This workshop provides the foundational skills necessary to effectively treat clients struggling with anxiety, OCD, and perfectionism by first mastering a functional case conceptualization. We'll move beyond surface-level symptoms to collaboratively identify the core patterns of avoidance and compulsion that maintain your client's struggle, utilizing principles from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). You will have a practical opportunity to bring a challenging case, and together we will map out their rigid behaviors. This process centers on understanding the function of behaviors—determining whether they are workable (moving toward values) or unworkable (moving away from them)—which is the critical first step toward inspiring therapeutic change and successfully implementing ACT-consistent Exposure.
Learn to analyze client behaviors (including worries, rituals, and avoidance) to determine their underlying function—what internal experience (e.g., anxiety, shame, doubt) are they attempting to avoid or control?
Develop skills to spot the most challenging and often missed patterns, such as mental rituals in OCD (like excessive reviewing or analysis) and the control strategies that fuel perfectionism and generalized anxiety.
Receive a customizable log template and practice using it to collaboratively track your client's patterns of thoughts, feelings, and unworkable actions, transforming assessment into a powerful tool for client insight.
Learn how to use this awareness-building phase to help clients recognize that their attempts to control their internal world are actually the source of their suffering, thus priming them for a willingness to engage in new, values-driven behaviors like Exposure.
Clearly understand how building this functional awareness is the necessary first step to designing effective, values-driven Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) assignments later in the training series.