Catherine Pittman – 2-Day Taming the Amygdala in Anxiety Treatment: Brain-Based Strategies for Panic, Agoraphobia, Social Anxiety, GAD, OCD, & PTSD – PESI

*** Proof of Product ***

---

Exploring the Essential Features of “Catherine Pittman – 2-Day Taming the Amygdala in Anxiety Treatment: Brain-Based Strategies for Panic, Agoraphobia, Social Anxiety, GAD, OCD, & PTSD – PESI”

Speaker: Catherine Pittman, PhD, HSPP

Duration: 12 Hours 26 Minutes

Format: Audio and Video

Copyright: Aug 25, 2022  

Media Type: Digital Seminar

Description

When clients don’t realize that there are brain-based reasons for your recommendations of exposure therapy, relaxation techniques, and lifestyle changes, they are less likely to make the changes they need to master their fear and worry.

If you want to be successful at helping your clients manage their anxiety, the amygdala is the most important part of the brain to understand!

Watch neuroscience and anxiety expert Catherine M. Pittman, PhD, HSPP, as she guides you through what’s happening in the brain and body when a client has anxiety.

You’ll learn the essential tools and techniques, backed by neuroscience, to teach clients how to use their amygdala as a vehicle to reduce anxiety and worry. Dr. Pittman will provide easy-to-implement, practical applications to therapy that will change your clients’ brain and not simply decrease their anxiety.

You’ll learn how to:

• Assess anxiety from a neuroscience perspective
• Increase client engagement through brain-based goal setting
• Train your client’s amygdala to respond differently to anxiety
• Empower clients to recognize anxiety-igniting cognitions from the cortex

Not only will you learn the essential keys for successful anxiety treatment, Dr. Pittman will share tools and exercises from her workbook, Taming Your Amygdala, that you can use with clients.

You don’t have to be a neuroscientist to help your clients understand how their brains work! Purchase today to help your clients tame their amygdalas!

Speaker

Catherine Pittman, PhD, HSPP
Saint Mary’s College

Catherine M. Pittman, Ph.D., HSPP has a background in cognitive behavioral therapy, neuropsychology, fear-conditioning research, and treated anxiety-based disorders in clinical practice for over 25 years. Her experience makes her uniquely qualified to provide a clear understanding of neuroscience and how that informs the selection and application of successful anxiety treatment strategies.

Dr. Pittman is the author of the popular book, Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety Panic, and Worry (New Harbinger Publications). Her new book, Taming Your Amygdala, will be published in Spring 2022 (PESI Publishing & Media). Dr. Pittman is a professor of Psychology at Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, IN. She regularly presents workshops at national conferences and national webinars on anxiety treatment and is an active member of the Public Education Committee of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Catherine Pittman maintains a private practice and has an employment relationship with Saint Mary’s College. She receives royalties as a published author. Dr. Pittman receives a speaking honorarium, recording, and book royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Catherine Pittman is a member of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

Objectives

1. Evaluate the role of the amygdala in defending clients from danger and creating anxiety-producing memories for purposes of client psychoeducation.
2. Utilize the language of the amygdala and how it learns to improve client level of functioning.
3. Support client motivation and engagement via use of the language of the amygdala.
4. Demonstrate why both the amygdala and cortex pathways in the brain must be treated for maximum relief of anxiety symptoms.
5. Assess and identify where client’s anxiety begins and help them interpret their fight, flight, freeze response.
6. Construct interventions to help train client’s amygdala to respond differently to anxiety and fear.
7. Demonstrate the connection of client’s amygdala to anxiety symptoms for treatment planning purposes.
8. Evaluate the relationship of the cortex to the amygdala as it relates to treatment outcomes.
9. Utilize exposure techniques to increase client’s tolerance to anxiety and retrain the amygdala.
10. Determine how clients label their anxiety-related experiences.
11. Employ neurologically informed strategies such as relaxation, exercise, exposure, and sleep interventions to reduce anxiety symptoms.
12. Utilize neurologically informed strategies such as cognitive restructuring techniques to reduce cognitions that produce anxious responding.

Outline

THE AMYGDALA AS A VEHICLE TO REDUCE ANXIETY

Teach Clients How & Why They Experience Anxiety

Amygdala’s Role in Defending Us from Danger & Creating Anxiety-Producing Memories

• Make neuroscience accessible
• How the amygdala learns
• The language of the amygdala
• Lifestyle changes that calm the brain
• Importance of questioning the necessity of fear & anxiety response

Promote Client Motivation & Engagement

Essential Knowledge About Using the Amygdala in Therapy

• Anxiety symptoms as a window into amygdala functioning
• The pitfalls of avoiding anxiety: Case example
• Introduce clients to their amygdala: Worksheets, explanations, examples
• Connect amygdala to client concerns

Teach Client’s Where Their Anxiety Comes From

Two Brain Pathways that Produce Anxiety

• Triggering of emotion: Amygdala
• Generation of emotion: Cortex
• Help clients recognize their two pathways: Useful examples
• How anxiety is initiated in each pathway & how they influence each other
• Why both pathways need to be understood & treated for maximum relief

THE AMYGDALA IN TREATMENT OF ANXIETY: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Personalize and Select Which Client Goals to Focus On

Connect Client’s Amygdala to Goal Setting: Examples

• Find the client’s amygdala in their experiences
• How clients label their anxiety-related experiences
• Guidelines to draw out and identify goals
• How/where anxiety/worry interferes with client goals
• The value in client’s complaining about their life

Exposure Techniques to Increase Tolerance to Anxiety

How to Retrain the Amygdala

• Teach clients to communicate with their amygdala
• Importance of SUDS ratings for communicating with clients
• Seven general guidelines for exposure
• Six tips for exposure effectiveness

Amygdala-Focused Interventions

How to Stop Scaring the Amygdala

• The type of relaxation that calms the amygdala
• The type of sleep that calms the amygdala
• How yoga calms the amygdala
• The type of exercise that calms the amygdala: Case example
• Exposure interventions that teach the amygdala: Case example

Cortex-Focused Interventions

How to Stop the Cortex from Activating the Amygdala

• Cognitive approaches to target the cortex
• Remember “survival of the busiest” rule
• You can’t erase, you must replace
• The amygdala watches cortex television
• Change the channel in the cortex

Limitation of Research and Potential Risks

Target Audience

• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Physicians
• Counselors
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Case Managers
• Addiction Counselors
• Speech-Language Pathologists
• Therapists
• Nurses
• Occupational Therapists
• Other Mental Health Professionals

Please see the full list of alternative group-buy courses available here: https://lunacourse.com/shop/