Treatment of Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Cognitive Approaches
Who may attend: These presentations are intended for mental health professionals, researchers, and graduate students. The instructional level is intermediate.
Dates: Friday, June 23, 2023
Time: 1:00pm to 4:30pm EST
Cost: $250.00 USD per person
Location: Zoom webinar
Workshop Description: Amongst anxiety-related disorders, many clinicians find generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) to be particularly difficult to treat effectively, perhaps due to the pervasive avoidant coping tendencies of these clients and the varying focus of their worries. Importantly, worry can be conceptualized as a cognitive form of avoidance, and this formulation has important clinical implications. Several cognitive therapy techniques have strong empirical support (as components of CBT for GAD protocols, or standalone interventions) – these techniques involve engaging in reflective processing and/or behavioral experimentation on the content of worries (e.g., the likelihood that specific feared outcomes will occur) or aspects of meta-cognition (i.e., “thinking about thinking”; e.g., views about the utility of worrying). This workshop will focus on prominent evidence-based cognitive interventions for GAD – in particular, attendees will learn and practice implementing traditional cognitive therapy techniques, tailored cognitive therapy techniques targeting worry thoughts, strategies for evaluating beliefs about worry, and strategies for evaluating personal performance standards.
CE Learning Objectives
- Describe key components of prominent cognitive-behavioral theories of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).
- Identify and utilize factors that can help differentiate worry from other forms of repetitive negative thinking (e.g., rumination).
- Explain and apply traditional cognitive therapy techniques, such as identifying common thinking traps and generating balanced thoughts, for clients with GAD.
- Discuss and demonstrate how tailored cognitive therapy techniques can be used to address worry, including strategies for concretizing expectations when worrying and then systematically tracking actual outcomes.
- Explain and demonstrate how to guide clients with GAD in assessing and evaluating their beliefs about worry.
- Discuss and demonstrate how to guide clients with GAD in assessing and evaluating their personal standards for performance within and across different life domains and roles.
About the Presenter: Keith Bredemeier, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor and Director of Research Training at the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety. Dr. Bredemeier received his Bachelors of Arts degree in Psychology at the University of Delaware and his Doctoral degree in Clinical/Community Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. In graduate school, his research focused on risk factors for emotional difficulties, with a particular focus on cognitive factors associated with anxiety and depression. He completed his predoctoral internship at Brown University, followed by postdoctoral fellowships focused on suicide risk and prevention in the Department of Psychosocial Research at Brown and the Aaron T. Beck Psychopathology Research Center at Penn. Dr. Bredemeier’s current research focuses on cognitive traits and difficulties involved in the etiology and treatment of transdiagnostic dimensions of anxiety (e.g., excessive worrying), repetitive negative thinking (e.g., rumination), and related problems (e.g., depression, suicidal behavior). He specializes in cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders, including Exposure and Response Prevention (EX/RP) for obsessive-compulsive disorder, Prolonged Exposure (PE) for posttraumatic stress disorder, and CBT for generalized anxiety disorder and social phobia.
Webinar workshop requirements:
- You must have utilities, internet service, phone service, and an appropriately private location at your home or office in order to ensure HIPAA compliance.
- The private location should be free of noise and distractions. (If you are the parent of young children, appropriate child care arrangements must be in place.)
- You must agree to attend each hour of the video conference and agree to use video of yourself during the video conference in order to track attendance.
- You must agree not to copy or distribute workshop materials provided to you in the course of the workshop and not to audio or video-record the workshop in any form.
You will be asked to affirm the previous conditions and your agreement to them prior to the commencement of the workshop.
Continuing Education
Philadelphia Behavior Therapy Association is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Philadelphia Behavior Therapy Association maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Each program provides three (3) hours of CE credits for psychologists.
PBTA is also an authorized provider for CE credits for Professional Counselors, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Clinical Social Workers licensed in the state of Pennsylvania. Each program provides three (3) hours of CE credits.
* PBTA does not currently offer CE to practitioners licensed in the state of New York.
In order to receive continuing education credits, participants must:
- attend each hour of the workshop (no late arrivals or early departures)
- complete a course evaluation
If both of these requirements are met, you will receive a continuing education certificate after the conclusion of the workshop.
Full attendance is required to obtain CE credits for this program. APA guidelines do not permit PBTA to issue partial CE credits. No refunds are provided for CE programs. No exceptions allowed.
Instructions for Registration
Registrations are due one week in advance and must be completed in full.
To register, complete the online registration.
If you need to withdraw your application for any reason, please email Dr. Sandy Capaldi. Note that workshop fees are non-refundable after the application due date (one week before the start of the workshop).
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