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March 12-15, 2009
Anxiety Disorders Association of America Annual Conference
Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico

The Art of Persuasion: Changing the Mind on OCD
Persuading OCD clients to adopt a new frame of reference is the therapist's primary task. Those who succumb to the spell of obsessive-compulsive disorder conjure up a potion of avoidance and resistance as their only means to keep uncertainty and distress from boiling over. Two objectives direct their decisions: only take actions that have a highly predictable, positive outcome, and stay comfortable. Altering perception--not adding technique--helps them change directions, because belief always trumps exposure practice. Then repetition of action in the face of doubt and distress is required to solidify therapeutic gains. How do you move someone toward anxious uncertainty when their heart, mind and soul are committed to finding comfort? Participants will learn a persuasive strategy--built out of whole cloth within the first session--that will frame the entire treatment protocol.

www.adaa.org 

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March 27-28, 2009

Psychotherapy Networker Symposium

Washington, DC

Invited Faculty

 

A New Approach to OCD

March 26

 

Clients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) get caught up in a mental game they’re guaranteed to lose. Constantly seeking absolute certainty, predictability, and the avoidance of all anxiety, they become ever more intent upon perfecting the compulsive behavior they think will protect them, which only increases their anxiety and compulsive behavior. In this workshop, we’ll discuss how to quickly persuade clients to voluntarily seek out and embrace uncertainty and anxiety, thereby discovering that what they most fear is, in reality, a paper tiger. You’ll learn techniques that create rapport and trust with OCD clients, highlight for them what they’ve lost because of their condition, and generate positive motivation to develop mastery over their symptoms.

 

Psychotherapy's Premier Conference
Earn a maximum of 29 CE hours
The 2009 Psychotherapy Networker Symposium
"Seizing the Day - Therapy and the Art of Engagement"
March 26th -29th, 2009 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC
For more information, just click www.psychotherapynetworker.org or http://www.psychotherapynetworker.org   

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April 2-3, 2009

April 2: Holyoke, MA
April 3: Brattleboro, VT
Strategic Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder [one-day workshop]

Those suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder are convinced that great harm will come if they do not comply with rigidly set rules of safety. Their obsessions persist despite the application of logic or reason, and their compulsions are so successful at briefly relieving anxiety that they take on a life of their own. Exposure and ritual prevention is the gold standard treatment of OCD. However, the threat of maintaining attention on the feared obsessions while avoiding compulsions can be so daunting a task that patients refuse homework assignments and eventually drop out of treatment. In a strategic treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, the entire therapeutic paradigm is set down within the first few sessions. The therapist reframes the nature of the problem and incorporates all interventions within four simple but provocative guidelines that challenge the dysfunctional beliefs of the client. All further sessions are refinements of technique and continued expansion into the territory once controlled by the disorder.
Participants will learn specific strategies that bring these rules to life and break the repetitious, unproductive patterns in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Dr. Wilson will demonstrate how the strategic therapist confronts erroneous beliefs and how he/she develops, assigns and follows up on homework. This homework will include several pattern-interruption techniques that enable clients to engage in modified versions of their obsessions and rituals that, paradoxically, aim at helping them to let go of their symptoms for good. These skills can be applied to the treatment of washers and cleaners, checkers, repeaters, hoarders, orderers, cognitive-ritualizers and pure obsessionals.
 

Brattleboro Retreat
Anna Marsh Lane
Brattleboro, VT 05301
www.brattlebororeatreat.com 
Jeffrey Kelliher
Education & Communications Coordinator
Tel: 802-258-4359
jkelliher@brattlebororetreat.org
 

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May 2-3, 2009
Panic Disorder/Social Anxiety Weekend Treatment
Anxiety Disorders Treatment Center
Durham, NC
 
2-day intensive treatment group specifically for any individuals who suffer from panic disorder and social anxiety. These groups are by referral only. Limited to 8 clients.
 

Phone:  919-942-0700

Fax:   866-774-9511

www.anxieties.com/weekend.php   
rrw@med.unc.edu 

 

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May 16-17, 2009

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Treatment Group

Anxiety Disorders Treatment Center

Durham, NC

 

2-day intensive treatment group specifically for any individuals who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder. These groups are by referral only. Limited to 8 clients.

