PTSD Avoidance Worksheet
By
HappierTherapy
Author bio
The Happier Therapy editorial team is made up of Masters and PhD counselling psychologists. Each worksheet is created by a team member with exposure to and experience in the subject matter. The worksheet then gets reviewed by a more senior editorial member. This is someone with extensive knowledge of the subject matter and highly cited published material.
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What is the theory behind this PTSD Avoidance Worksheet?
Post-traumatic stress disorder has many symptoms to be diagnosed for among them one of the core symptoms is avoidance coping. In this disorder, people experience extreme distress upon triggers and to deal with that distress they usually adopt avoidance like the use of drugs, being angry, being aloof, working too much, or avoiding triggering situations. This avoidance of them experiencing distress creates other problems in life thus found to be a maladaptive coping style.
How will the worksheet help?
This worksheet will help clients to identify their triggers and the amount of distress associated with them. It will help them cope better with triggers. Clients can have an insight into their coping mechanism and they can assess what problems are emerging because of avoidance coping. It will help clients deal with their triggers in a different manner and promote healthy coping.
How to use the worksheet?
Instruct clients to write triggering events and physical symptoms associated with them. Ask them to write what memories triggers evoke and to identify the flashback that the client has during distress. Lastly, ask them how they cope and its negative impact on themselves. Later help them generate a better coping style and encourage fight response in replacement of flight response.
