Aureen Wagner

CBT for OCD and Anxiety: Complexities and Challenges in Treating Children and Adolescents
August 11-15

This unique workshop will cover anxiety-related topics that are not typically covered in depth in any single workshop. Dr. Wagner will provide a developmentally sensitive perspective on conceptualizing, strategizing and intervening with hard-to-treat and unusual symptoms, co-morbidities and overlapping symptom dimensions. A modular approach to CBT, emphasizing core versus optional modules in treatment, will be applied to guide step-by-step clinical decision-making and the delivery of strategies. This workshop is designed for clinical practitioners and school professionals with at least intermediate experience with CBT, or those who have attended Dr. Wagner's previous workshops.

Participants will engage in dialogue on the details of implementation, including timing, pacing, and responding to the child and family's cues. Developmental modifications and the use of metaphors, analogies and imagery for various ages from preschoolers to adolescents will be discussed. The nature and extent of collaboration with parents and families in various developmental and family contexts will be explored. Participants will discuss clinical dilemmas to generate fresh perspectives and ideas for working through them. Realistic expectations and options when clients and families demonstrate low insight, readiness to change, avoidance and noncompliance, or when standard approaches do not seem to make headway will be examined.

This workshop will integrate the science and the art of CBT, and will emphasize the big picture: Engaging children and families in their own recovery by guiding them through resistance to acceptance, helplessness to empowerment and dependence to self-reliance. Case discussions, video clips, "clinical pearls" and structured exercises will be woven through the workshop to illustrate concepts and strategies. Participants are invited to submit cases for discussion (details will be sent upon registration).

Monday
Modular CBT: Applying essential and core interventions; decision-making and application of optional modules in treatment; case conceptualization and the Socratic process

Tuesday
Separation anxiety, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, panic and depression: Realistic thinking and exposure; troubleshooting challenges

Wednesday
Difficult forms of OCD: Clinical innovations and developmental variations in treating "bad thoughts," scrupulosity, religious, violent and sexual obsessions, mental rituals and hoarding in children and adolescents.

Thursday
Co-morbid and overlapping symptom dimensions: OCD and Tourette Syndrome (tics, sensory sensitivities and "just right" symptoms), ADHD, and trichotillomania

Friday
CBT for anxiety and OCD in youngsters with Asperger's Syndrome; school refusal; sleep difficulties; test anxiety; meltdowns and explosive behavior.

Aureen Pinto Wagner, Ph.D., is Clinical Associate Professor of Neurology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation. Dr. Wagner is a Clinical Child Psychologist who is widely recognized for her unique Worry Hill approach to making cognitive-behavioral therapy accessible to youngsters. She is a highly engaging and sought-after speaker whose workshops consistently receive outstanding reviews. Dr. Wagner is also the author of several books and treatment resources for professionals including: Treatment of OCD in Children and Adolescents: A Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Manual, Worried No More: Help and Hope for Anxious Children, Up and Down the Worry Hill: A Children's Book about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and its Treatment, and What to do when your Child has Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Strategies and Solutions (see www.Lighthouse-Press.com).