapidly, shaking/trembling, restlessness, frog in throat, sweating.
True or false: Saying no to a friend makes you a bad person.
False - setting boundaries is healthy and necessary for maintaining strong and healthy relationships.
Name at least two steps to challenging negative thoughts.
Recognition, reality testing, predicting, or self-talk.
True or false: Coping skills can be unhealthy.
True. Examples of unhealthy coping can be isolating, self-harm, using substances, etc.
Name the behavior - You ignore your feelings and pretend everything is fine, so nobody worries about you.
Emotional avoidance/ avoidance.
You walk into class and hear your teacher announce a surprise spelling test that you haven't studied for. You might feel...
Worried, anxious, or scared.
True/false: Healthy relationships are completely free of conflicts and arguments.
False - Arguments/conflicts are normal, what is important is how you communicate and resolve them.
Name all of the thinking errors we have mentioned in group.
Catastrophizing, mind-reading, blaming (self and others), making mountains out of molehills, victim thinking, denial, and minimization.
What is TIPP? Name each component and provide examples of how to utilize this DBT skill.
TIPP stands for temperature, intense exercise, progressive muscle relaxation, and paced breathing. Examples of this can be drinking a glass of cold water, rubbing ice on your skin, going on a run, box breathing, etc.
Name the behavior - You recognize that a friendship is hurting your mental health and decide to step away from the person.
Setting healthy boundaries
What message might you be sending if you are doing something else, avoiding eye contact, and not responding while someone is talking to you? How might this interaction impact your relationship with this person?
You might be showing the person that you're ignoring them not interested in what they have to say. This might create distance in the friendship or make them not want to talk to you again.
True/False: Trust takes a long time to build but can be broken in a second.
True - Rebuilding trust requires consistent actions over time.