Growth Mindset & Leveraging Adversity

Growth Mindset

When a client seeks the help of a clinician, there are always obvious needs: to improve relationships, reduce stress, boost mood, make decisions, etc. Yet these goals – or problems – often mask the larger psychological issues at hand. And while clinicians can present a host of valuable information and techniques to help overcome the client’s immediate problems, they may also miss a valuable opportunity. Because at the root of almost every person seeking some form of self-help is a person facing adversity. The act of seeking help, in itself, is an act of admission that the adversity a person faces is too much to bear. The fact that the client is not at the desired place in life may be further testament to the fact that the adversity in his/her life has also been too much to bear.

Adversity is also what we find at the root of almost every client who returns to regressive behavior. Things are going just fine, until, life throws a curveball, and suddenly, the client returns to exactly where she/he started – and doesn’t want to be. The problem is the client’s attitude toward adversity.

Feeling like adversity is a bad thing – something to be avoided, minimalized, or quickly overcome – is not a small problem, as evidenced by escalating rates of depression, anxiety, subjective accounts of stress, and obesity – which many would argue is an outgrowth of depression. What all of these conditions have in common, is that some form of adversity lies at the center. While depressed clients may complain about isolation, self-doubt, and a pervasive feeling of inadequacy, an obese person may complain about shame, embarrassment, lack of time, and lack of energy. All of these things are forms of adversity.

What should then form the foundation of helping clients achieve any goals – in therapy or otherwise – is a way to help them learn to face adversity. Perhaps what is truly needed is not just a way to face adversity, but a way to leverage adversity to propel growth. Research on what is called a “growth mindset” – which is the belief that intelligence and ability are not fixed and that improvements are dependent on effort (i.e. the harder you work, the better you get) – demonstrates that those with a growth mindset tend to work harder after challenges than those who believe that intelligence and ability are fixed.

This course will provide a methodology for clinicians to teach their clients to transcend their adversities, using them to do more than simply bounce back – but to spring forward. Combining positive psychology and strength-based approaches, this course explains a solution to a relevant and pressing problem: the avoidance of adversity. Clients respond more favorably to therapeutic methods that focus on their strengths, and help them to propel growth. Strength-based approaches, not surprisingly, also show better retention outcomes.

Course excerpt from Leveraging Adversity: Turning Setbacks into Springboards

Leveraging AdversityLeveraging Adversity: Turning Setbacks into Springboards is a 6-hour online continuing education (CE) course that gives clinicians the tools they need to help their clients face adversity from a growth perspective and learn how to use setbacks to spring forward, and ignite growth. While clients can seek the help of a psychotherapist for numerous reasons, one thing that all clients face is adversity. Whether in their own lives, or within the training program itself, adversity and setbacks are inevitable. And how clients handle adversity often colors not just their ability to move past it, but also their success in therapy. Packed with the most recent data on post-traumatic growth, behavioral economics, and evolutionary psychology, this course begins with a look at just what setbacks are and how they affect us. Clinicians are then introduced to the concept of “leveraging adversity,” that is, using it to make critical reconsiderations, align values with behavior, and face challenges with a growth mindset. The course then addresses the five core strengths of leveraging adversity – gratitude, openness, personal strength (growth mindset), connection, and belief – and provides numerous exercises and skills for clinicians to use with clients. Included are 25 separate handouts clinicians can give to clients to cement core concepts from the course. Course #61-03 | 2018 | 92 pages | 35 posttest questions

Professional Development Resources is a nonprofit educational corporation 501(c)(3) organized in 1992. We are approved to sponsor continuing education by the American Psychological Association (APA); the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC); the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB); the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA); the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA); the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR); the Alabama State Board of Occupational Therapy; the Florida Boards of Social Work, Mental Health Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy, Psychology & School Psychology, Dietetics & Nutrition, Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, and Occupational Therapy Practice; the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker & MFT Board and Board of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology; the South Carolina Board of Professional Counselors & MFTs; the Texas Board of Examiners of Marriage & Family Therapists and State Board of Social Worker Examiners; and are CE Broker compliant (all courses are reported within a few days of completion).

