Deconstructing Anxiety Intensive: A New Approach to Understanding and Treating Anxiety Disorders
Live Event

Deconstructing Anxiety: A Deeper Dive Into Understanding and Treating Anxiety Disorders

Fri, Sep 18th, 2026
11:00am – 5:45pm US Eastern Time
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About the Event

This workshop will provide a deep dive into treatment-resistant anxiety, helping to uncover the root causes of anxiety in even your most challenging clients. You will learn techniques for releasing the resistances that keep the anxiety alive, getting at their source and transforming them into a sense of high purpose and meaning, yielding powerful change and lasting results. With the understanding that anxiety (fear) is at the root of all suffering, you will gain insight into the five core fears – “universal themes of loss” – we all share, including:

  • abandonment (loss of love), 
  • loss of identity, 
  • loss of meaning, 
  • loss of purpose (the chance to express oneself) and 
  • fear of death (including fear of sickness and pain) 

We develop our primary defenses, usually early in childhood or at times of trauma, as our best attempt to protect ourselves from these fears, but always at a great cost. This leaves us constantly holding vigil, on the lookout for the resurfacing of the fear. We build our entire personality upon this fear-defense dynamic. When our fear-defense dynamic spins out of control, an anxiety disorder can develop. The theory and techniques offered in this workshop will teach you how to uncover the core fear and chief defense quickly and reliably.

Armed with this knowledge, new strategies for “doing the opposite” of the chief defense and its secondary defenses have proven extremely successful in even the most anxious clients. Incorporating psychodynamics, mindfulness, Gestalt, CBT and transpersonal psychology, participants will undergo the actual techniques being presented, making for a rich and highly experiential presentation. Come prepared for an exciting adventure into the deepest regions of the unconscious, where the hidden fears at the source of our difficulties live, to bring them out into consciousness, available for rapid and lasting transformation.

Live Event
This live online event will be held as a Zoom Webinar. Attendees will have the option to interact through features such as the Chat and Q&A, but cameras and microphones will not be enabled.

Live Event Instructor

Todd Pressman, PhD

Todd Pressman, PhD

Todd Pressman, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and international seminar leader. He is widely known for his work with Deconstructing Anxiety. He graduated with degrees in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and Saybrook Institute. His books Deconstructing Anxiety: The Journey from Fear to Fulfillment, Radical Joy: Awakening Your Potential For True Fulfillment and The Bicycle Repair Shop: A True Story Of Recovery From Multiple Personality Disorder have all received high acclaim. In 1982, he traveled the world to study the great wisdom and healing traditions, including with a Zen master, a Jain family, a Zoroastrian high priest and a Sri Lankan firewalker. His education also includes an internship under Stanislav Grof, M.D. at the Esalen Institute. With a background deeply rooted in tradition (he was groomed by a father whose teachers were taught by Sigmund Freud), he has integrated this wide-ranging experience into a new program of psychological development called "Deconstructing Anxiety". His working model is based on Michelangelo’s ideal: to release the statue from the stone, the authentic Self from the overlays of imposed identity, into the discovery of freedom and fulfillment.

Target Audience

This live interactive webinar is intended for behavioral health professionals, including Psychologists, Social Workers, Counselors, MFT's and Addiction Professionals.

Learning Objectives

After taking this activity, you should be able to:

  1. 1 Describe the core fear/chief defense model of anxiety.
  2. 2 Analyze the five core fears and the primary and secondary defenses we develop in response to them.
  3. 3 Demonstrate how to identify a client’s unique core fear and chief defense.
  4. 4 Explain the principle of “Doing the Opposite” of the chief defense.
  5. 5 Utilize the exercises from the Deconstructing Anxiety program for resolving anxiety.

Aghababaei, N. et. al. (2016). Predicting subjective well-being by religious and scientific attitudes with hope, purpose in life, and death anxiety as mediators. Personality and individual Differences, 90, 93-98.

LaFreniere, L & Newman, M. (2020). Exposing worry’s deceit: Percentage of untrue worries in generalized anxiety disorder treatment. Behavior Therapy, 51 (3), 413-423. Abstract

Hofmann, S. & Gomez, A. (2017). Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Anxiety and Depression. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 40(4), 739-749. doi: 10.1016/j.psc.2017.08.008.

Bandelow, B. et. al. (2017). Treatment of anxiety disorders. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 19(2), 93-107. doi: 10.31887/DCNS.2017.19.2/bbandelow.

Foa, E.B. & McLean, C.P. (2016). The Efficacy of Exposure Therapy for Anxiety-Related Disorders and Its Underlying Mechanisms: The Case of OCD and PTSD. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 12, 1-28.

Wong, P. T. P. (2017). Meaning-centered approach to research and therapy, second wave positive psychology, and the future of humanistic psychology. The Humanistic Psychologist, 45(3), 207–216.

Moon, H.G. (2019). Mindfulness of death as a tool for mortality salience induction with reference to Terror Management Theory. Religions, 10 (6), 353.

Hofmann, S. G., & Hayes, S. C. (2019). The future of intervention science: Process-based therapy. Clinical Psychological Science, 7(1), 37-50. https://doi.org/10.1177/216770261877229

Hoge, E. A., Bui, E., Mete, M., Dutton, M. A., Baker, A. W., & Simon, N. M. (2023). Mindfulness-based stress reduction vs escitalopram for the treatment of adults with anxiety disorders: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA psychiatry, 80(1), 13-21. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2022.3679

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The following relevant financial relationships have been disclosed by this activity's planners, faculty, and the reviewer:

Planners and Reviewers

The planners of this activity have reported that they have no relevant financial relationships.

Faculty

There are no known relevant financial relationships to disclose.

Commercial support

There is no commercial support for this distance-learning course.

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Event Agenda

Agenda times are listed in US Eastern Time. That is 3 hours later than US Pacific Time. The event starts at 8:00am US Pacific Time.

11:00 – 11:15 AM Introduction and overview

11:15 – 11:30 AM The creation story revisited—understanding the birth of fear in the psyche

11:30 AM – 12:30 PM Laying out the “Deconstructing Anxiety” model:

  • Each of us lands on a particular core fear in childhood
  • Description of the 5 core fears, universal themes of loss
  • This first contact with fear is intolerable—we must restore our original innocence

12:30 – 12:45 PM  Break

12:45 – 2:15 PM Continuing with the “Deconstructing Anxiety” model:

  • We find our chief defense as a way of protecting us from the core fear
  • We develop secondary defenses, adaptations of the chief defense to the various circumstances we encounter in life
  • The core fear/chief defense dynamic becomes the foundation of our personality; we interpret and respond to all circumstances through that lens
  • All defenses backfire, creating the anxiety they are designed to protect us from
  • We therefore employ our defenses even more rigorously and the whole cycle spins out of control, creating an anxiety disorder

2:15 – 2:30 PM Lunch

2:30 – 2:50 PM New strategies for resolving fear

  • The way to release fear is to “do the opposite” of the chief defense
  • Digging for Gold: Finding the core fear

2:50 – 4:00 PM New strategies for resolving fear (con’t)

  • Who Are You Really?: Uncovering your chief defense
  • Analyzing secondary defenses
  • The Alchemist: Asking “What happens next?”
  • The Witness: Enhanced Vipassana (Mindfulness) technique

4:00 – 4:15 PM  Break

4:15 – 5:45 PM New strategies for resolving fear and closing

  • The Warrior’s Stance: Active “not doing”
  • A subtle defense: The Resistance to Resistance
  • Vision Questing: Finding one’s “mighty purpose”

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