Defense Mechanisms
When an individual refuses to recognize or acknowledge objective facts or experiences.
H.O.W.
What is honesty, open mindedness, and willingness?
This type of grief is felt in anticipation of a significant loss. This includes things like the diagnosis of a terminal illness, anticipated layoffs, or impending divorce.
This is doing something that requires focused attention AND something directs one's attention away from something else:
Watching a movie
Count backwards from 1,000
Listen to music
What is distraction?
Any behavior that involves the inability to resist actions that are ultimately harmful to the individual or others.
What is impulse?
This is when apparent logical reasons are given to justify behavior that is motivated by unconscious instinctual impulses.
What is rationalization?
H.A.L.T
What is hungry, angry, lonely, tired?
This grief reaction does not occur for a long time after the loss occurred. Sometimes it surfaces in the face of another significant loss down the line. It functions like a trigger, opening the gates from the initial loss.
What is delayed grief?
_______ acting on cravings, as this helps to disrupt the cycle of reaching immediately for alcohol or drugs when a craving hit.
What is delay?
This is a feeling of emotional or physical tension. It can come from any event or thought that makes you feel frustrated, angry, or nervous.
What is stress?
This is a form of defense in which unwanted feelings are displaced onto another person, where they then appear as a threat from the external world.
What is projection?
F.E.A.R.
This type of grief builds up over time and is marked by a number of losses taking place in a relatively short period of time.
What is cumulative grief?
This mindfulness-based technique that involves acknowledging and accepting the presence of an urge, but not acting on it. Rather than giving in to an urge, you will ride it out, like a surfer riding a wave. After a short time, the urge will pass on its own.
What is urge surfing?
Trigger - Rise -Peak - Fall
This a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.
What is anxiety?
This a defense mechanism in which people express the opposite of their true feelings, sometimes to an exaggerated extent.
What is reaction formation?
A.C.T.
What is action changes things?
This type grief occurs anytime someone feels that society has denied their “need, right, role, or capacity to grieve.” Examples would include hidden or secret relationships, pets, or where the loss is seen as small by others or minimized by the culture.
What is disenfranchised grief?
These are strategies that modify how one views or values tempting stimuli.
This is the persistent occurrence of withdrawal symptoms that can last for months after a person gets sober.
What are Post Acute Withdrawal Symptoms? [PAWS]
This isan emphasized focus on facts, logic, and abstract reasoning to allow a person to assert control over and reduce unpleasant emotions associated with internal or external event.
What is intellectualization?
W.O.W.
What is willingness over willpower?
This type of grief reaction occurs when someone does not show any type of outward grief. They often remain very busy or distracted.
_____ for addictive thinking. This technique involves generating thoughts to dispute the illogical thinking that comes with urges and identifying healthy activities to replace drug use.
What is substituion?
The long-term repercussions of heavy ________ use often include a decrease in serotonin production. This can increase risk of depression.
What is alcohol?