About this live event
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 identity,
• 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.
Target Audience
This live interactive webinar is intended for behavioral health professionals, including Psychologists, Social Workers, Counselors, MFT's and Addiction Professionals.
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”
Disclosure
DISCLOSURE OF RELEVANT FINANCIAL RELATIONSHIPS
CE 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).
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.
