Outline

A process-based approach to anxiety.

• Don’t fall into the Content Trap:
  • Process of anxiety matters more than the content of the child’s fears
• Patterns of Worried Families;
  • Avoidance
  • Accommodation
  • Reassurance
  • Overprotection
• ”Don’t Do the Disorder”:
  • How to avoid mirroring and supporting the anxiety disorder

The foundation of a skill-based approach has four critical concepts.

• Content versus Process:
  • Moving kids and parents out of the details of worry and into a process based approach that applies to all anxiety disorders
• We Are Eliminating Nothing:
  • Getting rid of symptoms doesn’t work with paradoxical anxiety
• How to Get on Offense:
  • Changing the relationship to worry
• Creating Playful Connection:
  • Offer solutions to Anxiety’s demands

What families need to know is laid out in Laying the Groundwork.

• Getting Out of the Anxiety Cult:
  • Breaking the Anxiety Culture – escaping the high demands of school, home, social life …
• Create a new framework for families to separate from generational anxiety
• The importance of psychoeducation:
  • Explanation activates treatment
• Cognitive Patterns:
  • Recognize anxiety and interrupt common thought patterns
    • Global
    • Catastrophic
    • Permanent

There are seven puzzle pieces.

• Expect Worry
• Talk to Worry
• Get Uncomfortable and Unsure ON PURPOSE
• Breathe
• Know What You Want
• Bridge Back to Your Successes
• Take Action on Your Plan

There are tasks that teach.

• Role Playing: The importance of experiential learning and practice
• Using Rewards and Consequences: The ins and outs of parent coaching
• Examples of My Favorite Assignments:
  • Wall of Flexibility
  • Spaghetti Challenge
  • Photo Album Investigation
  • Ten Good Things … and many more

There are schools, accommodations, and parents.

• Creating Effective Behavioral Plans
• Skill-Based Goals versus Avoidance-Based Plans
• Case Studies and Common Issues

When it isn’t just anxiety. There are three frames for treatment and prevention.

• Experience is Variable: Creating Flexibility in a Rigid System
• The Value of Parts: Skills to Combat Global Thinking
• Action Counts: Counteracting the Passivity of Anxiety and Depression

The challenge of symptoms.

• Taking Full Advantage of Relaxation: Are we missing opportunities? (Yes!)
• The Safety Behavior Trap: Common Ways We Exacerbate Physical Symptoms
• Common Diagnoses with Anxious Children (eg GI issues, insomnia, headaches)
• The Mind-Body Connection: What Kids (and Adults) Should Know

The importance of process in obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

• Myths and Current Research
• The Biggest mistakes therapists make with OCD
• Diagnosis and Misdiagnosis
• Creating a Family Plan
• The benefit of direct language and psychoeducation for families

A Tangled Web is about anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety,

• The Executive Overload Model
• Attention and Focus?
• Internal versus External Focus
• The importance of prioritizing interventions

There is a trauma history.

• What Modifications are Needed?
• A Cognitive Approach and Complex PTSD?
• The Concept of Differentiation