Rewire the Anxious Brain: Neuroscience-Informed Treatment of Anxiety, Panic and Worry

Credit

Program Information

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

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Canada Credit - *

NOTE: Each purchase includes CE credit for one individual (participants in full attendance will be able to print the certificate of completion after passing the online post-test (80% passing score) and completing the evaluation). Instructional methods will include PowerPoint, didactic lecture, Q&A, and others.

Continuing Education Information: Credits listed below are for full attendance at the live, interactive webinar only. This webinar is being broadcast live in real-time and must be attended live, in its entirety, in order to earn credit. You will be able to type questions to the speaker. The speaker will see the questions and address them during the presentation as time allows. Please note, your licensing board dictates whether web-based activities are an acceptable form of continuing education, as well as which credit types are acceptable for continuing education hours. Please refer to your licensing board's rules and regulations. If your profession is not listed, please contact your licensing board to determine your continuing education requirements and check for reciprocal approval. For other credit inquiries not specified below, please contact info@pesi.com or 800-844-8260 before the event.

Materials that are included in this course may include interventions and modalities that are beyond the authorized practice of your profession.  As a licensed professional, you are responsible for reviewing the scope of practice, including activities that are defined in law as beyond the boundaries of practice in accordance with and in compliance with your profession's standards.

For Planning Committee disclosures, please see the statement above.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

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Canada Credit - ---

Earn up to 6.25 CE hours. Please see below, for more details, as credit amounts vary by jurisdiction and profession. 

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Canada Credit - Social Workers - National ASWB ACE

PESI, Inc., #1062, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: January 27, 2023 - January 27, 2026. Social workers completing this course receive 6.25 Clinical continuing education credits.

 

Course Level: Intermediate Format: Synchronous distance.  Full attendance is required; no partial credits will be offered for partial attendance.

 

Canadian Social Workers: Canadian provinces may accept activities approved by the ASWB for ongoing professional development.

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Canada Credit - Canadian Psychologists

PESI, Inc. is approved by the Canadian Psychological Association to offer continuing education for psychologists. PESI, Inc. maintains responsibility for the program. This program is approved for 6.0 continuing education hours. Full credit statement at: www.pesi.com/cpa-statement

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Canada Credit - Other Professions

This activity qualifies for 380 continuing education minutes as required by many national and local licensing boards and professional organizations. Save your activity advertisement and certificate of completion, and contact your own board or organization for specific requirements. 

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US National Boards - Social Workers - National NASW

This live remote program is approved by the National Association of Social Workers (Approval #886759332-1642) for 6.0 continuing education contact hours in Clinical Social Work.

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US National Boards - Addiction Counselors - NAADAC

This course has been approved by PESI, Inc., as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for educational credits. NAADAC Provider #77553. PESI, Inc. is responsible for all aspects of their programming.

This course offers 6.0 continuing education contact hours in the Counseling Services skill group. Full attendance is required; no partial credit will be awarded for partial attendance. 

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US National Boards - Nurses, Nurse Practitioners, and Clinical Nurse Specialists – ANCC

PESI, Inc. is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation. Nurses in full attendance will earn 6.25 contact hours. Partial contact hours will be awarded for partial attendance.

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US National Boards - Occupational Therapists & Occupational Therapy Assistants

 

PESI, Inc.  is an AOTA Approved Provider of professional development. Approved provider # 3322. This Distance Learning - Interactive activity is offered at .6  CEUs intermediate, OT Service Delivery. The assignment of AOTA CEUs does not imply endorsement of specific course content, products, or clinical procedures by AOTA.

 

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Speaker

Heidi Schreiber-Pan, PhD, LCPC. NCC Related seminars and products

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Heidi Schreiber-Pan, PhD, LCPC, NCC, is a successful psychotherapist, author, clinical director and sought-after nationwide speaker on topics of resilience, anxiety, neuroscience, and occupational burnout. As an affiliate and former faculty member of Loyola University, Maryland, her past research has focused on resiliency and psychological well-being, including nature-based mental health.

Dr. Schreiber-Pan has worked with various organizations, schools and corporations to reduce stress on a communal level and to increase structural well-being through training in positive psychology as well as emotional intelligence coaching.