Target Audience: PsychologistsCounselorsSocial WorkersMarriage & Family Therapist (MFTs)Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs)Occupational Therapists (OTs)Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (RDNs)School Psychologists, and Teachers

Earn CE Wherever YOU Love to Be!

 

The 3 Components of Growth Mindset

Course excerpt from Motivating Children to Learn

Growth mindset teaches us to focus on the characteristics of an individual, rather than their IQ score. Dweck (2006) recommends fostering a growth mindset in children and educators instead of the more common fixed mindset. Children and adults with a fixed mindset believe that it does not matter how much work or effort one puts in because intelligence and talents are static traits. Therefore, an individual has no control over whether or not s/he succeeds. A growth mindset is the belief that you can effect change within yourself by learning anything with dedication, effort, and persistence. A growth mindset sows the seeds for true success and a love of learning.

Growth Mindset

In this section we will discuss the basics of the Growth Mindset Philosophy and its three major components. In each of these three parts we will discuss ways in which we can convey a growth mindset to our clients, and incorporate these ideas into our therapy activities, in a school, home-based, or private practice setting.

The three components of growth mindset that we will discuss here are:

  1. Neuroplasticity: The idea that the brain is like a muscle, which can get stronger/smarter with use.
  2. Praise that is used appropriately focuses on the effort that the child brings to a task, as opposed to a focus on their innate intelligence.
  3. Mistakes as opportunities for learning. Reinforce the idea that our mistakes and failures are some of our best opportunities for learning

Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at University of Pennsylvania, has studied the character trait of Grit, which she describes as the perseverance and passion for long-term goals. This involves working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failures, adversity, and plateaus in progress (Duckworth et al., 2007). It is one of a set of non-cognitive skills (such as curiosity, resilience, and self-control) that impacts students’ long-term success, just as much as academic skills or IQ. Growth mindset is the idea that people can affect change within themselves, and that they can learn almost anything with dedication, effort, and persistence.

Dweck (2006) explains that teaching children that the brain is a muscle, which can get stronger with effort and hard work, may elicit a positive response. By praising effort and persistence, children learn that mistakes are opportunities to learn, and that challenges and obstacles should be embraced.

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Motivating Children to LearnMotivating Children to Learn is a 4-hour online continuing education (CE/CEU) course that provides strategies and activities to help children overcome their academic and social challenges.

This course describes the various challenges that can sidetrack children in their developmental and educational processes, leaving them with a sense of discouragement and helplessness. Such challenges include learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, behavior disorders, and executive functioning deficits. Left unchecked, these difficulties can cause children to develop the idea that they are not capable of success in school, precipitating a downward spiral of poor self-esteem and – eventually – school failure.

The good news is that much better outcomes can result when parents, teachers, and therapists engage children in strategies and activities that help them overcome their discouragement and develop their innate intelligence and strengths, resulting in a growth mindset and a love of learning. Detailed in this course are multiple strategies and techniques that can lead to these positive outcomes.

Course #40-44 | 2018 | 77 pages | 25 posttest questions

Professional Development Resources is a nonprofit educational corporation 501(c)(3) organized in 1992. We are approved to sponsor continuing education by the American Psychological Association (APA); the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC); the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB); the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA); the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA); the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR); the Alabama State Board of Occupational Therapy; the Florida Boards of Social Work, Mental Health Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy, Psychology & School Psychology, Dietetics & Nutrition, Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, and Occupational Therapy Practice; the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker & MFT Board and Board of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology; the South Carolina Board of Professional Counselors & MFTs; the Texas Board of Examiners of Marriage & Family Therapists and State Board of Social Worker Examiners; and are CE Broker compliant (all courses are reported within a few days of completion).

Target Audience: PsychologistsCounselorsSocial WorkersMarriage & Family Therapist (MFTs)Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs)Occupational Therapists (OTs)Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (RDNs)School Psychologists, and Teachers

Earn CE Wherever YOU Love to Be!