Past events

This workshop is intended to provide useful information regarding the special education system to non-school based clinicians in order to help them understand how best to meet the needs of their school-aged clients. The workshop will include a brief history of special education in the United States, and will then focus on critical terminology and concepts endemic to special education but which may not be familiar to clinicians in more traditional mental health settings. Lastly, the workshop will include overviews of how to understand relevant clinical information presented in educational language in special education documents, such as school-based evaluations and individual education plans. The overarching goal of the workshop will be to provide clinicians with a functional and conceptual understanding of special education interventions that may be implemented for their school-age clients, and a workable means to effectively contribute relevant clinical insights into the special education needs of said clients.

Developed out of Yale University, SPACE is an evidence-based therapy that treats a wide range of anxiety disorders, OCD, and picky eating. This training is a special opportunity to learn effective ways of addressing their children’s anxiety, without children present in sessions. You will learn ways to help parents increase supportive communication, decrease accommodations, set healthy boundaries, and improve daily functioning.

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is an empirically supported manualized treatment originally developed to address externalizing behavior problems in young children (ages 2-7). PCIT aims to help improve the parent-child relationship while also promoting positive behaviors in children. These goals are accomplished through the clinician providing live coaching of specific skills for parents as they interact with their children. This introductory webinar is designed to help professionals improve their understanding of what PCIT is and who is a good candidate for PCIT. This presentation will provide an overview of the essential treatment components involved in successful implementation of PCIT.

This workshop is designed for clinicians who are already familiar with using CBT for anxiety, but would like to gain additional skills for adapting these interventions for youth, particularly very young children. The workshop will provide an overview of developmental norms for fears and will distinguish normative fears from anxiety disorders. Next, the basic components of CBT for child anxiety will be discussed, with case examples and experiential activities included. The workshop will include strategies/techniques for making CBT engaging for kids. In addition, adaptations/considerations for very young children (i.e., ages 5-7) will be discussed.

Health anxiety is characterized by an excessive and irrational fear pertaining to the presence or development of a severe physical illness. This anxiety can be observed in various psychiatric conditions, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, illness anxiety disorder, somatic symptom disorder, and panic disorder, among others. This presentation will provide an overview of the phenomenology of health anxiety, encompassing symptom assessment and differential diagnosis. Moreover, the cognitive behavioral conceptualization of health anxiety will be explored, highlighting erroneous beliefs, attentional biases, and maladaptive coping strategies that perpetuate health anxiety. Furthermore, evidence-based treatment will be discussed, equipping professionals with the essential knowledge and skills necessary to effectively address health anxiety within their clinical practice.

Evidence-based psychological treatment approaches for Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs), including trichotillomania (hair pulling), excoriation disorder (skin picking), and other repetitive self-grooming behaviors, are based on a cognitive behavioral model of conceptualization. Although habit reversal training (HRT) has historically been considered the “gold standard” intervention, the treatment landscape has broadened to include the comprehensive model for behavioral treatment (ComB), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) – enhanced HRT. Despite these advances in treatment, successful long-term BFRB treatment outcomes remain challenging, and is an area of growth and development in the field. This workshop will discuss current evidence-based psychotherapeutic interventions, explore potential growth, and describe an integrative approach to behavioral intervention to enhance motivation and optimize treatment outcomes.

Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs) are repetitive self-grooming behaviors, such as trichotillomania (hair pulling) and excoriation disorder (skin picking), that fall within the scope of OCD and related disorders. Although BFRBs are common, affecting as many as 1 in 20 individuals, accessing accurate information and evidence-based treatment resources can be challenging. This workshop will provide up-to-date comprehensive evidence-based clinical training in the diagnosis,cross-cultural phenomenology, multifactorial self-reinforcing behavioral conceptualization, and current empirical review of the treatment of BFRBs. In-depth instruction will be provided in delivering integrative behavioral therapy (IBT) which entails a unified treatment protocol utilizing the full range of scientifically-supported psychological interventions to target under-addressed challenges of BFRBs and maximize/maintain treatment success.

Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RO DBT) is a treatment for patients/clients who suffer from emotional and behavioral over-control. Some clients lack emotional control and need interventions designed to enhance emotional and behavioral control; others, for whom RO DBT is designed, require interventions designed to relax rigid or inflexible control. RO DBT has been informed by over 25+ years of translational research and is supported by experimental, longitudinal, and correlational research in a range of mental health disorders, including chronic depression (Lynch et al., 2020), anorexia nervosa (Isaksson et al., 2021), autism spectrum disorders (Cornwall et al, 2020), anxiety disorders (Gilbert & Sudit, 2020), and cluster A and C personality disorders (Gilbert et al, 2020; Lynch et al., 2017). This workshop will help participants begin to understand this treatment modality and its application.

This workshop will review a number of ethical and legal dilemmas that frequently face practitioners via the presentation of several vignettes on a variety of topics. Examples of topic areas that will be discussed include multiple relationships, test data, and how to respond to subpoenas. The presenter will review relevant legal, ethical, and clinical standards as well as problem solve approaches for each of the specific vignettes. Audience participation will be encouraged.

ARFID was a recent entry to the DSM in 2013, but quite common in children, with prevalence estimates of 3% in the general population, but up to 22% in pediatric eating disorder treatment programs. Although often presenting clinically as “extremely picky eating” or “fear of food,” ARFID is complex, frequently comorbid with other childhood disorders such as anxiety and OCD, and requires careful assessment in order to implement a successful treatment plan. Via case examples, this workshop will guide clinicians through assessment and CBT treatment for school-aged children, with a special focus on exposure strategies, contingency management, and working with parents and schools.

This workshop will explore different types of racial trauma and how that lives in the body and shows up in relationships. We will explore the legacy of white body supremacy and develop an anti-racism lens in clinical and personal life. We will work to deconstruct therapy models that center on whiteness and how to hold space for collective rage and grief with clients and colleagues that support healing. This anti-racism model will take a mindfulness-based approach to invite curiosity and an embodied experience. It is an interactive workshop that uses the multimedia format to encourage processing in different ways.

We have at our disposal an array of evidence-based practices (EBPs) for a variety of disorders (e.g., depression, PTSD, OCD, etc.). However, there is a significant proportion of clients who have difficulties engaging in those EBPs. A motivational interviewing approach (MI) may help resolve ambivalence related to EBP engagement. MI is defined as “a collaborative conversation style for strengthening a person’s own motivation and commitment to change” (Miller & Rollnick, 2012). Integrating and overlaying this MI style onto an EBP can help overcome engagement challenges (e.g., homework completion) and continue to move individuals in the direction of change. There is also value in using MI as a prelude to an EBP to shore up motivation and to facilitate engagement in the EBP.  The purpose of this training will be to introduce MI to participants and review basic MI concepts, including MI spirit and the four processes of MI.

We know that Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) works well for the treatment of OCD, however many people are hesitant to engage in this treatment, and few therapists specialize in it. One of the reasons for this paradox is the belief that EXR is scary, harmful, or ineffective. This presentation will discuss ethical concerns many therapists and patients have with exposure therapy, such as whether top-of-the-hierarchy exposures can be unsafe, and how to get a child willing to engage in treatment, and how to prevent exposures from “going wrong.” Specific strategies for avoiding or minimizing potential ethical dilemmas will be provided.

The proliferation of specific treatment manuals for specific disorders has created unintended barriers for implementation and dissemination of evidence-based psychological treatments. The Unified Protocol for the Treatment of Emotional Disorders (UP; Barlow et al., 2011) is a recently developed transdiagnostic, emotion-focused cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) that targets core deficits occurring across the neurotic spectrum (e.g., anxiety, depressive, and related disorders). This workshop will first briefly review evidence supporting the development of such transdiagnostic interventions. iversity, equity, and inclusion.

In this workshop, an evidence-based alternative to ERP will be presented. Inference-based CBT is a unique process-based cognitive treatment specifically designed for OCD. Role-plays and case-based discussions will demonstrate how to identify and treat the primary reasoning error (inferential confusion) that leads to the construction of and absorption in obsessional doubts.

An Introduction to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) This is a live interactive webinar presentation. Insomnia is a prevalent sleep disorder associated with health and functional impairment. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) is a brief evidence-based treatment that addresses insomnia symptoms. CBT-I helps individuals with insomnia identify factors that maintain sleep disturbance and…