Therapies for Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Home Chairman's letter About Prof. Borkovec Workshop Descriptions General Information Schedule Links Registration Workshop Descriptions Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Generalized Anxiety Disorders Wednesday, March 18th This workshop will emphasize Tom's distinctive cognitive behavioral techniques uniquely adapted to treating generalized anxiety disorders. Conceptual Framework: All techniques will be shown to be grounded in empirical findings regarding worry and GAD. Technique applications will be based on early behavioral principles. The overarching goals of the interventions are to increase attention to present-moment reality and to develop ways of responding to daily life events from intrinsically motivated perspectives. CBT Technique Domains: Teaching the client self-monitoring within and outside of the therapy session Teaching the client multiple relaxation methods and their moment-to-moment application within and outside of the therapy session The use of standard and unique imagery exposure techniques for rehearsal of new coping responses Unique cognitive therapy techniques for generalized anxiety disorder The workshop will convey its information through didactic presentations, therapy transcripts, and session video-tapes (including the miraculous cure of a severe phobia), along with song lyrics, magic tricks, humor, and poetry. Interpersonal and Emotional Processing Therapy for Generalized Anxiety Disorders Thursday, March 19th This workshop introduces clinicians to the use of integrated interpersonal and experiential techniques (IEP) with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). After a review of basic research on GAD and psychotherapy process research suggesting the potential importance of incorporating interpersonal and experiential interventions into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the majority of the workshop will be devoted to presenting: Main features and assumptions of our IEP Aspects of functional analysis conducted with clients from within this perspective General and specific techniques for intervening at the interpersonal and emotional levels How the therapeutic relationship can be employed to facilitate intrapersonal and interpersonal functioning The importance of detecting incipient ruptures in the therapeutic alliance and ways of intervening to repair the alliance One of the particular highlights of the workshop is a video-tape of an entire IEP session with a GAD client that demonstrates many of the interpersonal and experiential techniques and resulted in a dramatic change for the client and her anxiety.