REGISTRATION COMING SOON

3.5 CE credit hours available

Lecture Description

Patients with “distress disorders” (including generalized anxiety disorder & major depressive disorder,

especially when they co-occur) and individuals in distressing contexts (i.e., COVID-19 pandemic, familial

caregiving), fail to make sufficient treatment gains thereby prolonging their deficits in life functioning

and satisfaction. These patients often display heightened sensitivity to threat/safety and reward/loss

contexts as well as perseveration (i.e., worry, rumination) to manage this motivationally relevant

distress yet often to the detriment of engaging new opportunities. Using this hypothesized profile as a

framework, Emotion Regulation Therapy (ERT) integrates principles from traditional and contemporary

CBT with basic and translational findings from affective science to offer a blueprint for improving clinical

response by focusing on the motivational responses and corresponding regulatory characteristics of

individuals with distress disorders. Participants will receive an introduction to the ERT approach to case

formulation and the treatment principles including 1) expanding understanding of distress using a

motivational and emotion regulation perspective; 2) cultivating mindful awareness and acceptance of

sensations, bodily, responses, and conflicting emotions; 3) developing emotion regulation skills that

promote a distanced and reframed meta-cognitive perspective; 4) applying these skills during

experiential exposure to meaningful behavioral actions and associated internal conflicts to taking these

actions; and 5) building a plan to maintain gains and take bolder action despite the ending of the

therapeutic relationship.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this workshop, the learner will be able to:

1. Evaluate how a motivational and emotion regulation perspective can be utilized to improve

understanding and treatment of refractory cases in distress

2. Increase familiarity with attentional and metacognitive regulation skills

3. Learn how these skills can be used during experiential exposure to meaningful behavioral

actions and associated internal conflicts to taking these actions

Speaker Biography

Douglas Mennin is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of Clinical Training at Teachers College,

Columbia University. Dr. Mennin has also had faculty positions at Yale University, New York University,

and CUNY Hunter College. Dr. Mennin has trained numerous graduate students and post-baccalaureate

research assistants on diagnosis, assessment, and treatment of anxiety and mood disorders. He has

published over 150 articles, chapters, and books and regularly gives invited workshops and colloquia,

and often speaks to the media about how to help people better understand and respond to their

struggles with anxiety, worry, and depression. He currently serves on the editorial board of six journals

and has been on the executive boards of the APA Division of Clinical Psychology and the Society for a

Science of Clinical Psychology, and is the former Chair of the Scientific Council of the Anxiety and

Depression Association of America (ADAA).