1.00 CE Credits Available
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety
by Mark Fefergrad and Peggy Richter
How can therapists help clients regain perspective about their most anxiety-inducing beliefs? In this video featuring clear didactics and clinical vignettes, discover CBT’s powerful tools for curbing panicked thoughts and supporting behavioral change.
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Anxiety is the most common mental health issue clients bring to therapy—and mastering its clinical nuances is key to effective treatment. In this video, Drs. Mark Fefergrad and Peggy Richter demonstrate core techniques from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that ease the negative beliefs and behaviors associated with anxiety. Here, the two Toronto-based therapists outline CBT’s essential tenets and tools and, in an annotated series of clinical vignettes, show you how to incorporate them into your work with anxious clients.

A time-limited, evidence-based treatment rooted in the clinical discoveries of Dr. Aaron Beck, CBT emphasizes the interactive, nonlinear relationship between thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Richter and Fefergrad cover important CBT techniques, strategies, and goals, and they discuss both the cognitive and behavioral issues anxious clients may bring to your office.

You’ll then watch each clinician apply these tools in their work with Kathy, a 40-year-old woman whose severe panic attacks have led to job loss and home seclusion. Fefergrad’s supportive inquiries into her “hot thoughts” and the difficult emotions they bring allow Kathy to work collaboratively on CBT’s Automatic Thought Record. He also helps her differentiate between thoughts and emotions, and identifies somatic symptoms she can observe and assess. Richter, after describing the types of behavioral avoidance anxiety provokes, then guides Kathy through the CBT exercises of interoceptive exposure, box breathing, and graded tasks, ultimately helping her design a realistic plan for returning to the public activities she once enjoyed.

Both therapists support Kathy through a reflective, solution-oriented process, and after treatment has concluded, she proudly reports using these tools to not only attend her niece’s wedding, but to stay the duration without leaving.

This video is an excellent resource for anyone seeking a CBT primer, tools for working with anxiety, or an understanding of psychotherapy from a cognitive standpoint. Be sure to take a look.

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Psychotherapy Essentials To Go is a truly impressive series of videos. Elevating pragmatics over dogma, it is grounded in the wisdom of front-line psychotherapists who adapt the core principles of empirically supported psychotherapies to flexibly address a myriad of clinical issues. No other series of psychotherapy videos is as skillfully concise and yet thorough. It will quickly become a standard reference for teaching and enhancing clinical competence.

-- Zindel V. Segal, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Psychology in Mood Disorders, University of Toronto–Scarborough; author of The Mindful Way Through Depression
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When anxiety mires clients in a downward spiral of panicked thoughts and heightened sensations, how do you help them regain equilibrium? In this video, Toronto-based CBT experts Drs. Mark Fefergrad and Peggy Richter demonstrate proven interventions from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), the widely practiced, empirically supported model that targets anxiety’s most challenging cognitive and behavioral symptoms. Here, the two clinicians provide a didactic overview of CBT and, in a series of clinical vignettes, demonstrate how to support clients through reducing the intensity of their negative thoughts and practicing realistic exposures to feared situations.

Here, you’ll see Richter and Fefergrad work with Kathy, a 40-year-old woman whose severe panic attacks have led to her quitting her job and staying reclusive at home. Anticipating her niece’s wedding, Kathy recognizes her need for help but feels beholden to her anxious symptoms. The therapists’ annotated sessions with her illustrate the effective use of empathic reflection, the automatic thought record, the downward arrow technique, Socratic questioning, and cognitive restructuring. You’ll also learn how to collaboratively develop homework assignments, activity scheduling, and graded tasks to support treatment goals, and you’ll get a theoretical review of CBT’s cognitive model. In all, these two clinicians present theory, skills, and interventions that you can use with clients right away.

With its rich set of takeaways, this video offers practical tools to support your work with clients suffering from the panic, avoidance, and distress of anxiety. If you’re in search of solid resources on CBT or anxiety disorders, add this video to your collection today.

By watching this video, you will:
  • Understand the theoretical foundations of CBT and its application to anxiety.
  • Learn how to use CBT tools such as the automatic thought record and activity scheduling.
  • Discover ways to apply CBT techniques such as the downward arrow, Socratic questioning, and cognitive restructuring.

Length of video: 1:02:48

English subtitles available

Group ISBN-13 #: 978-1-60124-514-4

Peggy Richter, MD, is the inaugural head of the Frederick W. Thompson Anxiety Disorders Centre at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, focused on research and treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and related conditions. She is also Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, a scientist with the Brain Sciences Research Program at Sunnybrook Research Institute, and with the Neurogenetics Section, Neurosciences Department, at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Mark Fefergrad, MD, is Assistant Professor and the Director of Postgraduate Education in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. He is a leader in postgraduate CBT education and has practiced and taught CBT extensively.
 


Mark Fefergrad and Peggy Richter was compensated for his/her/their contribution. None of his/her/their books or additional offerings are required for any of the Psychotherapy.net content. Should such materials be references, it is as an additional resource.

Psychotherapy.net defines ineligible companies as those whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. There is no minimum financial threshold; individuals must disclose all financial relationships, regardless of the amount, with ineligible companies. We ask that all contributors disclose any and all financial relationships they have with any ineligible companies whether the individual views them as relevant to the education or not.

Additionally, there is no commercial support for this activity. None of the planners or any employee at Psychotherapy.net who has worked on this educational activity has relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose with ineligible companies.

CE credits: 1

Learning Objectives:

  • Explain how the theoretical foundations of CBT apply to the treatment of anxiety
  • Plan effective treatment using core CBT tools such as activity scheduling
  • Critique CBT techniques related to anxiety treatment

Bibliography available upon request

This course is offered for ASWB ACE credit for social workers. See complete list of CE approvals here

© 2013

Course Reviewed January 2025

This Disclosure Statement has been designed to meet accreditation standards; Psychotherapy.net does its best to mitigate potential conflicts of interest and eliminate bias in all areas of content. Experts are compensated for their contributions to our training videos; while some of them have published works, the purchase of additional materials are not required for any Psychotherapy.net training. Each experts’ specific disclosures can be found in their biography.

Psychotherapy.net offers trainings for cost but has no financial or other relationships to disclose.
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