Rewire the Anxious Brain: Using Neuroscience to End Anxiety, Panic and Worry – Catherine M. Pittman

Apply proven brain-based strategies for Panic, Social Anxiety, OCD, GAD, and PTSD
Understand the difference between cortex-based and amygdala-based anxiety

Rewire the Anxious Brain: Using Neuroscience to End Anxiety, Panic and Worry – Catherine M. Pittman

Motivate clients and calm the anxious brain using the power of neuroplasticity
Increase client engagement by focusing on changing the brain – not simply decreasing anxiety

Join neuroscience and anxiety expert, Dr. Catherine Pittman, and learn her keys for successful anxiety treatment. Dr. Pittman integrates brain-based strategies for calming the anxious mind with client communication techniques that motivate change in your clients. Catherine’s approach promotes adherence to treatment and strengthens the therapeutic alliance – which is essential when working with anxious, worried, traumatized, or obsessive clients.
Dr. Pittman will give you proven tools and techniques to:

Identify and treat the roots of anxiety in both the amygdala and the cortex
Explain “the language of the amygdala” in an accessible, straight forward way
Identify how the cortex contributes to anxiety, and empower clients with strategies to resist anxiety-igniting cognitions

Therapy is about change – it’s about creating a new self – and incorporating the concept of “rewiring the brain” is a potent method for stopping anxiety in its tracks.

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

Use Neuroscience in the Treatment of Anxiety

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

Enhancing Engagement in Treatment

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

Neuroplasticity

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

Identify Two Neural Pathways to Anxiety

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

Client-Friendly Explanations

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

Neuroplasticity in the Amygdala (Essential for all Anxiety Disorders, PTSD, OCD, Depression)

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

Neuroplasticity in the Cortex (Essential for GAD, SAD, OCD, PTSD, Depression)

“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

Neuroplasticity and Medications for Anxiety Disorders, OCD, PTSD, Depression

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

Moving Beyond Diagnostic Categories to Focus on Anxiety Pathways

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

GET REWIRE THE ANXIOUS BRAIN: USING NEUROSCIENCE TO END ANXIETY, PANIC AND WORRY OF AUTHOR CATHERINE M. PITTMAN