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Full Course Description

2-Day Turning the Tide on Anxiety: Next-Level Interventions for Kids and Teens

Copyright : 10/22/2025

[Speaker Shells] - Turning the Tide on Anxiety: Next-Level Interventions for Kids and Teens

Copyright : 10/22/2025

“I’m So Awkward!” Treatment Tips for Socially Anxious Youth

While today’s youth are highly skilled in social technology, they struggle significantly with face-to-face, in-person interactions. Simple behaviors like asking for a soda in a restaurant or greeting an acquaintance in the mall can evoke debilitating self-consciousness, worry, even panic.  

 

Traditional therapeutic methods of engaging and treating social anxiety in today’s youth often miss the mark. How do we effectively connect with these tech-dependent teens and assist them in overcoming the obstacle of social anxiety? 

 

Join psychologist, author, and anxiety expert Dr. Steve O’Brien who will offer you practical tools for meeting the needs of kids and teens with social anxiety.  Dr. O’Brien will equip you with actionable treatment techniques ready for immediate integration into your clinical practice. You’ll discover: 

 

  • Youth-friendly psychoeducation as the first intervention 
  • Easing into therapy with “low demand” dialogue 
  • Functional mood analysis for social media distress 
  • And more! 

 

You’ll leave this workshop with a set of useful tools for equipping socially anxious youth to get out of their heads and into the world! 

Program Information

Objectives

  • Identify the specific cognitive, behavioral, and psychophysiological manifestations of social anxiety disorder in pre-teens and adolescents and their functional impact on youth to enhance assessment. 
  • Utilize contemporary rapport-building methods with socially anxious youth as a venue for providing psychoeducation about social anxiety. 
  • Apply cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness-based interventions designed to decrease the intensity of social anxiety symptoms to promote interpersonal initiative, anxiety management, and social competence in socially anxious youth. 

Outline

Factors Fueling Social Anxiety in Preteens and Teens 

  • Overreliance on social technologies and less time IRL (in real life) 
  • Societal preoccupation with safety and risk/discomfort avoidance 
  • Internalization of idealization-devaluation dynamics from social media 

 

Connecting with Socially Anxious Youth

  • Use of “visual-sequential description” BEFORE the first session 
  • Easing into therapy with “low-demand” dialogue 
  • Integrating devices into session for exploring their online life 

          

Mindfulness, CBT (And Humor!) For Building Social Competence

  • Youth-friendly psychoeducation as the first intervention 
  • Mindfully managing social anxiety symptoms 
  • Functional mood analysis for social media distress 
  • Association-to-dialogue technique to reduce over-thinking 
  • Combatting outcome certainty to promote social initiative 

Risks and limitations     

Target Audience

  • Licensed Clinical/Mental Health Counselors 
  • Psychologists
  • Social Workers 
  • Marriage & Family Therapists 
  • Teachers/School-Based Personnel 
  • School Administrators
  • Case Managers 
  • Speech-Language Pathologists
  • Physicians
  • Occupational Therapists

Copyright : 08/08/2024

ADHD, Social Anxiety and Rejection Sensitivity

Many children and adults with ADHD struggle with fears of embarrassment, rejection or criticism and hold back from participating in the relationships they truly desire. Following these past two years of isolation and restrictions, social anxiety and rejection sensitivity have increased for clients with ADHD of all ages.

In this session, Dr. Sharon Saline, award-winning author, international speaker and consultant will teach you how to help your clients participate in social situations with more confidence and less self-criticism. After describing how social anxiety works and its relationship to perfectionism and rejection sensitivity dysphoria, Dr. Saline will demonstrate interventions and tools to:

  • Improve communication skills and connection while reducing discomfort and insecurity
  • Initiate and maintain friendships, manage rejection sensitivity dysphoria
  • Promote resilience and growth mindsets in clients of all ages with ADHD

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Demonstrate how social anxiety and rejection sensitivity dysphoria operate for children and adults with ADHD.
  2. Develop effective strategies with clients for managing social situations and personal relationships with ease and confidence.
  3. Determine which communication skills would best assist clients in engaging in clear, appropriate and meaningful conversations.

Outline

  • Nervousness, worry and general anxiety in the brain and the body
  • Elements of social anxiety and rejection sensitivity dysphoria and their relationship to ADHD
  • Efficacy of clinical interventions and modalities for working with ADHD and social anxiety
  • Strategies and tools for improving connections, communication and confidence

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Educators/Teachers
  • Marriage & Family Therapists
  • Nurses
  • Physicians
  • Occupational Therapists
  • Occupational Therapy Assistants
  • Psychologists
  • Speech-Language Pathologists
  • Social Workers

Copyright : 11/10/2022