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For my last journal entry, I would like to take the time to reflect on my overall learning of this course. This course has given me the ability to learn about many important aspects of therapy approaches. Throughout the semester I was given the chance to work individually and in groups to excel my knowledge of cognitive behaviour approaches. I have gained knowledge on many topics such as motivational interviewing, CBT, emotion regulation, mindfulness/relaxation, expressive therapies, exposure therapy, behavioural activation, ACT, DBT, and narrative therapy. Although I feel as if I have had the opportunity to learn a lot, I strongly believe that everyone has the chance to grow and continue to learn about all topics in school. This course has been lovely while having Tami as my professor. She was able to ensure that I could finish this semester off while being able to demonstrate my understanding of the theoretical foundations of Cognitive Behaviour Approaches. The activities and assignments that we were provided with for this course were a great way to help us as students show not only our strengths but also our weaknesses which I think is very important. I think that the assignments that Tami gave us were a fun and real way to not only reflect on our learning but also practice the approaches that we were taught. Without being given the ability to connect with my peers, and participate in the role play, I wouldn't be able to apply my knowledge as if I were working with a client in my field. Overall, this semester has been very interesting (in a good way) and has made me excited to continue with the Bachelor of Behavioural Science program here at Humber College.

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As stated in my previous journal entry, I have decided to create a study plan in hopes that it will help me study for exams. I decided to break up my study plan into each course. The study plan that is shown above was made specifically for this class therefore it will not include my plans for other classes. During the week, you will notice that I have certain days that will say "day off" These are days that I've dedicated to the study plan for my other courses to ensure that I am up to date on my studying for each class.

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Considering the previous weeks of this course were exciting, it is now down to exam review time! I've spent this whole semester having fun with in-class exercises, group work, and more but it is now time that I settle down and devote my attention to studying for exams. This week's journal entry won't be as exciting as the others but I am glad that I have a chance to take a break from studying to write this journal entry out. I have spent the remainder of this week creating, analyzing, and practicing my notes for not only this course but two of my other courses. Although studying may not be seen as a wonderful/fun time, I have turned away from my previous studying habits and turned to a new method of studying. I have always had a very difficult time studying as my ADHD can often be all over the place. Traditional studying hasn't been very effective for me as I find that I ALWAYS get distracted too easily from sitting in one place. This semester I am trying a few studying techniques that will hopefully pay off. I have devoted all my time to creating a study plan, reviewing my notes 3 hours before bed, as well as taking breaks.

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During week 12, I was given the opportunity to take part in an in class role play. This role play was an exciting way to showcase our knowledge on cognitive and behavioural strategies. My group consisted of Taedra, Amna, Rebka, and myself. During this assignment, we took action in demonstrating 4 interventions/strategies in which we chose breath training, the downward arrow activity, art therapy, as well as behavioural activation, and emotional regulation skills. My group was able to work together efficiently which made the process a lot easier on all group members. I was very happy to see what my group and I was able to bring to the table and felt as if we had a lot of fun participating in this assignment. Although we had fun, we did run into an issue where we spent too much time on our role play, but I felt as if that was due to the fact that we were all having fun staying in character based on the scenario that we had created. This made me realize how easy it is to get carried away in a session with a client and gave me a chance to understand that I will need to learn how to manage my time especially if I were to be in a real therapy session.

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After learning this module, I started to realize that narrative therapy kind of works like a puzzle. This is because, when trying to recall all of the events and details of a story (While stressed), narrative therapy gives the clients a chance to build up their story out of context. This means that the clients will be asked to tell their story from the beginning where they will then fit in the traumatic events that have affected them into the gaps between each other which helps bring the entire story together.

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For this week, I decided to do further research on a more eye-appealing way that a client could understand narrative therapy. This is where I came across what people have been calling the "tree of life -the trauma tree-" I feel like this is a great way to grab the attention of the client and focus on the narrative of their story (involving their problem). The Tree of Life method was co-developed by Ncazelo Ncube-Milo and David Denborough. This method allows the client to draw inspiration to transform their experience in therapy. In this method, the roots represent where you are from, this is where you will have a small discussion about influential people, experiences, and places. The ground represents your present life. Branches represent your hopes and dreams. this is where the counselor will ask questions about how the history of your dreams relates to the people and experiences in your life. The trunk represents your skills and interests. Questions will be asked to enable the client's story to be told. Leaves represent the important people in the client's life. Questions will be based on why these people are so important and distinguish what type of time the client had with these people. The "fruit" on the tree represents all of the gifts that were given to the client. It will have the client deep dive into why they were given these "gifts" and what the "giver valued about the client. Finally, the storm represents the challenges that our client is currently facing. This will allow the client to narrate how they felt/responded to these challenges as well as how long the "storms" last.