 

Phone:  919-942-0700

Fax:   866-774-9511

www.anxieties.com/weekend.php

rrw@med.unc.edu

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May-June, 2009
Melbourne, Australia
Sidney, Australia
Bresbane, Australia

Melbourne - May 29-30
Bresbane - June 2-3
Sidney - June 5-6

Brief Strategic Treatment for the Anxiety Disorders: Winning the Anxiety Game - 2-Day Workshop
The anxiety disorders manipulate people by injecting rules into consciousness, then using that set of laws to take over mental territory. Five anxiety disorders—phobias, panic, social anxiety, generalized anxiety and OCD—control people by generating an absolute standard for certainty and comfort. We will look at the common denominators of this game, and isolate its manifestations in each disorder. Then we will explore how the therapist can teach clients to gain ground by engineering their own tactics and strategies, including the second-order change of switching game boards altogether!
 
This brief strategic approach to cognitive-behavioral therapy helps clients find the courage and motivation to challenge their old beliefs and attitudes. Practical methods enable clients to ignore the content of their obsessive worries and to explore the feeling of uncertainty rather than fleeing from it. The cutting-edge anxiety treatment is now pushing further into the confrontational. Participants will learn how to help clients purposely to seek out anxiety as their ticket to freedom from crippling fear.
 
Melbourne - May 27
Sidney - June 8
Treating Anxiety Disorders in Children and Adolescents - 1-Day Workshop
Anxiety disorders are the most common psychiatric illnesses affecting children and are frequently misinterpreted as behavior problems. Participants will learn how to apply effective cognitive and behavioral skills, structured around a universal treatment strategy. This prescriptive approach identifies and matches specific client characteristics with the most compatible interventions. We will orient around the themes of modifying resistance, habituation, long-term belief change, pattern disruption and securing the family system. The training will be divided into two sets of tasks: those for the therapist and those for the client. Therapist tasks will include a getting-to-work partnership, curiosity, finding hooks, homework and enlisting parents. Client tasks will include self-monitoring, personifying the anxiety, challenging worry content, tolerating distress and doubt, letting go of safety crutches, playing with anxiety, taking on the bully and generating homework. Treatment protocols will then be outlined for separation anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety, specific phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. The presentation will be supported by numerous brief video and audio demonstrations.

Sponsor: PsychOz Publications
Level One, 288 High Street
Kew VIC 3101
Ph: 03 9855 2220
Fax: 03 9855 2225
psychoz@psychotherapy.com.au 
 

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August 29-30, 2009
Panic Disorder/Social Anxiety Weekend Treatment
Anxiety Disorders Treatment Center
Durham, NC
 
2-day intensive treatment group specifically for any individuals who suffer from panic disorder and social anxiety. These groups are by referral only. Limited to 8 clients.

Phone:  919-942-0700

Fax:   866-774-9511

www.anxieties.com/weekend.php   
rrw@med.unc.edu 

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September 12-13, 2009

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Treatment Group

Anxiety Disorders Treatment Center

Durham, NC

 

2-day intensive treatment group specifically for any individuals who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder. These groups are by referral only. Limited to 8 clients.

 

Phone:  919-942-0700

Fax:   866-774-9511

www.anxieties.com/weekend.php

rrw@med.unc.edu

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October 30, 2009
Brief Strategic Treatment for the Anxiety Disorders: Winning the Anxiety Game
Louisville, KY
 

The anxiety disorders manipulate people by injecting rules into consciousness, then using that set of laws to take over mental territory. Five anxiety disorders—phobias, panic, social anxiety, generalized anxiety and OCD—control people by generating an absolute standard for certainty and comfort. We will look at the common denominators of this game, and isolate its manifestations in each disorder. Then we will explore how the therapist can teach clients to gain ground by engineering their own tactics and strategies, including the second-order change of switching game boards altogether! This brief strategic approach to cognitive-behavioral therapy helps clients find the courage and motivation to challenge their old beliefs and attitudes. Practical methods enable clients to ignore the content of their obsessive worries and to explore the feeling of uncertainty rather than fleeing from it. The cutting-edge anxiety treatment is now pushing further into the confrontational. Participants will learn how to help clients purposely to seek out anxiety as their ticket to freedom from crippling fear.
 

