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Stimulus Discrimination (Audio)

The Stimulus Discrimination audio exercise is taken from the Psychology Tools For Overcoming PTSD Audio Collection. It is designed to help people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to ‘retrain their brain’ in order to attend automatically to signs of safety. 

Stimulus discrimination is a technique that trains the brain to put memories where they belong - in the past. With practice the brain will get better at noticing the differences between then and now – meaning that memories are less likely to be triggered, and helping the listener to feel safer in the present moment. This exercise is best done in combination with a copy of the Psychology Tools Stimulus Discrimination worksheet.

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Audio track (MP3)

A therapy audio track designed for skills development.

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Audio script (PDF)

The script for a therapy audio track. Read along with an exercise, or record in your own voice.

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Languages this resource is available in

  • English (GB)
  • English (US)

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Introduction & Theoretical Background

The Stimulus Discrimination audio exercise is taken from the Psychology Tools For Overcoming PTSD Audio Collection. It is designed to help people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to ‘retrain their brain’ in order to attend automatically to signs of safety. The Stimulus Discrimination audio exercise is designed to accompany the Stimulus Discrimination worksheet. Individuals with PTSD are guided to first attend to similarities between an event which has triggered a fear response and their memory of their trauma. They are then guided to systematically attend to differences between what happened in the past (‘then’) and what they can experience in the present (‘now’).

Therapist Guidance

This audio track is designed for people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The audio track is a simple .mp3 file which can be played in most media player apps. You can also download the verbatim script, allowing you to record the exercise for your clients in your own voice to reinforce work completed in therapy.

References And Further Reading

  • Ehlers, A., Clark, D. M. (2000). A cognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 38, 319-345.
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