A practical activity to reduce avoidance

Trauma can disrupt how you live your life. If you’ve experienced trauma, you may avoid specific places, people, activities, or situations because of those upsetting past experiences.

Avoiding these things can delay you from enjoying your life to the fullest. The ‘Reducing Avoidance Activity’ will help you:

• Increase your confidence 
• Feel safer
• Overcome things you’ve been avoiding

How to reduce avoidance

1. Find a pen and paper.

2. Write down a list of activities, people, places or situations you avoid. View example below to help you get started.

3. Rank each item on the list between 0 to 10. If it causes you no distress, mark the item 0. If it causes you a lot of distress, mark the item 10. 

4. Try to put the situations in order, from least to most distressing or difficult. 

5. In a separate column, write down a word to describe how you are feeling before completing the situation.  

6. Find the lowest rank situation in the difficulty score column. Try to do the least difficult situation first. Remember it’s okay to ask for help if you need a friend or family to support you.

7. After you’ve completed the situation, go back to your paper with the list of activities you avoid. Add another column and grade yourself on how well you think you completed the situation. If you think you did excellent, mark the item A. If you think you didn’t do well at all, mark the item F.

8. Finally, add a fifth column and reflect on how you feel knowing you completed the situation. If you feel unsatisfied, mark the item 0. If you feel satisfied, mark the item 10.

9. Redo step 5 to 8 with the next situation that is the least difficult. Keep doing steps 5 to 8 until you complete the most difficult situation. Remember to be kind to yourself and take breaks between confronting difficult situations.

Reducing avoidance for specific situations may be difficult at first, however the more you keep trying, the easier you will find it. 

Example

In this example, the person doing this activity has experienced a traumatic event that involved driving to work and crashing on a roundabout. 

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