She has developed unique continuing education courses that combine established clinical methods such as CBT with innovative treatment approached including nature-based psychotherapy and neuro-counseling. She is the author of Taming the Anxious Mind: A Guidebook to Relieve Stress and Anxiety.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Heidi Schreiber-Pan maintains a private practice and has an employment relationship with Chesapeake Mental Health Collaborative. She receives royalties as a published author. Dr. Schreiber-Pan receives a speaking honorarium, recording royalties, and book royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Heidi Schreiber-Pan is a member of the American Counseling Association (ACA) and Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES).

Additional Info

Program Information

For live CE credit, you must watch the live webcast in its entirety at its scheduled time and complete the CE quiz and evaluation within one week. You will have access for 90 days after the program for review.

Please note: There will be a 70-minute lunch and two 15-minute breaks; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Lunch and break times will be announced by the speaker and at their discretion. A more detailed schedule is available upon request.

Visit our FAQ page at https://www.pesicanada.ca/faq or contact us at https://www.pesicanada.ca/contact-us.

Objectives

1. Ascertain the underlying neurological processes that impact anxious symptoms for clients.
2. Develop client engagement in treatment using personalized goals and attending to the therapeutic relationship.
3. Evaluate the differences between amygdala-based and cortex-based anxiety symptoms and identify how these symptoms inform treatment interventions.
4. Communicate strategies for calming and training the amygdala in order to alleviate symptoms of anxiety.
5. Implement methods for teaching clients to retrain the cortex so that anxiety is resisted rather than exacerbated.
6. Analyze how psychotropic medication impacts neuroplasticity in the brain; identify related treatment implications.

Outline

• Positives:
  • We know more about anxiety-based disorders than any other disorders
  • Science gives explanations, evidence, authority, destigmatizes difficulties
• Concerns:
  • It can be difficult to explain, answer questions
  • Clients may feel a lack of responsibility
  • Oversimplification is inevitable

• Don’t neglect the therapeutic relationship!
• Address the challenges of anxious clients
• Remember that strategies are effortful
• Guide the process using client’s goals
• Maintain motivation

• Define Neuroplasticity in everyday language
• Therapy is about creating a new self
• ”Rewiring” as an accessible concept for change
• Re-consolidation: the modification of emotional memories

• Amygdala – bottom-up triggering of emotion, physicality of anxiety
• Cortex – top-down emotion generation based in cognition
• Explain the two pathways to clients
• How anxiety is initiated in each pathway and how pathways influence each other

• Use illustrations to create concrete understanding
• Fight/flight/freeze responses
• The “language of the amygdala”
• Anxiety and the cortex
• Help clients recognize the two pathways to anxiety

• Sleep and the amygdala
• The influence of exercise
• Breathing techniques to reduce activation
• Relaxation, meditation, and yoga to modify responses
• Exposure as opportunities for the amygdala to learn
• Combatting avoidance
• When anxiety indicates that the amygdala can learn new responses
• Push through anxiety to change the amygdala

• ”Survival of the busiest” principle – strengthen or weaken specific circuitry
• The healthy (adaptive) use of worry in the cortex
• ”You can’t erase: You must replace”
• Recognize and modify the impact of uncertainty
• Training correct uses of distraction
• Left hemisphere techniques – cognitive defusion, coping thoughts, fighting anticipation
• Right hemisphere techniques – imagery, music
• Mindfulness and anxiety resistances

• Medication’s effects in the rewiring process
• The myth of the chemical imbalance
• The danger of sedating the brain with benzodiazepines
• Promoting neuroplasticity with SSRIs, SNRIs
• The effectiveness of CBT and meds

• Anxiety is a component of many diagnoses (depression, substance abuse, etc.)
• Amygdala – and cortex-based techniques help in other disorders
• Targeting brain-based symptoms rather than disorders
• Worry, obsessions, rumination respond to similar cortex-based techniques
• Panic, phobic responses, and compulsions respond to amygdala-based techniques

Research, Risks and Limitations

• Empirical versus clinical and anecdotal evidence
• Clinical considerations for specific clients and settings
• Efficacy of particular interventions may vary

Target Audience

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

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