Psychological treatment for stress: the 5 types of therapy used

In the 21st century, anxiety, depression and stress have skyrocketed in terms of the number of people suffering from any of these mental health-related conditions that can significantly affect the quality of life, so it is very important that psychological treatments are applied that allow them to be approached in a effective.

A psychological treatment for stress it is used to treat mental disorders that are specifically related to stress and, at the same time, they tend to have developed due to the patient's exposure to some stressful event or situation or traumatic.

This article will explain some of the psychological treatments that have been developed to address disorders that are specifically associated with stress.

• Related article: "Types of stress and their triggers"

The main psychological treatments for stress

These are the most used psychological treatments for stress problems.

1. Stress Inoculation Training (SIS)

A psychological treatment for stress is the program known as stress inoculation training and is based on the learning, by patients, strategies and skills for coping and managing anxiety suffered in relation to to the

posttraumatic stress that can be suffered by people who have been victims of rape.

It should be noted that this psychological treatment for traumatic stress is not especially focused on the thoughts or memories associated with the trauma suffered by patients, but rather It is focused on teaching and coping skills training, being carried out through a program with a duration of approximately 10 to 14 sessions.

We are facing a psychological treatment for post-traumatic stress that is divided into three main phases: the educational phase, the training phase and the generalization phase.

In the first phase, the psychoeducational one, the psychotherapist aims to give all the necessary information about the mechanisms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) based on models that explain this disorder from the perspective of learning theories and the characteristics of the child's coping mechanisms. stress.

The second phase, training, is where patients learn and train a series of coping strategies for anxious responses (p. g., breathing techniques, progressive muscle relaxation, cognitive restructuring and visualization techniques, among others).

Finally, the generalization phase, which is the moment when patients must put into practice those coping skills, which they have trained in the second phase, in life. daily and performing a series of tasks that the psychotherapist has entrusted to them in order to put into practice those skills and techniques that they have been training during the treatment.

• You may be interested in: "Self-Instruction Training and the Stress Inoculation Technique"

2. Present-Centered Therapy (TCP)

The therapy focused on the present is a psychological treatment for stress, whose main objective is for the patient to achieve understand how stress has come to influence the current way interacting with other people in a maladaptive way, so that he can learn new, more adaptive and functional modes within his interpersonal relationships while having greater control over himself.

On the other hand, in addition to using this therapy in order to improve the interpersonal relationships of each patient, It is used for the patient to learn to natural the symptoms, in a way that they generate less anxiety, as well as to promote the increase of their self-confidence and his sense of dominance over his life and the situations he faces in the day a day.

This psychological treatment for stress is a type of intervention that is explained in detail in a manual that has been developed for this purpose and it is recommended that it be carried out through a frequency of one session each week, with a duration of 1 hour and 30 minutes.

This treatment also incorporates techniques such as behavioral activation, cognitive restructuring or exposure techniques. In addition, another objective of this therapy is to guide the patient to focus on the here and now, so that she is able to focus in her cognitive and emotional states, so that he can develop introspection skills to be able to identify them and talk about them in therapy.

Once achieved, the patient must be trained to increase his tolerance to stressful states, so that he does not seek escape routes that could be harmful.

• Related article: "The benefits of going to psychological therapy"

3. EMDR therapy

EMDR therapy or "Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing" is a psychological treatment for post-traumatic stress that has been recognized as one of the first-choice treatments for this disorder by several highly relevant guidelines (p. eg, the world health organization (WHO), the American Psychological Association (APA), among others).

EMDR therapy is largely based on the hypothesis that a post-traumatic stress disorder has been developed to a great extent. partly because of an incomplete processing of those lived experiences that are related to the disturbing or traumatic event and / or for a dysfunctional storage in the memory of said lived experience, because there has been an alteration in the ability of that person to keep them integrated into his memory in an adaptive way.

EMDR is a psychological treatment for post-traumatic stress that is divided into 8 phases in order to address the symptoms arising from stressful situations that have not been processed correctly. These phases are listed below: collection of the patient's history, preparation, evaluation of traumatic memories, desensitization, installation, body examination, closure and revaluation. It should be noted that EMDR seeks the processing of somatic, emotional and cognitive aspects at the same level.

• You may be interested in: "EMDR (Eye Movement) Therapy: Applications and Efficacy"

4. Psychological debriefing therapy

This psychological treatment for stress is used with the aim of prevent and be able to alleviate the psychological consequences of traumatic events experienced by people who work on the front line (for example, health workers during the coronavirus pandemic, army soldiers on an international mission, personnel who worked on the front lines to help those affected by the eruption of the La Palma volcano in 2021 or any other worker whose job exposes them to potentially stressful situations that can result traumatic).

This treatment has been developed in order to help those people who have been in the front line to ** cope with the smells, thoughts, smells, memories, emotions and physical sensations that were associated with a stressful incident and / or traumatic**. Also, it is used approximately 24 to 72 hours after the stabilization of the incident, being able to carry out follow-up psychological therapy sessions if it were necessary.

Faced with an event of this nature, it is important to provide psychological assistance to all those affected; However, it would be appropriate for those affected to be separated based on the level of exposure and affectation they have had per incident suffered.

We are going to list the phases of psychological debriefing therapy, these being the following: introductory phase, account of the facts, thoughts and impressions, emotional reactions, normalization, planning for the future and coping and, finally, the dissolution of the group.

Likewise, it should be noted that this therapy serves as an urgent intervention in cases of people who have suffered traumatic events in the first line; however, it is important that they attend therapy for as long as they need if they need it.

5. Cognitive processing therapy

Cognitive processing therapy is a psychological treatment for stress based on an intervention mainly cognitive to help people with PTSD and to also address feelings of guilt associated with this psychological disorder. Likewise, it is theoretically based on socio-cognitive theories related to PTSD and is used to understand how the traumatic event is interpreted by the person and also how it is interpreted face.

On the other hand, cognitive processing therapy tries to help people with PTSD regain a sense of control and dominance over their lives and, during the intervention, psychological techniques such as cognitive restructuring are used in order to address the belief system that the person has associated with the traumatic event and also the circumstances related to the same.

This psychological treatment for stress is carried out over 12 sessions and the sessions can be carried out both in groups and in individual, using some techniques such as those listed below: psychoeducation, Socratic dialogue, written narrative of trauma, among other