Center for Behavioral Health
Baptist Hospital East
4000 Kresge Way
Louisville, KY 40207
dawn.pendleton@bhsi.com

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November 21-22, 2009

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Treatment Group

Anxiety Disorders Treatment Center

Durham, NC

 

2-day intensive treatment group specifically for any individuals who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder. These groups are by referral only. Limited to 8 clients.

 

Phone:  919-942-0700

Fax:   866-774-9511

www.anxieties.com/weekend.php

rrw@med.unc.edu

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December 4, 2009

Treatment of Worry and Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Asheville, NC

We all worry.  It’s an important signal that helps us plan our time and efforts.  But for some clients, the noise of worry is like a boombox in their heads with no off-switch.  Worry is pervasive throughout all the anxiety disorders and it is the most frequent symptom among patients who consult physicians with psychological complaints.  This workshop will explore the fundamental structure of worry—how it ignores data that isn’t negative, how it squeezes out room for corrective information, and how it gives rise to erroneous beliefs.  Stemming from this knowledge, participants will learn a complete set of therapeutic strategies—physiological, cognitive and behavioral—for generalized anxiety disorder, based on the latest research.  These will help clients face the unneeded worries of GAD head-on and dispatch with them rather than trying to avoid them.

Mountain AHEC
501 Biltmore Avenue
Asheville, N.C.  28801

828.257.4482
FAX: 828.257.4768
bill.barthel@mahec.net

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December 12-13, 2009

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Treatment Group

Anxiety Disorders Treatment Center

Durham, NC

 

2-day intensive treatment group specifically for any individuals who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder. These groups are by referral only. Limited to 8 clients.

 

Phone:  919-942-0700

Fax:   866-774-9511

www.anxieties.com/weekend.php

rrw@med.unc.edu

 

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2010

 

January 21-22, 2010
Don't Panic!: Brief Strategic Treatment of Anxiety Disorders
New Westminster, BC, Canada
 

The anxiety disorders manipulate people by injecting rules into consciousness, then using that set of laws to take over mental territory. Five anxiety disorders—phobias, panic, social anxiety, generalized anxiety and OCD—control people by generating an absolute standard for certainty and comfort. We will look at the common denominators of this game, and isolate its manifestations in each disorder. Then we will explore how the therapist can teach clients to gain ground by engineering their own tactics and strategies, including the second-order change of switching game boards altogether! This brief strategic approach to cognitive-behavioral therapy helps clients find the courage and motivation to challenge their old beliefs and attitudes. Practical methods enable clients to ignore the content of their obsessive worries and to explore the feeling of uncertainty rather than fleeing from it. The cutting-edge anxiety treatment is now pushing further into the confrontational. You will learn how to help clients purposely to seek out anxiety as their ticket to freedom from crippling fear.

We will begin by covering the problems of and treatment for all anxiety disorders and the unique attributes of worry. Then we will focus on the therapist skills for two specific disorders: panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. For panic disorder, you will learn how to divide and conquer: to interrupt anticipatory anxiety and then to manage physical symptoms using cognitive strategies, paradox, pattern disruption, exposure and interoceptive exposure, and peeling away their ever-present “safety crutches.” For OCD clients, persuading them to adopt a new frame of reference is the therapist's primary task. You will learn a persuasive strategy--built out of whole cloth within the first session--that will frame the entire treatment protocol.

Centre for Counselling & Community Safety
The Justice Institute of BC
715 McBride Boulevard
New Westminster, BC V3L 5T4 www.jibc.ca/cccs 
T: 604.528.5628 F: 604.528.5640 E: bverjee@jibc.ca 

 

