Outline

How to maximize the early CBT sessions.

• Principles of CBT – Establish roles and goals
• How to socialize your client to the CBT Session structure
• Get your client to do homework
• What not to do (reassurance, rabbit hole)
• Tools for goal setting
• Begin with the end in mind: Termination considerations

Stage for successful treatment is set in assessment and treatment planning.

• Diagnosis – why it’s important
• Key questions to ask at intake
• Assessment forms – where to find them
• Teach your clients to use a notebook
• Using a SUDS scale

Every client needs to know about anxiety and the brain.

• Why this is a pivotal point of treatment
• Simple ways to teach clients about anxiety and the brain
• The role of avoidance and safety behaviors
• Medication-what is helpful and what is not

The art of exposure and response prevention.

• The role of the clinician
• Teach clients to ride the wave of anxiety
• Create a fear hierarchy using SUD scales
• How to set up an exposure
• Working with resistance to exposure
• What NOT to do and why

Change the way clients think about thinking.

• Empower clients to choose how to interpret their thoughts
• Utilize values clarification to motivate change
• Challenge distortions and core beliefs that get in the way of change
• The role of mindfulness in anxiety treatment

Family involvement involves teaching loved ones to be a part of the solution.

• Help families learn healthier ways to talk back to anxiety
• Teach how to respond without reassuring
• Challenge loved ones to face their own fears

Exposure and Response Prevention in Action for Phobias and OCD.

• Identify OCD’s tricks
• Strategies for the most common phobias (heights, spiders, small spaces and more!)
• How to get comfortable with extreme exposures
  • Vomit phobia, fear of harm, contamination, obsessive thoughts, sexual obsession
• Identify your own obstacles to successful ERP
• Get out of the office!
• Using scripts
• Demonstrations and practice

Interoceptive exposure techniques work for panic disorder.

• Why deep breaths aren’t enough
• Practice breathing to increase CO2
• Identify the fear in panic
• How to induce symptoms of panic to build tolerance of discomfort
• Strategies for choosing a panic behavior to replicate

Treatment interventions for social anxiety get results.

• Going after embarrassment
• Tools to practice mindfulness during conversations
• Build clients’ “I can handle it” muscle
• Help clients improve insight about their fears
• How to remove safety behaviors in social situations

Helping our clients live in the present with generalized anxiety disorder and worry is what we do.

• Overcoming the fear that “I won’t be able to handle it”
• Tools that teach clients how to handle distressing thoughts/feelings
• Utilize mindfulness/living in the present
• Write worry scripts, assign time for worry, chase after worry

Children with anxiety are playing with fear.

• Special considerations when working with children
• School refusal, contamination, bad thoughts, PANS/PANDAS
• Add play to your treatment plan
• Strategies for age appropriate interventions
• Teach kids to talk back to their fears
• How to handle parent resistance/therapy interference

Relapse Prevention and Termination.

• Why is this a critical point in therapy
• Develop a client wellness plan that sticks
• Help clients identify red flags
• Teach clients to do ongoing exposures
• Establish a plan for when to return to therapy
• Risks and limitations of the research