CBT for Anxiety: Transformative Skills and Strategies for the Treatment of GAD, Panic Disorder, OCD and Social Anxiety

CPD

Handouts

Faculty

Elizabeth DuPont Spencer, MSW, LCSW-C Related seminars and products

DUPONT ASSOCIATES PA

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Elizabeth DuPont Spencer, MSW, LCSW-C, is a licensed clinical social worker and board approved supervisor. Trained as a cognitive behavioral therapist using exposure and response prevention for anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder and depression, she has been in private practice for 25 years, working with children, adolescents and adults. Elizabeth is a member of the International Obsessive Compulsive Foundation (IOCDF), the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. (ADAA). She is a Clinical Fellow of the ADAA and also received the 2012 Clinician Outreach Award and the 2017 Clinician of Distinction Award. Elizabeth is co-owner of AnxietyTraining.com with a mission to train clinicians in evidence-based treatments. A graduate of Columbia University in New York City, and the University of Maryland at Baltimore’s School of Social Work, she completed her clinical training at the National Institutes of Health and the Catholic University of America. She is the co-author of three books, The Anxiety Cure (2nd Ed., Wiley, 2003), The Anxiety Cure for Kids (2nd Ed., Wiley, 2014), and CBT for Anxiety: A Step-by-Step Training Manual for the Treatment of Fear, Panic, Worry, and OCD (PESI, 2018). Elizabeth works in Rockville, Maryland.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Elizabeth DuPont Spencer maintains a private practice and is co-owner of AnxietyTraining.com, LLC. She receives royalties as a published author. Elizabeth DuPont Spencer receives a speaking honorarium, recording, and book royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Elizabeth Dupont Spencer is a member of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America and the National Association of Social Workers.

Kimberly J Morrow, LCSW Related seminars and products

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Kimberly Morrow, LCSW is a licensed clinical social worker in Erie, PA. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a master’s in social work. Kimberly has been specializing in treating people with anxiety and OCD for over 35 years and teaching other professionals how to treat anxiety for over 20 years.

Kimberly is a graduate of the International Obsessive Compulsive Foundation’s Behavior Therapy Institute. She is a former board member of the Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation of Pennsylvania and an active member of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, having served on many committees. She is the 2012 recipient of the Clinician Outreach Award and the 2015 Member of Distinction Award from the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. She is the author of Face It and Feel It: 10 Simple But Not Easy Ways to Live Well With Anxiety and co-author of CBT for Anxiety: A Skills Training Manual for the Treatment of Fear, Panic, Worry, and OCD. Kimberly is the co-owner of AnxietyTraining.com, an online platform to provide anxiety training and case consultation to clinicians and school staff.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Kimberly Morrow is the co-owner of AnxietyTraining.com and maintains a private practice. She receives royalties as an author with PESI Publishing. Kimberly Morrow receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Kimberly Morrow is a member of the National Association of Social Workers and the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

Alternate Options

Objectives

1. Demonstrate the CBT session structure with anxious clients in order to achieve positive clinical outcomes.
2. Assess for and diagnose each DSM-5® anxiety disorder, including Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Separation Anxiety Disorder, PANS/PANDAS, and Panic Disorder.
3. Integrate Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) techniques to increase your client’s success.
4. Utilize strategies that help family members become anxiety “coaches” for the client.
5. Formulate interventions for challenging automatic negative thoughts in clients who have been diagnosed with anxiety.
6. Plan when it is clinically appropriate to use extreme exposure interventions with clients.
7. Demonstrate the use of interoceptive therapy for treating panic in clients.
8. Analyze the purpose of utilizing paradoxical exposures when treating social anxiety.
9. Apply knowledge about Generalized Anxiety Disorder to learn how to prevent fears about the future from interfering with quality of life.
10. Utilize play-based exposure interventions for the treatment of anxiety in children.
11. Employ Exposure and Response Prevention techniques to reduce symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
12. Formulate treatment termination and relapse prevention plans with clients. 

Outline

Getting Started: How to Optimize 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

Assessment and Treatment Planning: Set the Stage for Successful Treatment

• 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

Anxiety and the Brain: What Every Client Needs to Know

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

The Art of Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

• 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

Cognitive Therapy: 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: Teach 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

Phobias and OCD: Exposure and Response Prevention in Action

• 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

Panic Disorder: Interoceptive Exposure Techniques That Work

• 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 behaviour to replicate

Social Anxiety: Paradoxical Treatment Interventions that 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 behaviours in social situations

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Worry: Helping Our Clients Live in the Present

• 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

Kids with Anxiety: 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

Termination and Relapse Prevention

• 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 

Target Audience

• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Counselors
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Case Managers
• Addiction Counselors
• Therapists
• Other Mental Health Professionals