David M. Pratt – 2-Day: CBT Toolkit for Depressed, Anxious and Suicidal Children and Adolescents

Outline

Therapist Guidelines: Keys to Success

• Psychoeducation: Knowledge is power
• Therapy tips: Anxiety and depression
• Introducing CBT to the client and parents
• Limitations of the research and potential risks

Goal Setting and Motivational Counseling: Are You and Your Client Working Together?

• Why goals are important
• SMART goals
• Assessing the consequences of anxiety and depression
• Pros and cons analysis

Mindfulness: Calming the Emotional Brain to Utilize the Rational Mind

• Amygdala hijack & the neuroscience of stress
• The effects of adrenalin & cortisol on the body
• Mindfulness meditation & brain functioning
• Typical stress response vs. desired stress response
• Mindfulness skills for children & adolescents
• Mindfulness practice & monitoring

Mood Monitoring: How to Help Kids Be Aware of Their Feelings

• Feeling awareness games
• Feelings and trigger situations
• Subjective units of distress scale (SUDS)
• Daily and weekly mood monitoring

Behavioral Activation: Let’s Get Active Again!

• The CBT paradigm: Behavioral activation and depression
• Behavior monitoring: Typical school & weekend day
• Life values and activities
• Identifying and covercoming barriers to healthy activities
• Conduct a behavioral activation experiment

Cognitive Processing: Helping Kids Tune into Their Thoughts

• The CBT paradigm and why thoughts are important
• Different types of stinking thinking
• Identify positive, realistic thoughts
• Identifying & monitoring my stinking thinking

Cognitive Restructuring: Staying Positive Despite Challenges

• Define cognitive restructuring
• Ambiguous situations…What’s really going on?
• Positive Psychology tools to fight depression

Social Skills Training: Teaching Essential Social Skills

• Teaching effective problem solving
• Appropriately using assertiveness
• Effective communication skills
• Practice non-verbal communication
• Conversation and “chit-chat” skills

Anxiety Treatment & Exposure Therapy: Helping Clients Face Their Fears

• Somatic management skills
• Create an anxiety hierarchy
• Identifying & correcting “catastrophic” stinking thinking
• Social skills to help manage anxiety
• Develop a “Game Plan” to help face anxiety
• Imagino Exposure
• In-Vivo Exposure

Special Topics in Treating Anxiety: Applying Exposure Therapy to Specific Anxiety Problems

• Social Anxiety
• Separation Anxiety
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder and chronic worry
• Somatic Symptom Disorder

Manage Self-Harm and Suicidal Urges: Evidence-Based Practices to Prevent Suicide and Self Harm

• Conduct an evidence-based suicide risk assessment
• Develop an evidence-based suicide prevention plan
• Use behavioral chain analysis to prevent future self-harm
• Create a hope box
• Emotional distress tolerance skills to resist self-harm urges
• Future time imaging
• Using acceptance and commitment to improve happiness
• Problem-solving in a crisis
• CBT “coping card” for self-harm prevention

Parent Involvement: Parents are Your Clients Too!

• Parent involvement in the evaluation process and treatment plan
• Confidentiality considerations
• Family behavioral activation, problem solving, & contracts
• Parent support & stress management