AD24 Keynote 03 - Changing the Worried Mind - Reid Wilson, Ph.D

Those suffering from generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) are like worry-making machines who become anxious about topics that can concern any of us: money, work, family, our health. The noise of worry is like a boombox in their heads with no offswitch. You will learn how to shift clients’ relationship with their fears and override the responses that perpetuate them. You will explore paradoxical strategies to help clients transform their anxieties and worries from intimidating threats into challenges that they can meet and conquer. The goal is to persuade clients to adopt a self-help protocol to voluntarily, purposely and aggressively seek out the unneeded worries of GAD headon and dispatch with them rather than trying to avoid them.

Educational Objectives:

1. Identify the common frames of reference and ensuing actions that limit anxious clients’ ability to generate change

2. Collaboratively create a therapeutic frame of reference for any anxiously worried client

3. Teach clients how to detach from their worried themes by applying the principle of signals vs. noise

4. Discuss and practice how to train any anxiously worried client in activating a new attitude during behavioral practice