January 25, 2010 Treatment of the Anxiety Disorders Salt Spring Island, BC     Salt Spring Island Community Services 268 Fulford-Ganges Rd. Salt Spring Island, BC  V8K 2K6 250 537-9971 ext 225 www.saltspringcommunityservices.ca   January 27, 2010 31st Annual Training on Behavioral Health & Addictive Disorders Clearwater, Florida   9:00 - 10:00 AM Winning the Anxiety Game:  Brief Strategic Treatment for the anxiety Disorders 2:00 - 3:30 PM Treatment of General Anxiety Disorder 4:00 - 5:30 PM Getting Your Life into Flow   U.S. Journal Training/Clearwater Beach 3201 SW 15th Street Deerfield Beach, FL  33442 800-441-5569 www.usjt.com   February 27-28, 2010 Panic Disorder/Social Anxiety Weekend Treatment Anxiety Disorders Treatment Center Durham, NC   2-day intensive treatment group specifically for any individuals who suffer from panic disorder and social anxiety. These groups are by referral only. Limited to 8 clients. Phone:  919-942-0700 Fax:   866-774-9511 www.anxieties.com/weekend.php    rrw@med.unc.edu      March 4-7, 2010 Anxiety Disorders Association of America 30th Annual Conference Baltimore, MD   March 4, 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM Talking to Anxiety: The Why's and How's (Master Clinician Workshop)   A core vulnerability factor for all anxiety disorders is attentional bias toward threat. One sustaining dynamic for anxiety is the individual’s effort to resist the experience (fight, freeze or avoid). It is generally accepted that by manipulating this bias and altering this experiential avoidance, clients can gain control of their anxiety. Currently treatment options move the client in one of two directions: either acceptance of or provocation of discomfort and uncertainty. Both can be seen as paradoxical interventions that involve reversing clients’ attitudes about their symptoms while simultaneously eliminating safety behaviors that otherwise would interfere with the process of threat disconfirmation. Studies reveal significant effect size: allowing yourself to interact in a manner opposite of your urges and dropping your perceived protective mechanisms is one of the most powerful ways to reduce anxiety. Defensive resistance to the present moment is a universal struggle. The lessons lead in one direction: each time we are unwilling to embrace the moment, we suffer. In this workshop, participants will learn how to offer clients a simple cognitive schema that counters attentional bias toward threat. The therapist personifies anxiety and asserts that anxiety disorders win by dominating a mental game. By learning to talk to anxiety, and to themselves, clients purposely to seek out discomfort and uncertainty as their ticket to freedom from crippling fear. By offering the patient such paradoxical responses to the moves made by anxiety disorders, they can begin to change the course of the therapeutic game.   March 5, 12:00 - 1:30 PM DSM 5: Its Impact on Practice and Research (Luncheon Panel)   Anxiety Disorders Association of America 8730 Georgia Ave., Suite 600 Silver Spring, MD 20910 240-485-1032 http://www.adaa.org/conference&events/AnnualConference.asp   March 13-14, 2010 Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Treatment Group Anxiety Disorders Treatment Center Durham, NC   2-day intensive treatment group specifically for any individuals who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder. These groups are by referral only. Limited to 8 clients.   Phone:  919-942-0700 Fax:   866-774-9511 www.anxieties.com/weekend.php rrw@med.unc.edu     June 3, 2010 Applying the Science of Happiness: Finding Flow in Your Life and Practice Toronto, Ontario, Canada   In this fast-paced day, we will study a set of practical, research-based principles that can guide us towards happier, more engaged and deeply meaningful lives. Participants will gain both intellectual appreciation and no-nonsense skills in the arena of positive psychology, based on the work of groundbreaking innovators Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.  In the first four hours we will study Seligman’s pioneering work on enhancing satisfaction with the past, optimism about the future and happiness in the present.  Along the way we will sample a collection of exercises documented to increase life satisfaction and decrease depression.     In the last two hours we will focus on Csikszentmihalyi’s revolutionary work on how a person enters flow--the state when we have deep, effortless involvement, are fully absorbed in activity, lose our sense of time and have feelings of great satisfaction. We will identify the eight traits of flow and how we can increase our access to them.  Participants will learn how to bring more enjoyment to mundane tasks, pleasant activities, work activities and treatment settings.    By understanding how to integrate these skills - of increasing pleasures, engagement, meaning and the enjoyment of flow - into your own life, you will become a model for those whom you will help.   Leading Edge Seminars Inc. 88 Major Street Toronto, ON M5S 2L1 Canada 416-964-1133 http://leadingedgeseminars.org/   June 4, 2010 Treatment of Worry and Generalized Anxiety  Toronto, Ontario, Canada We all worry.  It’s an important signal that helps us plan our time and efforts.  But for some clients, the noise of worry is like a boombox in their heads with no off-switch.  Worry is pervasive throughout all the anxiety disorders and it is the most frequent symptom among patients who consult physicians with psychological complaints.  