🆕BRAND-NEW WORKSHOP!🆕
The What-Ifs: Understanding and Treating Anxiety Disorders and OCD Effectively
Presented by: Sarah Weber, MA, LMHC, LPC, ATR-P
When: Friday, March 29th, 2024 | 9:00 am – 4:30 pm Pacific Time
Where: Live on Zoom. You will receive your Zoom link/invitation the week of the event.
Continuing Education Credit Hours: 6 CEs | $169.00
With anxiety and OCD at an all-time high across all demographics, all mental health professionals must become more adept at effectively understanding, identifying, assessing, and treating various anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
This continuing education workshop promises to help mental health professionals better understand and treat anxiety and OCD more effectively using evidence-based treatments like ACT, ERP, CBT, and I-CBT.
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
What if I embarrass myself? What if that person hates me? What if something bad happens? What if I sent the wrong person an email? What if I caused a car accident?
“What-if” questions like these are clear indicators of anxiety. When thinking of all the things a person doesn’t want to happen, the brain and body react accordingly: as if the hypothetical threat is a real danger. This is why anxiety feels so potent to sufferers!
No one is immune to the effects of anxiety, and anxiety itself is not all bad! Anxiety is a natural human response to many situations and experiences in life. So, when does it turn from typical to disorder, from adaptive to maladaptive?
This workshop provides an in-depth look at the various anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), research, assessments, evidence-based treatments, and more*!
Clinicians attending this workshop will gain a solid understanding of the differences between generalized anxiety, health anxiety, OCD, panic, and specific phobias.
Why don’t people with anxiety consider more realistic or positive what-if questions like, “What if it all works out?” or “What if I handle the situation, even if it’s uncomfortable?” Depending on the individual’s symptoms and diagnosis, the answer(s) and subsequent treatment(s) could be dramatically different. Research shows it can take an average of 17 years for individuals with OCD to receive treatment from the onset of symptoms (Ziegler et al. 2021).
It is vital that more clinicians become skilled at identifying and treating anxiety and related disorders earlier on so there is no delay to a person’s recovery.
When people come to therapy for anxiety disorders, it’s often because they are experiencing the unwanted physical sensations that occur during anxiety. They are experiencing emotional dysregulation about the content of their worries and/or are in distress about the feared consequences of their doubts.
Understanding the presentations, diagnostic criteria, and most efficient treatment methods is essential, as regular talk therapy methods alone will likely not yield positive treatment outcomes. A better understanding of the nuances and differentiators of these symptoms and disorders lays the foundation for workshop participants to learn and practice targeted techniques that lead to effective, positive treatment outcomes.
OBJECTIVES
- Gain clinical skills in assessing and diagnosing generalized anxiety (GAD), health anxiety, social anxiety, OCD, panic, and phobias.
- Identify differences between disorders and diagnoses.
- Learn various approaches to treating anxiety disorders and OCD, including acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP), inference-based cognitive behavioral therapy (I-CBT), mindfulness therapy, and self-compassion therapy.
- Be able to effectively use and score anxiety using three (3) different assessment tools.
- Competently assess appropriate interventions and monitor therapeutic progress when working with anxiety disorders.
- Gain six (6) cognitive strategies to apply to anxiety cases.
- Be able to case conceptualize treating anxiety disorders and OCD using three (3) different modalities.
- Increase the number of positive outcomes when working with clients who present with anxiety and OCD challenges.
* This workshop draws on the writings, research, and knowledge of Edna Foa, Frederick Aardema, Karen Lynn Cassiday, Christopher Germer, Jonathan Grayson, Michael Greenberg, Russ Harris, Mike Heady, Jon Hershfield, Eli Liebowitz, Marsha Linehan, Kirstin Neff, Kieron O’Connor, Kimberley Quinlan, Carl Robbins, Michael Twohig, Chad Wetterneck, Sally Winston, and more!