Get A Grip introduces a series of skills enabling participants to aid their clients to alter urgent responses to social threat (e.g., rejection, criticism).  Concepts needed to understand the method will be discussed while experientially taking participants through the steps of the program.

Get A Grip includes eight steps designed to reduce reactivity to hot buttons.  It brings together the topics of self-control, mindfulness, core beliefs, affect, and stress. The workshop will review hot button reactions and experientially approach replacing these habitual responses.  Participants will be asked to focus on their contribution to one of their own urgent reactions and maintain self-awareness while negotiating the steps.  Materials include individual worksheets for eight steps and a copy of a six-page article (distributed at the close of the workshop).

This approach evolved over a twelve-year period during which I used various iterations of the program with many of my psychotherapy clients.  I observed the power of core beliefs to drive feeling, thought, and action as well as to resist change.  I came to see that the resistance to change was largely due to the habitual nature of the over-reactive behavior and its hidden value.