Helping the Anxious Generation: The Complete Clinical Toolkit for Treating Teen & Young Adult Anxiety - A 2-Day Certification Intensive with Dr. Ashley Smith

Credit

Speaker

Ashley Smith, PhD Related seminars and products

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Dr. Ashley Smith is a licensed clinical psychologist and recognized expert in anxiety and related disorders. She has worked in children’s hospitals, an anxiety specialty clinic, and private practice, providing evidence-based treatment for anxiety and OCD.

An adjunct faculty member at Kansas City University, Dr. Ashley has extensive experience training and supervising mental health professionals. She has authored peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and two books, including Childhood Anxiety Disorders. A long-time member of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, she was honored with their Special Recognition Award in 2023.

She regularly presents workshops and trainings at local and national levels, focusing on the practical application of cognitive behavioral therapy, positive psychology, and applied neuroscience to improve clinical outcomes. She is also the co-founder of Peak Mind. The Center for Psychological Strength, an organization dedicated to making psychological tools more widely accessible.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Ashley Smith is the co-founder of Peak Mind, has an employment relationship with Kansas City University, and maintains a private practice. She receives royalties as a published author. Ashley Smith receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Ashley Smith is a member of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America and sits on the board of directors for Disabled But Not Really.

Additional Info

Program Information

You will have access for 90 days after the program for review. For live CE credit, you must watch the live webcast in its entirety at its scheduled time and complete the CE quiz and evaluation within one week. Please note that this requirement may vary by credit type. Please see detailed credit information for specific requirements for each credit type.

Please note: There will be a 70-minute lunch and two 15-minute breaks; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Lunch and break times will be announced by the speaker and at their discretion. A more detailed schedule is available upon request.

Visit our FAQ page at https://www.pesicanada.ca/faq or contact us at https://www.pesicanada.ca/contact-us.

Objectives

1. Differentiate between normative anxiety, state-of-the-world anxiety, and clinical anxiety disorders.  
2. Examine the evolutionary and neurobiological underpinnings of anxiety and how this informs treatment approaches.  
3. Conduct differential diagnoses and assess for co-occurring disorders.  
4. Evaluate the utility and limitations of diagnostic labels.  
5. Use the "3 B's" framework (Brain, Body, Behavior, core CBT model) to guide treatment planning.  
6. Analyze the role of cognitive processes (e.g., rumination, worry, cognitive distortions) in maintaining anxiety.  
7. Distinguish covert and overt behaviors that maintain anxiety.
8. Identify multiple relaxation techniques to reduce physiological arousal associated with anxiety.  
9. Utilize multiple mindfulness techniques to reduce anxiety and interrupt anxious rumination.  
10. Define cognitive interventions that change anxious thinking, including defusion, cognitive restructuring, and paradoxical strategies like "worry time."  
11. Utilize exposure with response prevention (ERP) protocols and troubleshoot common client challenges.  
12. Apply motivational enhancement strategies to improve client adherence and engagement.  
13. Recognize and resolve unintentional therapist behaviors that may reinforce anxiety (e.g., inadvertent reassurance). 

Outline

DAY ONE: Assessment, Conceptualization, Engagement, Physiological & Cognitive Interventions

Module 1: Why Everything You Learned About Teen Anxiety is Outdated

• The phone-based childhood has fundamentally rewired how anxiety develops and presents
  • The cultural shifts that created this generation’s anxiety epidemic  and why your training didn’t prepare you for it
  • Social media, doomscrolling, and the comparison trap: What the research actually shows (not what headlines claim)
  • The over-protection paradox: How well-meaning parents created a generation with no distress tolerance
  • Distinguishing stress, normative responses to an unsafe world, and true anxiety disorders – because misreading which one you’re dealing with changes everything about treatment

Module 2: Assessment That Actually Changes Your Treatment Plan

• Get the diagnosis right – and catching what you’ve been missing
  • DSM-5-TR™ anxiety disorders: The clinical distinctions that matter for treatment selection (GAD vs. social anxiety vs. panic vs. phobias)
  • The OCD misdiagnosis trap: When anxiety is actually obsessional – and why treating it wrong makes it worse
  • Does diagnosis even matter? Why conceptualization beats diagnostic label when it comes to effective treatment
  • What’s fueling the fire: Lifestyle factors and physical contributors that can mimic or exacerbate anxiety
  • Practical real-world tools for comprehensive assessment
  • The medication question: Specific criteria for when to refer to a prescriber – and what to say to reluctant families

Module 3: The Neuroscience They’ll Actually Remember

• Explain the anxious brain in ways that click – and change behavior
  • Beyond “fight or flight”: The freeze and fawn responses clinicians miss – and why misidentifying them derails treatment
  • The amygdala-cortex dialogue: Why “just think positive” is neurologically impossible when activated
  • Two pathways, one problem. Why logic fails when the amygdala is running the show – and how to sequence your interventions accordingly
  • The adolescent brain under construction: Windows of vulnerability AND neuroplasticity you can leverage
  • Metaphors and explanations that make neuroscience stick with teens, young adults, and skeptical parents
  • Translate brain science into treatment rationale: Scrips for “why are we doing this weird exercise?”

