A224 The Ten Best-Ever Anxiety Treatment Techniques

There's no reason that therapists can't offer their clients immediate relief from anxiety symptoms, even without medication. This course will provide a package of practical, easy-to-use, highly effective clinical tools to help clients get control of their anxiety. You'll learn how to integrate into your practice a variety of relaxation techniques, including breathing exercises, imagery, and progressive relaxation. You'll also learn concrete methods to dissipate panic attacks. We'll discuss worry-management techniques (including the worry-well-and-worry-once method), thought-stopping exercises, and skills for managing the link between anger and anxiety. You'll leave the session with a new confidence that you can be of immediate service to your anxious clients.

Meet The Instructor

Margaret Wehrenberg, Psy.D., has been in private practice as an addictions counselor and a psychologist for more than 20 years. She is the author of Stress Solutions: Ten Effective Strategies for Eliminating Your Stress. Her 2005 Networker Symposium workshop on anxiety management was the fifth most popular of the 160 sessions at the meeting.

Course Contents

Session 1: The basics of the anxious brain; the correct use of breathing for panic; the different use of breathing for generalized anxiety

Session 2: How to apply techniques for managing physiological arousal in panic and acute anxiety • How to help a client who is anxious while in session

Session 3: Why stress is so destructive • How to teach clients the importance of managing stress • Techniques for helping the "stressed out" and overly tense client • Lifestyle management • Motivating clients to take charge of lifestyle issues that make stress destructive

Session 4: Techniques to manage rumination and how to make them really work

Session 5: The combination of arousal and cognition that is problematic for social phobia clients • How to use and apply energy therapy techniques, EMDR, and medication in targeted ways for rapid symptom reduction

Session 6: Alternative methods and when to use them in therapy • Discussion of case studies from the instructor and participants

Learning Objectives

1. Discuss when to use and how to teach breathing, thought management, and relaxation methods in managing panic and social phobia symptoms.
2. Indicate when to teach clients and know when to apply thought-stopping techniques for generalized anxiety and rumination in all anxiety disorders.
3. Identify when anger underlies anxiety and be able to apply the techniques clients need to overcome this problem.

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