On-Demand: A Clinician’s Guide to Youth Anxiety: What Works and Why - 6 hours
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- CE Hours Included: 6 (please see below for details)
- Format: On-Demand Webinar (“Asynchronous”) ~ At your leisure to be viewed at your own pace. You may pause, rewind, and fast forward at any point during the videos. You are in complete control of how you view this workshop. It also comes with a PowerPoint and references. There is a quiz at the end to ensure viewing and required by all CE approval organizations.
- NOTE: Your certificate will be dated when you complete the course - Click here for more detailed information on the best way to do this: https://www.theknowledgetree.org/p/help
- Investment: $140 (provides lifetime access!)
- Presented by: Ashley Smith, Ph.D. (see bio below)
- Date of Recording: 4/14/2026
- Instruction Level: Intermediate
- Target Audience: Psychologists, Counselors, Social Workers, Marriage & Family Therapists
- This workshop is not yet available; by pre-registering, you will receive immediate access when it becomes available in April.
Educational Objectives:
After completing this workshop in its entirety, you will be able to:
- Utilize a clinical decision-making framework to determine when to use specific types of interventions or treatment techniques.
- Explain how to differentiate between normative anxiety, state-of-the-world anxiety, and clinical anxiety disorders.
- Explain evolutionary and neurobiological underpinnings of anxiety, including the roles of the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, and how this informs treatment approaches.
- Discuss the role of cognitive processes (e.g., rumination, worry, cognitive distortions) in maintaining anxiety, and identify common patterns in clients.
- Illustrate and model multiple relaxation techniques to reduce physiological arousal associated with anxiety.
- Demonstrate how to implement exposure with response prevention (ERP) protocols and troubleshoot common client challenges.
Workshop Description:
How quickly—and confidently—can you help an anxious youth? Anxiety is the most common mental health concern among children and teens, and nearly every clinician who works with youth encounters it regularly. Yet many providers feel uncertain about how to move beyond reassurance or surface-level coping strategies, especially when anxiety is persistent, behaviorally entrenched, or reinforced by family and school systems. This training offers a clear, evidence-based framework for understanding youth anxiety across development and translating that understanding into effective, targeted interventions. Participants will build a strong brain-based conceptualization of anxiety and learn how patterns such as avoidance, accommodation, and safety behaviors maintain distress over time.
Drawing on evidence-based CBT interventions and over twenty years of clinical experience specializing in youth anxiety, Dr. Ashley Smith delivers a practical, skill-focused training designed to build confidence and clinical precision. Through case examples, hands-on exercises, and guided application, participants will learn how to implement cognitive, behavioral, mindfulness, relaxation, and exposure-based strategies in a developmentally appropriate and flexible way. The training also addresses working effectively with parents and schools to reduce unintentional reinforcement of anxiety and support lasting change. Participants will leave with a robust menu of intervention options, a clear decision-making framework for choosing the right tools, and strategies they can apply immediately in real-world clinical settings.
Course Outline:
- Understanding Stress and Anxiety (90 minutes)
- Stress v. anxiety and helpful metaphors to explain each
- Anxiety in the brain
- Two anxiety pathways in the brain
- The amygdala
- The prefrontal cortex
- Explaining brain-based anxiety to kids and teens
- Two anxiety pathways in the brain
- From normative to clinical anxiety
- Differentiating anxiety as the side effect or anxiety as the problem, state-of-the-world anxiety
- Implications for treatment
- Overview of the anxiety disorders
- Assessment methods
- Does diagnosis even matter?
- Conceptualizing anxiety: the 3 B’s
- Body
- Sympathetic v. parasympathetic nervous system
- Brain
- Content of thinking v. process of thinking
- Behavior
- Overt and covert anxiety-driven behaviors and avoidance that maintain anxiety (safety signals, rituals, compulsions, reassurance-seeking, avoidance)
- Body
- EXERCISE: Mapping out anxiety
- Child anxiety as a systems issue
- How family dynamics reinforce anxiety.
- The role of parental accommodation and avoidance.
- EXERCISE: Case conceptualization
- Interventions: Broad overview of interventions, including state of the research, risks and benefits, limitations, and contraindications (45 minutes)
- Lifestyle interventions
- Ethical and clinical considerations
- EXERCISE: It’s a lifestyle (identifying and targeting lifestyle factors to decrease anxiety)
- Medication for the non-prescriber
- Overview of medications (risks & benefits, typical recommendations)
- How to talk to caregivers and kids about medication
- Collaborating with prescribers
- Therapy overview
- Lifestyle interventions
- Therapy (120 minutes)
- Setting the Stage for Treatment
- Building rapport
- Establishing goals and orienting to treatment
- Useful metaphors
- Externalizing anxiety
- Relaxation Training
- Specific techniques, including breath retraining, progressive muscle relaxation, and visual imagery.
- Each technique will be described, with the rationale provided. It will then be modeled, and tips for teaching/implementing will be shared.
- EXERCISES: practicing breathing techniques
- Mindfulness
- Specific techniques (at least 10 options) will be taught.
- Each technique will be described, with the rationale provided. It will then be modeled, and tips for teaching/implementing will be shared.
- EXERCISES: practicing mindfulness techniques
- Thinking (cognitive)
- Specific techniques such as cognitive restructuring, defusion, and metacognitive work, and coping thoughts/positive self-talk will be introduced.
- Each technique will be described, with the rationale provided. It will then be modeled, and tips for teaching/implementing will be shared.