Module 4: Case Conceptualization That Drives Results

• The framework that tells you exactly what to target and in what order
  • The body-brain-behavior model: A unifying framework for every anxious client who walks through your door
  • Identify the maintaining factors that keep the anxiety alive: Avoidance cycles, accommodation, safety behaviors, reassurance loops
  • When depression is co-pilot: Sequence treatment when anxiety and depression are both in the room
  • The comorbidity puzzle: ADHD + anxiety, trauma + anxiety, OCD + anxiety – which to treat first
  • Measuring what matters: Functional impairment vs. symptom counts

Module 5: Set the Stage for Effective Treatment (Alliance building and foundation setting)

• Building alliance with the teen who doesn’t want to be there
• CASE STUDY: The Silent Teen – 17-year-old, arms crossed, one-word answers, radiating “I don’t want to be here.” What do you do in the first 10 minutes?
  • Why traditional rapport techniques backfire with anxious teens – and what to do instead
  • The “one-down” position: Establishing expertise without triggering defiance
  • Validation that doesn’t accidentally reinforce avoidance (the fine line most clinicians cross)
  • Motivational interviewing for the unmotivated: Building change talk when they don’t see a problem
  • Done-for-you scripts for: “I’m only here because my parents made me,” “This is stupid”, and strategic silence
  • ROLE-PLAY PRACTICE: The resistant first session

Module 6: Body-Based Interventions That Go Beyond “Take a Deep Breath”

• Advanced somatic strategies and when to use each one
  • Why “body first” often works better than “mind first” with teens – and when it doesn’t
  • Specific breathing protocols and the specific situations each is designed for (not all breathing is equal)
  • The common diaphragmatic breathing mistake that makes anxiety worse – and how to fix it
  • Progressive muscle relaxation: The abbreviated 4-minute version that teens will actually do
  • Movement-based regulation: Use the body’s built-in reset system
  • EXPERIENTIAL PRACTICE: Learn by doing – you’ll use these Monday

Module 7: Mindfulness for the Teen Who Thinks It’s Stupid

• Sneak in present-moment awareness without the eye rolls
  • The “I’m not doing meditation” workaround: 10 stealth mindfulness techniques they won’t’ resist
  • Embedding mindfulness into gaming, music, and scrolling (meeting them where they are)
  • Brief interventions for brief attention spans: 30-second to 3-minute options
  • Present-moment awareness vs. future-focused worry: The one concept that changes everything
  • App recommendations that work (and the popular ones that don’t)

Module 8: Cognitive Interventions That Don’t Feel Like a Worksheet

• Working skillfully with the anxious mind – when cognition is the right entry point
• CASE STUDY: The High-Achieving Perfectionist – 16-year-old straight-A student, panic attacks before tests, paralyzed by college apps, hasn’t slept through the night in months. Everyone thinks she’s “fine.”
  • Why classic cognitive restructuring often backfires with Gen Z – and the modifications that work
  • Disrupt rumination: Practical techniques that interrupt the 3am thought spiral
  • Decatastrophizing done right: Walking through worst-case scenarios without reinforcing them
  • Manage worry: Worry postponement, worry time, and the productive/unproductive distinction
  • Perfectionism and procrastination; The anxiety-avoidance loop that looks like laziness
  • Change self-talk without toxic positivity: From self-attack to self-coaching
  • Cognitive defusion: Unhooking from thoughts (ACT-informed techniques)
  • SCRIPTS & HANDOUTS: Ready-to-use materials for cognitive work with teens

DAY TWO: Behavioral & Systemic Interventions, Troubleshooting Real-world Problems

Module 9: Exposure Therapy Mastery

• The most effective anxiety intervention – and the one clinicians avoid
• CASE STUDY: The School Refuser – 15-year-old who hasn’t attended school in 6 weeks. Lives in bedroom. Parents are desperate. Previous therapist “didn’t want to push her.”
• Why clinicians avoid exposure – and how to get comfortable with the discomfort
• From habituation to inhibitory learning: The new science that changes how you design exposures
• Memory reconsolidation: How exposure actually rewrites fear memories (and how to maximize it)
• Building exposure hierarchies collaboratively with resistant teens (not TO them)
• In vivo, imaginal, and interoceptive exposure; When to use each and how to implement
• Interoceptive exposure deep-dive: Target the fear of fear itself (critical for panic)
• Exposure for social anxiety, performance anxiety, health anxiety, and separation anxiety
• Exposure mistakes that accidentally make anxiety worse
• ROLE-PLAY PRACTICE: Build a hierarchy and coach a client through an exposure

