Stress inoculation is a cognitive behavioral procedure developed by Canadian psychologist Donald Meichenbaum to reduce stress. Stress inoculation was originally designed to treat anxiety problems. Currently, stress inoculation training is applied to a variety of disorders, including anxiety.
Stress inoculation training is not an isolated technique, but a generic term that refers to a treatment paradigm. Treatment consists of a “training” plan with specific techniques.
- This training plan combines different elements.
- These elements include didactic teaching.
- Socratic discussion.
- Cognitive restructuring.
- Problem solving and relaxation training.
- Behavioral and imaginary tests.
- Self-recording.
- Self-learning and self-strengthening.
Stress inoculation training has been created to create and develop confrontational skills. This not only solves immediate problems, but also applies to future difficulties.
Stress inoculation training provides people with an active defense against potentially stressful situations, in some ways, analogous to the concepts of medical inoculation against certain biological diseases.
Similar to medical inoculation, stress inoculation training is designed to produce “psychological antibodies”. These psychological antibodies therefore refer to the individual’s confrontational abilities.
So try to strengthen the resistance. This is achieved by exposing to stimuli powerful enough to activate defense mechanisms without being powerful enough to win. In this way, the patient can develop a notion of “learned resources” thanks to their experience. This can also be done with a defense of positive skills and expectations.
As Meichenbaum (2009) states, stress inoculation training is useful for addressing the four stress categories highlighted by Eliot and Eisdorfer (1982):
Specifically, stress inoculation training is designed to
Treatment goals for stress inoculation training focus on three key areas:
In stress inoculation training, we can distinguish three phases that sometimes overlap. They are: 1) Conceptualization phase; 2) Phase of acquisition and training of competences; and 3) The phase of applying the acquired skills.
The general objectives of this phase are to identify and define the problem that the person presents, it also aims to help him understand its nature and its effects on emotions and behaviors, in addition to defining the goals of therapy.
This phase is very important. The emphasis on understanding the problem and how it can be solved means that this phase is also called the educational phase.
During this second phase, the patient, with the help of the therapist, examines, learns and forms confrontational strategies. These strategies will allow you to address the stress-generating situations detected during the conceptualization phase.
During this phase, tasks are carried out such as training the patient to effectively seek, use and maintain social support, also using real models of confrontation or video, commenting, discussing and feedback on the execution of the strategies that are being formed.
In the third phase, the objectives are multiple: implement the strategies learned in real-life situations, check the usefulness of the skills acquired and correct the problems that arise during the exhibition process; this phase is completely related to the previous one, usually to acquire skills it is necessary to train them, first in sessions and then in real situations.
In short, stress inoculation training is a complex set of techniques or procedures to combat stress, this training consists of three phases and its usefulness is undeniable to combat stressful, present and future situations.