- Troubleshooting common pitfalls
- EXERCISES: practicing defusion techniques, cognitive restructuring exercise
- Behavioral
- The nuts and bolts of Exposure with Response Prevention (ERP)
- Rationale
- Metaphors and psychoeducation to set the stage
- Types of exposure
- In vivo
- Imaginal
- interoceptive
- Designing and implementing exposures
- Creating hierarchies
- In session implementation
- Between-session implementation
- Troubleshooting common pitfalls
- EXERCISE: Designing exposures
- Other behavioral interventions
- Behavioral experiments
- Values-based actions
- The nuts and bolts of Exposure with Response Prevention (ERP)
- Setting the Stage for Treatment
- Enhancing Effectiveness (75 minutes)
- Supporting Anxious Youth
- Unhelpful stances for providers, parents, caregivers, etc. to take
- Accommodating
- Demanding
- The goal – supportive stance (based on SPACE protocol developed by Yale Child Study Center)
- Tips for becoming more supportive
- Unhelpful stances for providers, parents, caregivers, etc. to take
- Working with schools
- Accommodations—helpful or hurtful?
- The myth of motivation: Why motivation is not required for effective treatment.
- Framing low motivation and/or resistance as a normal part of anxiety work.
- Reluctance to attend sessions.
- Lack of participation in exposures or homework
- Complete refusal to engage in treatment.
- Framing low motivation and/or resistance as a normal part of anxiety work.
- Developing Behavior Plans to Enhance Motivation and Increase Adherence
- Creating Clear and Consistent Behavior Plans
- Formalizing the use of rewards and consequences to facilitate change.
- Implementation Tips:
- Crafting plans that are simple, achievable, and consistently enforced.
- Involving the child in the plan to foster ownership and buy-in.
- EXERCISE: Developing a behavior plan for the same client.
- Using Strategic Pressure to Facilitate Change
- What is strategic pressure? (Withdrawal of family accommodations and avoidance that maintain anxiety/allow anxiety-driven behaviors to “work” for youth).
- What does strategic pressure and withdrawal of accommodations look like?
- The nuts and bolts of implementation, drawing from Yale’s SPACE program and the St. Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute’s Center for OCD and Anxiety Disorders' pioneering approach.
- Preparing parents for extinction bursts: What to expect and how to persist.
- EXERCISE: Drafting a plan for systematically withdrawing accommodations for one of your clients.
- Troubleshooting common barriers and pitfalls
- Parental Anxiety: Addressing how parents’ own anxiety may interfere with consistency and follow-through.
- Lack of Buy-In: Shifting the “fix my kid” mentality to a family-based approach.
- Lifestyle Factors: Addressing common challenges such as lack of sleep, excessive screen time, and chaotic routines.
- Supporting Anxious Youth
- Putting it all together: a clinical decision-making framework for selecting interventions and designing treatment protocols (30 minutes)
- EXERCISE: Creating a comprehensive treatment plan
- Q&A
Presented by: Ashley Smith, Ph.D.
6 "Asynchronous" Core CE Hours Included - Details by License Type Below:
- PSYCHOLOGISTS: The Knowledge Tree, A Summit Professional Education Company is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Knowledge Tree, A Summit Professional Education Company maintains responsibility for this program and its content. For more detailed information on the current CE ruling in Georgia, or if you are licensed in another state or country, please click here.
- COUNSELORS: The Knowledge Tree, A Summit Professional Education Company has been approved by the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) as an Approved Continuing Education Provider (ACEP), ACEP No. 7153. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. The Knowledge Tree, A Summit Professional Education Company is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. Please click here for more detailed information.
- SOCIAL WORKERS: TKT has applied for approval for this workshop through the Georgia Society for Clinical Social Work (GSCSW). If you are licensed in another state or country, please click here for more detailed information.
- MARRIAGE & FAMILY THERAPISTS: TKT has applied for approval for this workshop through the Georgia Association for Marriage & Family Therapy (GAMFT). If you are licensed in another state or country, please click here for more detailed information.
Registration: To register for individual workshops, you may use our online payment option, or to pay by check you may print and complete the Registration Form and mail or fax it to our office. The registration form is available on our website: www.theknowledgetree.org. Registration is permitted until the time the workshop begins, unless otherwise specified.
Multiple Workshop Special: There is a 10% Discount with registration for two workshops. There is a 15% Discount with registrations for three or four workshops. There is a 20% Discount with registration for five or more workshops.
Refund/Cancellation Policy: If you can no longer attend a workshop you have registered for, you can either receive a credit for another workshop or receive a refund if you are within the refund policy period. Refunds will be given for cancellations received at least five days prior to the workshop. More information about refund/cancellation can be found here.
Attendance Policy: 100% attendance and completion of a course evaluation is required at any CE program in order to receive credit for that CE program. No partial credit is given. Certificates of completion will be available in each attendee’s account once the broadcast has ended and the course evaluation completed.
ADA Requests: We will make every effort to accommodate any reasonable ADA request. Please call or email us at least two weeks prior to the event. Payment and registration are required to fulfill an ADA request.
No Conflict Policy: Neither The Knowledge Tree nor its speakers have received any commercial support for this program or its contents and will not receive any commercial support prior to or during this program.
System Requirements: Live Interactive Webinars are facilitated via Zoom. System requirements for the Zoom platform are linked at our FAQ page.
We are an approved vendor for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for easy reimbursement of educational expenses for VA employees.
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