What is the theory behind this Mental health skills building worksheet?
This worksheet is based on teaching Resilience, an important mental health skill that prepares individuals for everyday life stressors and protects them from ill effects of failing to cope with life’s adversities. Resilience is the reason why many of us stay strong in the face of hardship while others succumb to negative thoughts, emotions and maladaptive reactions.
The American Psychological Association defines resilience as a process which enables a person to utilise their mental, emotional and behavioural strengths to the best of their abilities in face of life’s challenges and difficulties. It further adds that Resilience can depend on many factors mainly: ‘the ways in which individuals view and engage with the world, the availability and quality of social resources and specific coping strategies.’
How will the worksheet help?
Resilience is a skill like any other that can be learned through practice. This worksheet will help educate individuals about resilience and explore their own mental, emotional and behavioural strengths that they utilise in difficult situations through a series of questions.
How to use the worksheet?
This worksheet can be used in counselling and therapeutic settings to enhance mental health skills in adolescents or older individuals. Instruct them to answer the questions to assess what skills they possess and which they need to work on in order to become resilient to life’s hardships.
Mental health skill building worksheet
A resilient person is able to effectively utilise their mental, emotional and behavioural strengths to cope with life’s challenges. Following are some strategies that can help you become resilient.
| Be aware of your own signs of stress | Know which activities can relax youBuild your knowledge of relaxation strategies/ self soothing strategies. | Be aware of your own unhelpful thoughts. Counter them with facts and evidence. |
| How can you tell you are stressed? Are there any noticeable emotional or behavioural signs that you have noticed? | What usually helps relax/distract you in times of stress? What are some self-soothing activities that help you the most? | Recall one negative thought from when you were recently stressed. Write the evidence for and against it. Assess if it was true. |
| Work on enhancing positive emotions on a daily basis | Recognize, acknowledge and celebrate your strengths | Strengthen your social support system |
| For e.g keeping a gratitude journalWhat three things are you grateful for right now? | What are your top three strengths that help you through a bad time? | Who are the people in your life that you can rely on in bad times? |
References
You can download this worksheet here.