Module 10: When Avoidance Has Become A Lifestyle

• Behavioral experiments, values work, and building a life worth being anxious for
• CASE STUDY: The Socially Withdrawn Gamer – 19 year-old who dropped out of college, plays video games 14 hours/day, hasn’t left the apartment in weeks. Say’s he’s “fine.”
  • Behavioral experiments: Testing anxious predictions without calling it exposure
  • Vaues clarification with the client who “doesn’t know what they want”
  • Committed action: Small, values-consistent stopes that build momentum
  • When anxiety has secondary gains: What to do when the symptom is functional
  • Behavioral activation for the anxious-depressed presentation
  • Use valued living to fuel motivation for harder exposures

Module 11: The Family System

• Break the accommodation cycle without losing the patients
• CASE STUDY: The Reassurance Seeker – 14-year-old who texts mom 30+ times/day for reassurance, can’t make any decision alone. Mom is exhausted but “can’t just let her suffer.”
• CASE STUDY: The Overprotected Teen – 15-year-old  whose anxious parents have bubble-wrapped her entire life. Zero distress tolerance. Parents undermine every exposure.
  • The accommodation trap: how loving parents accidentally maintain anxiety
  • SPACE protocol and strategic pressure deep-dive: Evidence-based approaches for when teens won’t participate in treatment
  • Exact language for the parent who says “I can’t just watch them suffer”
  • Exact language for the parent who says “She just needs to toughen up”
  • When parental anxiety is the primary driver of child symptoms
  • Manage reassurance-seeking directed at YOU (the in-session trap)
  • School coordination, 504 plans, and navigating systems

Module 12: Complex and “Atypical” Presentations

• When it doesn’t look like the textbook – because it rarely does
• CASE STUDY: The Anxious + Angry Teen – 16-year-old with explosive outbursts, irritability, oppositionality. School thinks it’s a behavior problem. Parents are at their wit’s end. Nobody sees the anxiety underneath.
• Anxiety wearing a mask: When it presents as anger, oppositionality, or “behavior problems”
• The “high-functioning” anxious teen: invisible suffering behind the perfect exterior
• Anxiety + ADHD: Untangle what’s what and which to treat first
• Anxiety + autism: Modifications and considerations
• Anxiety + trauma history: When exposure feels dangerous (and when it’s still the answer)
• Cultural considerations in assessment and treatment

Module 13: The Clinical Decision Tree

• When to use what – and how to stop second-guessing yourself
  • Rapid stabilization for clients in crisis
  • The brain-based decision framework: Where to start with any anxious client
  • Matching intervention to presentation, severity, readiness, and developmental stage
  • Sequencing interventions across the arc of treatment
  • Session structure and pacing: Adaptations for 20-minute vs. 50-minute sessions
  • Progress monitoring: How to know if it’s working (and when to pivot)
  • Medication decision points: Specific criteria for prescriber referral throughout treatment
  • DONE-FOR-YOU DECISION TREE HANDOUT: Take this back to your practice

Module 14: When You’re Stuck

• Troubleshooting the cases that aren’t responding – because you will have them
• CASE STUDY: The Treatment-Resistant Teen – You’ve been seeing her for 6 months. You’ve tried everything in your toolkit. Nothing is working. What now?
  • Adherence v. motivation and how to boost both: Designing behavior plans
  • When avoidance is too reinforcing to give up: increase motivation without pushing them out the door
  • The client who won’t do between-session practice: Now what?
  • Alliance ruptures: Recognition and repair
  • When parents are sabotaging treatment (and what you can actually do about it)
  • Manage your own anxiety as the treating clinician
  • Knowing when to refer. Scope of competence and when you’re not the right fit

Module 15: Set Them Up for Life

• Relapse prevention, lifestyle factors, and knowing when you’re done
  • Lifestyle factors that make or break treatment: Sleep, exercise, nutrition, caffeine, substances
  • Build social support systems when anxiety has led to isolation
  • Communicate with prescribers: What to share and how
  • Relapse prevention planning: Prepare for setbacks without expecting them
  • Graduation from treatment: How to end well (not just fade out)
  • Booster sessions and when to come back
  • Closing: Your Monday morning action plan
  • Integration of key takeaways across both days
  • Your personalized implementation plan: What will you use first?
  • Resources, recommended readings, and advanced training pathways
  • Final Q&A

Target Audience

• Clinical Psychologists
• Counselors
• Art Therapists
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Social Workers
• School Counselors
• School Social Workers
• School Psychologists
• Nurses
• Educators