Deconstructing Anxiety: An In-Depth Exploration of a Powerful New Approach to Anxiety Disorders
This workshop will provide a deep dive into treatment-resistant anxiety, helping to uncover the root causes of anxiety in even your most challenging clients. You will learn techniques for releasing the resistances that keep the anxiety alive, getting at their source and transforming them into a sense of high purpose and meaning, yielding powerful change and lasting results. With the understanding that anxiety (fear) is at the root of all suffering, you will gain insight into the five core fears--“universal themes of loss”--we all share, including:
• abandonment (loss of love),
• loss of i...Read moredentity,
• loss of meaning,
• loss of purpose (the chance to express oneself) and
• fear of death (including fear of sickness and pain)
We develop our primary defenses, usually early in childhood or at times of trauma, as our best attempt to protect ourselves from these fears, but always at a great cost. This leaves us constantly holding vigil, on the lookout for the resurfacing of the fear. We build our entire personality upon this fear-defense dynamic. When our fear-defense dynamic spins out of control, an anxiety disorder can develop. The theory and techniques offered in this workshop will teach you how to uncover the core fear and chief defense quickly and reliably. Armed with this knowledge, new strategies for “doing the opposite” of the chief defense and its secondary defenses have proven extremely successful in even the most anxious clients. Incorporating psychodynamics, mindfulness, Gestalt, CBT and transpersonal psychology, participants will undergo the actual techniques being presented, making for a rich and highly experiential presentation. Come prepared for an exciting adventure into the deepest regions of the unconscious, where the hidden fears at the source of our difficulties live, to bring them out into consciousness, available for rapid and lasting transformation. Less...
Learning Objectives
- Describe the core fear/chief defense model of anxiety.
- Analyze the five core fears and the primary and secondary defenses we develop in response to them.
- Demonstrate how to identify a client’s unique core fear and chief defense.
- Explain the principle of “Doing the Opposite” of the chief defense.
- Utilize the exercises from the Deconstructing Anxiety program for resolving anxiety.
Target Audience
Learning Levels
- Intermediate to Advanced
Saturday, November 18, 2023
10:00 AM EST - 04:45 PM EST
Register for this WebinarClick Here to Register
About the speaker
Todd Pressman, PhD
Agenda
10:00 - 10:15am Introduction and overview
10:15 - 10:30am The creation story revisited—understanding the birth of fear in the psyche
10:30 - 11:30am Laying out the “Deconstructing Anxiety” model:
Each of us lands on a particular core fear in childhood
Description of the 5 core fears, universal themes of loss
This first contact with fear is intolerable—we must restore our original innocence
11:30 - 11:45am Break
11:45 - 1:15pm Continuing with the “Deconstructing Anxiety” model:
We find our chief defense as a way of protecting us from the core fear
We develop secondary defenses, adaptations of the chief defense to the various circumstances we encounter in life
The core fear/chief defense dynamic becomes the foundation of our personality; we interpret and respond to all circumstances through that lens
All defenses backfire, creating the anxiety they are designed to protect us from
We therefore employ our defenses even more rigorously and the whole cycle spins out of control, creating an anxiety disorder
1:15 - 1:30pm Lunch
1:30 - 3:00pm New strategies for resolving fear
The way to release fear is to “do the opposite” of the chief defense
Digging for Gold: Finding the core fear
1:50 - 3:00pm New strategies for resolving fear (con’t)
Who Are You Really?: Uncovering your chief defense
Analyzing secondary defenses
The Alchemist: Asking “What happens next?”
The Witness: Enhanced Vipassana (Mindfulness) technique
3:00 - 3:15pm Break
3:15 - 4:45pm New strategies for resolving fear and closing
The Warrior’s Stance: Active “not doing”
A subtle defense: The Resistance to Resistance
Vision Questing: Finding one's “mighty purpose”
CE Information - Earn 6 CE Credit Hours
CE Approvals
American Psychological Association
Association of Social Work Boards
National Board for Certified Counselors
New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work
New York Education Department Board of Creative Arts Therapy
New York Education Department for Licensed Mental Health Counselors
New York Education Department Board for Licensed Psychoanalysts
New York State Education Department's State Board for Psychology
New York State Education Department's State Board for Marriage and Family Therapy
CE Process Info
Each professional is responsible for the individual requirements as stipulated by his/her licensing agency. Please contact your individual licensing board/regulatory agency to review continuing education requirements for licensure renewal. Please note: You must attend "live" (in real-time) to earn CE credits.
Before the event, you will receive an email from CE-Go with access to the virtual event. After the event, you will receive access to your evaluation and continuing education certificate via a personalized "attendee dashboard" link, hosted on the CE-Go website. This link and access to the virtual event will be sent to the email account you used to register for the event.
Upon accessing the CE-Go "attendee dashboard", you will be able to:
- Complete evaluation forms for the event
- Download your continuing education certificate in a PDF format
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the CE-Go platform, please contact CE-Go at 888-498-5578 or by email at support@ce-go.com Please Note: Emails for this event will come from "support@ce-go.com".
If you have any continuing education related questions, please contact your event organizer.
Please make sure to check your spam/junk folder in case those emails get "stuck". We'd also suggest "Allowlisting" support@ce-go.com. This tells your email client that you know this sender and trust them, which will keep emails from this contact at the top of your inbox and out of the junk folder.
Disclosure
DISCLOSURE OF RELEVANT FINANCIAL RELATIONSHIPSCE Learning Systems adheres to the ACCME’s Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Medical Education. Any individuals in a position to control the content of a CE activity ― including faculty, planners, reviewers, or others ― are required to disclose all relevant financial relationships with ineligible entities (formerly known as commercial interests). All relevant conflicts of interest have been mitigated prior to the commencement of the activity.
The following relevant financial relationships have been disclosed by this activity’s planners, faculty, and the reviewer:
PLANNERS AND REVIEWER
The planners of this activity have reported that they have no relevant financial relationships.
FACULTY
The faculty of this activity have reported that they have no relevant financial relationships.
