S

The Three Zones of

Assessment: A Research Proposal

Nick French

7/8/14

Adler School of Professional Psychology

The Three Zones of

Assessment

S Developed by survival expert, Les Stroud. Designed for individuals that find themselves stranded in the wilderness. He defines the three zones as follows:

S Zone 1: What do I have on me?

S Zone 2: What is in my immediate area?

S Zone 3: What is beyond my immediate area?

Adapting the Three Zones for

Mental Health

S In this proposal, The Three Zones of Assessment has been adapted for the purpose of anxiety reduction and control.

S Those who experience anxiety would define panic attacks as a “life or death” way of responding to a stressor. Hence, why the three zones could possibly be applied to a non-wilderness situation as a coping tool.

S For this proposal, we will use T3ZOA as an acronym

to represent The 3 Zones of Assessment.

T3ZOA

The newly adapted zones will

be defined as follows:

Zone 1: What is going on with

me (physically,

psychologically,

physiologically)?

Zone 2: What is going on in

my immediate area?

Zone 3: How do I envision

myself overcoming this

anxiety situation?

Research Question,

Hypothesis, and Justification

S Question: Is T3ZOA an effective coping tool for those

suffering from anxiety?

S Hypothesis: Those who learned the T3ZOA material

reported lower anxiety levels during the experiment than

those who did not receive the materials.

S Justification: To provide a tangible, easy to use coping

tool that anxiety sufferers can use to aid their treatment

process.

Research

Design, Part

1

Type of Research: Artistically

Styled Qualitative Research,

with an emphasis on the

“theatrical” and “role-play”

aspect. This will create a more

authentic anxiety experience,

giving the results more

external validity. This model is

rooted in the MFT field, and

was utilized by some of our

founders in Carl Whitaker and

Salvador Minuchin (Sprenkle

& Piercy, 2005).

Research Design, Part 2

S Researchers will recruit participants that qualify for all types of anxiety disorders. Those with personality disorders will be excluded.

S Qualified participants will take the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Questionnaire (STAI). Resulting scores will be recorded as a baseline measurement.

S Scores on the STAI range from 20-80. The higher the score, the higher the anxiety.

Research Design, Part 3:

Participants

Group A

S Receives T3ZOA education

material as part of individual

therapy session.

Group B

S Does not receive educational

material as part of individual

therapy session.

Research Design, Part 4

The Experiment

S The therapist tells them during the individual session that the materials will “need to be used soon.” This will be aimed to activate the participants’ anxiety. The participants will then leave the therapy room and enter the waiting room, where there will be a large crowd of people. This will also work to activate anxiety. Here, the client will need to reside in the waiting room for five minutes before a therapist comes to retrieve them.

S Participants will have been casually instructed by the therapist to “wait 5 minutes in the waiting room before another therapist comes to retrieve them for an outcome interview.”

Research

Design, Part

5• Group B will go through the

same waiting room routine, but will not have received the coping tools beforehand. They will receive them afterwards.

• Both groups will be interviewed regarding their experience. Anxiety levels will be compared between them.

• A follow up interview for both Groups will be made three months later. Have they been using T3ZOA? If so, how has it helped? If so, how do their average anxiety levels compare to the anxiety levels reported before the experiment?

Measures

S Self-reported anxiety levels will be provided by the participants using a scale of 1-10, along with scores indicated by the STAI. These will be averaged out amongst the two groups and compared.

S Self reported anxiety experiences will be measured and told in story form (the words of the clients). Such stories will be laid out in sequence for the readers to experience. This accommodates the complexity of the human experience by giving room for unique explanations.

Data Analysis

S Continuous measurement variables:

• Anxiety scores provided before,

during, and in the three month follow

up.

S Categorical measurement variables:

• (1) Before: how they have been

experiencing anxiety up until this

point.

• (2) During: how they experienced

anxiety during the experiment.

• (3) After: in the three month follow

up (how they have been

experiencing anxiety since the

experiment).

T3ZOA Coming soon to a therapy room near you! (hopefully)

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