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This week, I decided to create a Quizlet, this gives me the opportunity to not only understand Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, but also gives me the chance to have study notes for when we have our final. I have attached the link down below so that people can have access to my study notes

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This week, I learnt about DBT. One thing that I found interesting was that we can use the skill of "DISTRACT with wise mind ACCEPTS" (Rankin, 2024) when we are trying to tolerate painful events and emotions when struggling to immediately make things better. "ACCEPTS" is an acronym that helps us keep busy, distract our thoughts, as well as be aware of our senses. This acronym that showcases different ways that an individual can decide to choose, and it will distract our minds of our stressors when problem solving.

Activities (keep busy)

Contributing (get your mind off yourself)

Comparisons (could be worse)

Emotions (do something that makes you feel different)

Pushing away (block out thoughts that make us feel different)

Thoughts (distracting thoughts)

Senses (be aware of our senses).

As the semester is beginning to come to an end, I decided to figure out activities that I could use to relieve my stressors of school. Some of the activities that I have participated in this week were; soaking in a bubble bath, going for walks, as well as listening to music while working on my assignments.

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After reading the article "How Does Acceptance And Commitment Therapy (ACT) Work?" (Ackerman, 2017), I came across many different activities/worksheet examples that are used in this therapy. The worksheet that I chose to complete was the control of thoughts and feelings questionnaire. I chose to complete this questionnaire before and after I read the Happiness Act as I found it would be interesting to see how my thoughts and feelings could change. You will find two pages listed below, the page with the pink answers was my first take on the questionnaire before reading the Happiness Act, and the green is after reading.

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Week 9. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

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Week 9. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

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After learning this module, I have decided to use the Choice point to help me with a situation that is currently happening in my life.

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One thing that I struggle with most is public speaking. This has been a huge fear of mine my entire life. After learning about exposure therapy, I realized that it is a type of therapy that I could use to ensure that I can speak in public without having a fear of it. In my personal opinion, I feel very embarrassed to have a fear of public speaking which is why I have wanted to be able to get rid of the fear. When thinking more about what public speaking entails, I began to realize that my fear is related to social anxiety. Social anxiety affects a lot of the population and I felt as if more people should know about what it is and how exposure therapy can help them overcome their fear. Although there is no "cure" for public speaking, many effective treatments can help. One thing that has helped me overcome my social anxiety is to break the pattern of my fear and avoidance of publicly speaking. During this semester, we have been allowed to present in front of the class. I strongly believe that this has helped as a form of exposure therapy as I am personally exposed to my fear of speaking in front of a group of people.

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One thing that stood out to me during this week was the information that I learned about activities and how they can please, or displease people and their moods. Although there were many activities that we could use as a journal entry for this week, I decided to take a different route and determine what activities are present in my life that tend to increase pleasure/mastery, but also activities that decrease my mood. When it comes to activities that I find to be pleasurable, I automatically think of activities such as golf, bubble baths, and reading. This is because it helps lower my stress levels and gives me a chance to focus on myself rather than the world around me. That being said, there are often times when I feel like stress is taking over my body. Throughout the week, I noticed that certain activities in my life began to drain me. These activities include working too much, repetitive tasks, as well as creating my weekly schedules. This activity gave me the chance to figure out my main stressors and work on them while removing activities that aren't helping with my stress.

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Week 6. CBT Cognitive Distortions/Automatic Thoughts

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Week 6. CBT Cognitive Distortions/Automatic Thoughts

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This week, I decided to create an infographic to create a more visually appealing way to learn and understand cognitive distortions and automatic thoughts. If you are to click on the photo, you will be given access to the entire infographic! I hope you enjoy

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After spending the last 6 weeks in my courses, I began to have thoughts based on one of my courses. This led me to deep thoughts about my future not only as a student but also as an adult. After learning about techniques that are used in CBT, I fell across using vertical descent. This allowed me to dig deeper into my thought process and allowed me to understand my core beliefs. I have always been a worry wart, and my future has always been clear to me. This activity gave me a chance to understand how my thoughts can affect my life. Although I worry about everything, I never give myself the chance to analyze my feelings.

