The Distress Cycle: Understand and Address Emotional Triggers

Metacognition helps with reducing distress. The Distress Cycle is a way of understanding what feels like emotional chaos. Emotional Distress is a common phenomena especially in conditions like Borderline Personality Disorder and Generalised Anxiety Disorder. There's a need to increase emotional intelligence in moments of Distress. that’s the metacognitive skill.

Understanding this process can alleviate the chaotic feeling of Distress and can serve as a framework to better understanding your pattern of Distress and the Biases or Schemas which underpin your distress. It has utility in DBT and in Schema work.

In this clip Jess and Dr Al unpack the Distress Cycle:
1. Event "trigger": what initiates the process of Distress.
2. Snap Judgement: the low resolution conclusion that something undesired or hurtful just happened.
3. Emotion: the feelings that ensue from the Snap Judgement, commonly anger, sadness, fear, abandonment etc.
4. Physical Feelings: as a result of activation of the nervous system/adrenaline.
5. Overwhelm: when the Physical manifestation of the emotion result in the emotion intensifying.
6. Urge to act: Our powerful instinct to act of the emotion which can discharge the emotion, but of the act may be a
7. Regrettable Action: When we act on the urge in a manner that we latter regret. This regrettable action can then serve as the "trigger" for another round of the Distress Cycle.

In later clips Jess and Dr Al overlay where skills can be utilised to exit the Distress Cycle to terminate episodes of Distress.

#skillsbeforepills #DBT #Distress

[matthewireland]

Great video. Thank you. The steam train is a good analogy for the process of what to do with pent up energy... and it was very loud too..!!

[JEffigy]

Maybe be useful to also talk about what happens in the three part brain model and amygdala hijack with FFF?

[jacgigliotti]

One person is only necessary for the presentation. I was distracted by her constant interjections

[ennareyem]

Two person presentation too distracting especially when she's commenting during his talk