Rewire the Anxious Brain: Neuroscience-Informed Treatment of Anxiety, Panic and Worry

CPD

Handouts

Faculty

Janene Donarski, PhD, LP, CCATP, ECDCS Related seminars and products

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Janene M. Donarski, PhD, LP, CCATP, ECDCS specializes in anxiety, trauma, and neuropsychology, working with a range of populations including children, adolescents, adults, and older adults in individual, family, and group treatment contexts. The author of Anxiety & Trauma Recovery Book: Using a Neuroscience-Informed Treatment Response to Healing, Dr. Donarski is on the board and supervises for the Clinical Anxiety Treatment Professionals credential through Evergreen Certifications and is also a certified EMDR Level II counselor. She is an Evergreen Dementia Care Specialist, certified hypnotherapist and practitioner for Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Time Line Therapy®. Dr. Donarski conducts neuropsychological assessments including emotional and complex behavior disorders, learning disabilities, neurodiversity assessment, head injury, and organic issues. She has experience working with military and veteran families, individuals with disabilities, victims of violence, individuals in foster care/adoption, and forensic clients including those seeking sex offender treatment. Dr. Donarski has been engaged for over 10 years as a professional speaker and presenter training mental health and medical specialists in a variety of topics.
 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Janene Donarski maintains a private practice and has an employment relationship with GuideStar Eldercare. She is a paid consultant with Evergreen Certifications. Dr. Donarski receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Janene Donarski is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Michigan Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Counseling Association, and others. For a complete list, please contact info@pesi.com.

 

Objectives

1. Ascertain the underlying neurological processes that impact anxious symptoms for clients.
2. Develop client engagement in treatment using personalized goals and attending to the therapeutic relationship.
3. Evaluate the differences between amygdala-based and cortex-based anxiety symptoms and identify how these symptoms inform treatment interventions.
4. Communicate strategies for calming and training the amygdala in order to alleviate symptoms of anxiety.
5. Implement methods for teaching clients to retrain the cortex so that anxiety is resisted rather than exacerbated.
6. Analyze how psychotropic medication impacts neuroplasticity in the brain; identify related treatment implications.

Outline

• We know more about anxiety-based disorders than any other disorders
• Science gives explanations, evidence, authority, destigmatizes difficulties

• It can be difficult to explain, answer questions
• Clients may feel a lack of responsibility
• Oversimplification is inevitable

• Don’t neglect the therapeutic relationship!
• Address the challenges of anxious clients
• Remember that strategies are effortful
• Guide the process using client’s goals
• Maintain motivation

• Define Neuroplasticity in everyday language
• Therapy is about creating a new self
• ”Rewiring” as an accessible concept for change
• Re-consolidation: the modification of emotional memories

• Amygdala – bottom-up triggering of emotion, physicality of anxiety
• Cortex – top-down emotion generation based in cognition
• Explain the two pathways to clients
• How anxiety is initiated in each pathway and how pathways influence each other

• Use illustrations to create concrete understanding
• Fight/flight/freeze responses
• The “language of the amygdala”
• Anxiety and the cortex
• Help clients recognize the two pathways to anxiety

• Sleep and the amygdala
• The influence of exercise
• Breathing techniques to reduce activation
• Relaxation, meditation, and yoga to modify responses
• Exposure as opportunities for the amygdala to learn
• Combatting avoidance
• When anxiety indicates that the amygdala can learn new responses
• Push through anxiety to change the amygdala

• ”Survival of the busiest” principle – strengthen or weaken specific circuitry
• The healthy (adaptive) use of worry in the cortex
• ”You can’t erase: You must replace”
• Recognize and modify the impact of uncertainty
• Training correct uses of distraction
• Left hemisphere techniques – cognitive defusion, coping thoughts, fighting anticipation
• Right hemisphere techniques – imagery, music
• Mindfulness and anxiety resistances

• Medication’s effects in the rewiring process
• The myth of the chemical imbalance
• The danger of sedating the brain with benzodiazepines
• Promoting neuroplasticity with SSRIs, SNRIs
• The effectiveness of CBT and meds

• Anxiety is a component of many diagnoses (depression, substance abuse, etc.)
• Amygdala – and cortex-based techniques help in other disorders
• Targeting brain-based symptoms rather than disorders
• Worry, obsessions, rumination respond to similar cortex-based techniques
• Panic, phobic responses, and compulsions respond to amygdala-based techniques

• Empirical versus clinical and anecdotal evidence
• Clinical considerations for specific clients and settings
• Efficacy of particular interventions may vary

Target Audience

• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Counselors
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Case Managers
• Addiction Counselors
• Speech-Language Pathologists
• Therapists
• Nurses
• Physicians
• Occupational Therapists
• Other Mental Health Professionals