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This week, I decided to move further out of my comfort zone and start breathing exercises and yoga. After learning about mindfulness approaches, I learned that there are several benefits to relaxation. These benefits include improved concentration and focus, increased emotional well-being, lowered inflammation, reduced anger and frustration, a lowered heart rate, and reduced fatigue. When I was about the age of 7, my mom signed me up for a yoga class that took place right beside our house. I had fallen in love with the idea and concept of yoga and had continued participating in the classes for about 5 years. As I began to grow older, I noticed that attending yoga classes started to become difficult. Although I hadn't done yoga in years, I was able to pick it up pretty easily. I began my mornings this week by waking up at 6:00 a.m. to have a shower, begin my breathing exercises, and complete a 10-minute yoga session at home. My breathing exercises were done after my shower. This exercise involved the 4-7-8 technique. This means that I would have to breathe in for 4 seconds, hold my breath for 7 seconds, and proceed to exhale for 8 seconds. I would do this three times before getting into the yoga session. My yoga sessions took place in my living room. My mom still had my old yoga mat, which made it easy to perform the positions. I put on relaxation music (ultra relaxing music for spa, massage, meditation, sleep, and 2 hours of high-quality melodies) on YouTube. For the most part, I would begin doing a downward dog pose, which I would hold for approximately 20 seconds at a time (performed a total of 3 times each morning). I would then move into the bridge pose. This position would be held for 20 seconds per time (this was performed a total of three times each morning). After that, I would move into the tree pose, which I would hold for a total of a minute each of the three times. After warming up my body with these 3 poses, I would then move onto a low lunge, which helped stretch my back and legs. I held this pose for a total of 1 minute, 3 times. I would then finish my yoga session by doing the corpse pose. This allowed my body to rest and absorb all of the benefits that the session had provided me with. This pose was done once, for a total of 2 minutes. After wrapping up the yoga session, I would redo my breathing exercises twice before continuing on with my day. After completing these exercises for the week, I noticed that my anxiety levels had decreased and my concentration and focus were heightened.

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Week 3. Emotion Regulation and Mindfulness

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Week 3. Emotion Regulation and Mindfulness

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In this week's entry, I decided that I would create a poem because I strongly believe that poetry evokes emotion. While going through emotional regulation with EI, it states that a big part of emotional awareness is being able to name your emotions and tell them apart (Rankin, 2024). After learning about labeling, I immediately thought of writing a poem. This is because I think that expressive writing is an easy way for a person to be able to label and manage their emotions effectively. After dealing with the passing of my great-grandmother, I found myself wondering how to deal with my emotions. This is when I decided to create a poem for her.

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After learning about art therapy and completing the mindfulness assignment, I began to create mood boards every week. Here is a look at some of the mood boards that I have created. The best part of creating mood boards is that they allow you to express your feelings through pictures rather than words. Sometimes I find it very difficult to express my feelings verbally, as I find people are sometimes judged. I also feel as if I have a hard time figuring out what words to use when expressing my emotions. Mood boards give me a chance to reflect on my feelings comfortably and positively. When creating my mood boards, I would find myself thinking of colours that represented how I felt and using those colours to sort through images that matched my emotions.

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In this week's chapter, I got the opportunity to learn about art therapy. Throughout this week, Tami introduced our mindfulness and expressive therapies assignment, and I got the ability to move out of my comfort zone. With how busy my weeks are, I am unable to have much downtime. Thankfully, this assignment gave me the chance to use art as a therapeutic way to help me deal with some unfortunate emotions that I was holding on to. Before starting this assignment, I got the unfortunate news that my great-grandmother had passed away. I began to fall into a deep depression while dealing with the stress of work and school. This assignment gave me the chance to work through my emotions in a positive way rather than taking my anger out on those around me. I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to learn about and practice art therapy. I strongly believe that art therapy is something that many people should turn to when they feel lost. I chose this piece as it represents the time I used to spend with my great-grandmother at the beach when I was younger.

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This week, I was given the chance to set out specific goals that I had to create a self-care plan. These are the goals that I had come up with, as I found that they are things that I lack on a day-to-day basis.

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This week, I learned that motivational interviewing is a conversation style that is used to strengthen a person's motivation and commitment to change (Miller and Rollnick, 2012). Before taking this course, I had no idea what motivational interviewing was. I was also unaware of how effective it is when focusing on our clients. I learned that motivational interviewing discusses personal responsibility, coping mechanisms, and more. When we look at motivational interviewing we were taught that it comes in four processes. These processes include engagement, focusing, evoking, and planning. After taking a look at these processes, I decided to widen my knowledge by investigating each one of these processes. That is when I stumbled across an article called "What Are the 4 Processes of Motivational Interviewing." written by Jaquelyn Johnson and Saya Des Marais. This article gave me an understanding of how these four processes can work hand in hand with both the client and the therapist. This article states, "Without engagement, discord (conflict) will likely come up in the relationship later (Johnson & Marias, 2022). This has helped open my eyes when it comes to figuring out ways to engage the client because, without engagement, trust can not be formed. The 2nd process involves focus. This is where all of the goal agreements take place. While looking at the 3rd process (evoking), the article states "evoking is an MI-specific process where the practitioner draws out "change talk" from the care recipient about the focus (Johnson & Marias, 2022). This helped illuminate my understanding that we can use various methods such as open questions, targeted reflection, and summaries when we evoke "change talk." The final process includes planning which is what I have learned is the most important task of the MI processes. This is because when planning, we focus on attending to any possible barriers that will lead our client to success.