This workshop will explore the fundamental structure of worry—how it ignores data that isn’t negative, how it squeezes out room for corrective information, and how it gives rise to erroneous beliefs.  Stemming from this knowledge, participants will learn a complete set of therapeutic strategies—physiological, cognitive and behavioral—for generalized anxiety disorder, based on the latest research.  These will help clients face the unneeded worries of GAD head-on and dispatch with them rather than trying to avoid them.   Leading Edge Seminars Inc. 88 Major Street Toronto, ON M5S 2L1 Canada 416-964-1133 http://leadingedgeseminars.org/   October 15, 2010 Kingsport, Tennessee Treatment of Worry and Generalized Anxiety Disorder   We all worry.  It’s an important signal that helps us plan our time and efforts.  But for some clients, the noise of worry is like a boombox in their heads with no off-switch.  Worry is pervasive throughout all the anxiety disorders and it is the most frequent symptom among patients who consult physicians with psychological complaints.  This workshop will explore the fundamental structure of worry—how it ignores data that isn’t negative, how it squeezes out room for corrective information, and how it gives rise to erroneous beliefs.  Stemming from this knowledge, participants will learn a complete set of therapeutic strategies—physiological, cognitive and behavioral—for generalized anxiety disorder, based on the latest research.  These will help clients face the unneeded worries of GAD head-on and dispatch with them rather than trying to avoid them.   Frontier Health 2001 Stonebrook Place Kingsport, Tennessee 37660 (423) 224-1017 Rebecca Stewart rstewart@frontierhealth.org   October 28 – 29, 2010 Brief Treatment of the Anxiety Disorders Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada   In this fast-paced workshop, we will begin by addressing the common features and treatment approaches for panic disorder, agoraphobia, social anxiety, generalized anxiety and worry, specific phobias, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Some anxiety disorder treatment approaches rely on relaxation techniques and cognitive strategies to help palliate symptoms even before gradually exposing clients to the feared stimuli. But this can be a slow process that leaves some clients still preoccupied with avoiding the symptoms of their anxiety, dependent on safety behaviors, and vulnerable to anxiety-provoking circumstances that are strong enough to overcome their learned skills. This skill-based treatment helps clients find the courage and motivation to challenge their old beliefs and attitudes.  It permits them to embrace the symptoms of their anxiety and reduce the power of symptoms to arouse fear and avoidance.  Practical methods enable clients to ignore the content of their obsessive worries and to explore the feeling of uncertainty rather than fleeing from it.  Cutting-edge anxiety treatment is now pushing further into the confrontational.  Participants will learn how to help clients purposely to seek out anxiety as their ticket to freedom from crippling fear. During the workshop they will also learn a new broad strategic intervention that modifies the habituation model by teaching clients to win at the anxiety disorder game.   ·       For panic disorder and its phobias, we will explore the world of provocative therapy, placing significant attention on shifting the patient’s orientation toward panic.  Participants will learn how to divide and conquer: to interrupt anticipatory anxiety and then to manage physical symptoms using cognitive strategies, paradox, pattern disruption, exposure and interoceptive exposure, and peeling away their ever-present “safety crutches.”  ·      For   For obsessive-compulsive disorder, we will address the four guidelines that direct all treatment approaches Dr. Wilson will demonstrate how the therapist confronts erroneous beliefs and how he/she develops, assigns and follows up on homework.  This homework will include several pattern-interruption techniques that enable clients to engage in modified versions of their obsessions and rituals that, paradoxically, aim at helping them to let go of their symptoms for good. These skills can be applied to the treatment of washers and cleaners, checkers, repeaters, hoarders, orderers, cognitive-ritualizers and pure obsessionals. ·      For   For generalized anxiety, we will explore the common thinking errors of chronic worriers.  We will then identify a set of interventions to help clients with generalized anxiety disorder face unneeded worries head-on and dispatch with them.   Participants will learn the skills of confronting perceived cost, imminence and likelihood of threat, specialized relaxation and imagery skills, addressing insomnia, disputing cognitive distortions, treating worries when they are “signals” or “noise,” and helping clients to seek out uncertainty.    Louise Ghiz MSW, RSW Coordinator Continuing Education School of Social Work, Dalhousie University 6414 Coburg Rd. Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 2A7 Louise.Ghiz@dal.ca Phone 902-494-1353/2249 Fax 902-494-8025 Web Page: http://continuingeducation.socialwork.dal.ca   December 9-12, 2010 Brief Therapy Conference Invited Faculty Orlando, Florida Milton H. Erickson Foundation www.erickson-foundation.org  mhefac@aol.com

 

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