For over 30-years, Stressmaster International, LLC (SMI) has been a champion of helping people to understand and master stress for greater peace of mind, better health and improved productivity. SMI’s stress assessments, stress mastery training and coaching have helped over 600,000 people world-wide. With corporate offices in Phoenix, Arizona (USA) and over 60 Associates in 15 countries including the USA, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Poland, India, Saudi Arabia and the UK, SMI has become the leader in helping people to reduce, manage and master stress.
Get in touchOur Belief . . .
Is that when just one person learns how to master their anxiety, fears and internal stress, the result will be an enhanced quality of one’s life. . . not only for the individual, but also for the family, co-workers and friends. In effect, a person with less stress will benefit all within that person’s sphere of friends and family.
Our Mission . . .
Is to provide the best evidenced-based stress mastery programs to assist individuals under stress find new and more effective ways to reduce the physical and emotional effects of stress and learn how to become more stress resilient and psychologically hardy. We call this MASTERING STRESS.
Our Goal . . .
Is to help reduce worldwide stress by providing trainers, coaches, counselors and mental, holistic health professionals with our state-of-the-art, proven effective tools and techniques so that they can foster stress resiliency and mastery whether in the corporate world or a health and wellness clinic. Through our own team of Stressmaster Associates and Affiliates, we enable people everywhere to transform themselves through the art of mastering stress…at work, home and play.
Hi, I’m Jim Petersen
Psychologist, author and founder of Stressmaster International, LLC. I’m glad you stopped by today! I have always been interested in people; what makes them “tick” and how I might be able to help, guide and counsel those who are struggling with stress. Here’s a little about me and my work in stress mastery at Stressmaster International.
After receiving my doctorate in Psychology from the University of Arizona, I established a clinical practice with a focus on stress and stress related disorders in Tucson.Arizona using biofeedback, cognitive therapy, positive psychology and stress management techniques. I realized that stress management basically taught people to manage or reduced stress using such techniques as deep relaxation, yoga, mindfulness and meditation. These are great techniques for reducing stress levels, but they don’t always help one to prevent stress reoccurring. I knew that when stressors occur, stress is produced by how one mentally reacts to that stressor, which is influenced by our perspectives and learned ways of dealing with issues from childhood through to peers as adults.
My counseling was influenced by the great psychologists such as William James, Hans Eysenck, Albert Ellis, Donald Michenbaum, Herbert Benson, Has Selye and many others who emphasized that stress can be mastered and that feelings, behaviors and emotions can be changed by helping people to learn new evidence-based ways of perceiving, thinking and responding to life’s stressors.
In order to go beyond the typical stress management approaches, I developed the concept that I called Stress Mastery. Eventually this led to the creating Stressmaster International (SMI). SMI’s mission is to help as many people as possible learn ways to change how they perceive and mentally react to life and work stressors and to take responsibility for they way they feel and behave when stressed.”.
I realized that many of my clients did not really understand what stress really is and how it affects their body, relationships, productivity and health. Most clients did not grasp what caused their personal stress, nor what they can do to reduce and master stress. As a psychologist, I knew the importance of a careful intake assessment combine with an objective stress assessment. I looked for but couldn’t find a good stress assessment tool to use in my practice, so I created my own stress assessment questionnaire called the Stress Management Questionnaire (SMQ) which later was retitled to the Stress Mastery Questionnaire (SMQ).
From the Clinic to the Corporate World
In 1980, the University of Arizona’s Medical School received a grant from the Kellogg Foundation to a conduct public stress management program called Project Well Aware. The project director had heard about the SMQ and asked to evaluate the SMQ for possible use in their program. After reviewing the SMQ they asked if it could be integrated into their program. I agreed and the SMQ was successfully used as the starting point for a large and very effective stress management in program.
The experience with Project Well Aware provided me with an “ah-ha” moment. I realized that the SMQ could be in public and company stress management programs, with relatively normal people who were stressed and burned-out. I saw that value of providing the SMQ to other stress management trainers, counselors and health coaches to use in their own stress management or wellness/health programs. So, in order to reach as many people as possible, the SMQ became available for other professionals to use in their stress management training and coaching work.
After the conclusion of the project, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) learned of the existence of the SMQ and asked if I would be willing to submit a proposal to conduct a validation study of the SMQ. I agreed and was subsequently was awarded a grant to conduct the study. The results from the validation study showed that the SMQ scales were indeed a valid and that the SMQ could be useful tool to anyone under stress gain a better awareness of of stress was effecting them and they expressed their stress on a daily basis.
The SMQ is now available in English, Spanish, Norwegian, French, Slovenian, Arabic, Hungarian, Romanian and Polish. Click the image to watch a short video and learn more about the SMQ.
