In-Congress Workshop 28 - TEAM-CBT for Shame and Anxiety: A Blueprint for Helping Your Patients Heal

Toxic shame is one of the most powerful and disabling emotional experiences faced by individuals with anxiety, depression, and interpersonal difficulties. It fuels avoidance, perfectionism, self-criticism, social anxiety, therapeutic resistance, and more. Shame often leads to years of stalled progress and social isolation—even among highly motivated and accomplished patients.

This In-Congress Workshop presents a compelling and practical demonstration of how TEAM-CBT, a sophisticated process-based therapy can rapidly and compassionately resolve shame and anxiety, even in long-standing cases. Dr. David Burns and Dr. Jill Levitt will guide participants through a complete, single-session treatment of “Melanie,” a prominent and beloved mental health professional who has struggled with intense shame, anxiety and inadequacy for nine long years. Using vivid video clips and didactic teaching, the workshop illustrates how precise assessment, deep empathy, strategic work with resistance, and powerful methods can lead to dramatic and enduring change within two hours.
Participants will learn how TEAM CBT skills can bring both outcome and process resistance into conscious awareness, and transform resistance into powerful motivation for change. The workshop emphasizes how to use advanced role-playing techniques to target the distorted thoughts and self-defeating beliefs that keep people stuck.

Core TEAM-CBT interventions will be demonstrated and practiced, including Positive Reframing, the Paradoxical Double Standard Technique, Externalization of Voices, and cognitive and behavioral exposure methods specifically designed to reduce shame. Attendees will engage in small breakout groups to practice skills and receive feedback, enhancing clinical confidence and mastery. By the end of the session, participants will have a clear blueprint for helping patients overcome toxic shame rapidly, compassionately, and effectively.