NICABM – Expert Ways to Work with Anxiety

Expert Strategies for Working with Anxiety (That Can Help Even Your Most Anxious Clients)

Anxiety can cripple lives.

It can suffocate our clients’ personal and professional growth, shut down their ability to start relationships and take away their freedom to choose their own destiny.

The worst part? Without successful treatment, anxiety can then become a ravenous vacuum – sucking our clients’ confidence and talents and leaving them vulnerable to the “quick fixes” that only serve to sustain their fear.

But to effectively treat anxiety, we first have to understand how it thwarts the vagus nerve from calming the body. We have to look at the specific way ambiguity triggers anxiety and how the brain colludes with a panic physiology to wire anxiety into the nervous system.

That’s why we put together this new short course . . .

Expert Strategies for Working with Anxiety

Practical Skills to Break the Panic-Anxiety Loop

Stephen Porges, PhD      Peter Levine, PhD

Joan Borysenko, PhD      Kelly McGonigal, Ph

• The powerful high brain/ low brain reaction that can wire anxiety into the body
• One key strategy that can disrupt a panic attack (quickly – even if the client has a history of attacks)
• How a client’s panic physiology can undermine certain anxiety treatments

Four Core Strategies to Neutralize Stress and Anxiety

Shelly Harrell, PhD      Kelly McGonigal, PhD      Rick Hanson, PhD

• The hidden meaning inside of a client’s anxiety (and how this can impact the healing process)
• The F.A.C.T. strategy that can break rumination and ground a client to the present
• How to adjust an anxiety treatment when it threatens a client’s core values

How to Transform a Client’s Anxiety from Fear to Confidence

Christine Padesky, PhD      Rick Hanson, PhD

• The two-sided treatment framework for anxiety that can lead to quicker results with less relapse
• How one shift from “thinking” to “imagining” can help your clients access the core fear behind their anxiety
• The “block the exit” strategy that will help you pinpoint the client’s precise anxiety disorder

How to Expand a Client’s Tolerance for Anxiety

Steven Hayes, PhD      Kelly Mcgonigal, PhD      Ron Siegel, PsyD

• Saying “Yes” – one practical strategy that can reboot a client’s ability to function with anxiety
• How the mind can get tricked into interpreting progress as outcome during anxiety treatment
• One incremental change in the way a client deals with anxiety that can snowball into tremendous growth

How to Maximize the Power of a Client’s Coping Strategies

Sue Johnson, EdD      Rick Hanson, PhD

Ron Siegel, PsyD      Kelly McGonigal, PhD

• Why most anxiety coping techniques fail
• How to reframe anxiety to keep clients from being overwhelmed by emotion
• How phobias quietly feed off of unprocessed attachment issues

How to Work with the Root Pain of Highly-Anxious Clients

Michael Yapko, PhD      Ron Siegel, PsyD

• The terrifying internal question that’s behind many clients’ anxiety (and why the real problem lies in the answer)
• Why ambiguity can be a direct trigger to clients who are prone to anxiety disorders
• “I don’t know” – three words that can have the most powerful lasting impact on clients recovering from anxiety

How to Work with Conflicting Sources of Anxiety

Pat Ogden, PhD      Richard Schwartz, PhD

• The unique way traumatic memory can trigger the nervous system and trap a client in chronic anxiety
• One powerful non-verbal intervention that can disrupt the core belief driving a client’s anxiety
• The paradoxical approach to a client’s panic attack that can dial down their fear and instantly ground them
• The unique inner struggle that exacerbates anxiety that’s absorbed from an anxious parent

How to Help Clients See the Possibilities Beyond Anxiety

Scott Miller, PhD      Kelly McGonigal, PhD

Ron Siegel, PsyD      Joan Borysenko, PhD

• One way to foster breakthroughs with anxious clients who have a history of unsuccessful therapy
• How a sequential change to your intervention process could help anxious clients feel more empowered
• How to spark the seeds of growth inside anxiety that will leave a client brimming with possibility

Treating the Anxious Brain

Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT      Kelly McGonigal, PhD      Rick Hanson, PhD

Ron Siegel, PsyD      Joan Borysenko, PhD

• How 10 minutes of focused attention can bump the brain out of an anxious rumination loop
• A simple strategy for holding clients in the present while blocking fearful anxious thoughts
• Four powerful techniques to help anxious clients self-soothe when they’re all alone

Practical Ways to Diminish the Inner Experience of Anxiety

Kelly McGonigal, PhD      Ron Siegel, PsyD      Rick Hanson, PhD

• One mindset shift that can free clients from the “quick fixes” that have been defining their life with anxiety
• An evidence-based strategy to increase function and reduce stress by focusing on anxiety’s “good” side
• How to help clients find the true source of their anxiety trigger (it’s often hidden in their values)
• How to help clients with OCD experience fewer obsessive intrusions