Do you feel overwhelmed by the severity of your client’s anxiety symptoms?

Does their need to seek reassurance and perform compulsions prevent them from moving forward in therapy? You are not alone if you find your clients experiencing the same symptoms after several therapy sessions, if they get stuck on the “why’s” of anxiety, or if they are unable to take meaningful action against their anxiety.

Join award winning experts in anxiety and OCD—Kimberly Morrow, LSCW & Elizabeth DuPont Spencer, LCSW-C—for this intensive 2-Day Anxiety Certification Course to learn the gold standard of care for treating GAD, Panic Disorder, OCD, Social Anxiety, and Phobias.  You’ll learn to skillfully integrate CBT and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) to climb over obstacles in therapy and gain confidence in your ability to treat the most symptomatic, anxious clients on your caseload.

In this intensive 2-Day Anxiety Certification Course, experts Morrow and DuPont Spencer make CBT and ERP intervention accessible and within your reach as a clinician.

You’ll start seeing real results with these cutting-edge CBT and ERP interventions, that give you:

• Ways to help clients face their triggers and change their relationship with fear
• Strategies to manage your own anxiety about treating your anxious clients
• Methods to use exposure therapy in meaningful, successful ways
• Specific strategies for Panic Disorder, phobias, OCD and social anxiety

Packed with videos, case examples, and opportunities to practice and build skills confidently, you’ll walk away with strategies you can use the very next day!

Best of all, upon completion of this live training, you’ll be eligible to become a Certified Clinical Anxiety Treatment Professional (CCATP) through Evergreen Certifications. Certification lets colleagues, employers, and clients know that you’ve invested the extra time and effort necessary to understand the complexities of anxiety counseling.  Professional standards apply. Visit www.evergreencertifications.com/CCATP for details.

Don’t miss this opportunity to grow your confidence and your practice while helping your clients get their lives back! REGISTER NOW!

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CERTIFICATION MADE SIMPLE!

• No hidden fees – PESI pays for your application fee (a $99 value)*!
• Simply complete this live event and the post-event evaluation included in this training, and your application to be a Certified Clinical Anxiety Treatment Professional (CCATP) through Evergreen Certifications is complete.*

Attendees will receive documentation of CCATP certification from Evergreen Certifications 4 to 6 weeks following the program.

*Professional standards apply. Visit www.evergreencertifications.com/CCATP for professional requirements.

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
• Getting your client to complete 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 behaviors
• Medication-what is helpful and what is not

The Art of Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

• Help clients ride the wave of anxiety
• Create a fear hierarchy using SUD scales
• How to set up an exposure
• Strategies to handle 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!
• When and how to use imaginary 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 behavior 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 behaviors in social situations

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

• Challenge the belief that “I won’t be able to handle it”
• Understand worry as a compulsion
• Skills to help clients handle distressing thoughts/feelings
• Mindfulness to get out of the future and into 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

• Develop a client wellness plan that sticks
• Help clients identify red flags for future struggles
• 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
• Physicians
• Case Managers
• Addiction Counselors
• Therapists
• Other Mental Health Professionals