Courage, Rewired
Treating Anxiety in Adolescents
An anxious adolescent is not a big anxious child. The fears change, the brain changes, the leverage changes. This 2.5-hour training gives you an engagement-first, evidence-based method for 13–18-year-olds - alliance and autonomy, shared formulation, graded exposure and behavioural experiments, parent and school work - carried through one running case, Zoe, 15, from intake to relapse prevention.
Presented by Dr Anna Cohen - Senior Clinical Psychologist
The teenager who “agreed to come once”
Anxiety is the most common class of adolescent mental-health condition - in the landmark NCS-A survey, close to one in three adolescents met criteria for an anxiety disorder by age eighteen. Adolescence is the onset window: a maturing threat system in a world that suddenly watches back. And yet most of us were trained on adult protocols or child programs with the teenage years left as an improvisation.
The engagement wall
They didn’t book the appointment. Session one feels like an interrogation with a hostile witness and a teenager who feels managed will simply out-wait you.
The Monday battleground
School avoidance entrenches by the week. The family wants the anxiety “fixed first” and every day at home, the return cost quietly climbs.
The loving accommodation
Parents email the teachers, drive the routes, order the food. It comes from love and it feeds the very anxiety everyone is trying to soothe.
The shrinking world
Fewer classes answered in, fewer lunches with friends, dropped passions, panic on the bus - avoidance working exactly as avoidance does.
Year 10. Mum booked the appointment; Zoe “agreed to come once.” Eight months of not answering in class, debating dropped, lunches alone in the library, fifteen missed school days, a first panic attack on the bus and a mother who now drives, emails and orders on her behalf. Every module of this training works Zoe’s case: engagement, formulation, the brave ladder, the experiment that turns the treatment, the school return, and the parent swap that hands her life back.
Learn from a senior clinician who does this work
Dr Anna Cohen is a Senior Clinical Psychologist who has worked with children, adolescents and their families for three decades. She is co-founder of the Clinical Psychology Resource Centre and of Kids & Co Clinical Psychology, and a Psychology Board of Australia Board-Approved Supervisor.
She is the author of Sand Tray and Symbol Work with Children and Adolescents: A Practical, Integrative Manual (Australian Academic Press, 2026), and of books for parents including Skilful Parent, Happy Child (2023) and Taming Teens (2019).
Six modules. One method. One case, start to finish.
Foundations - Why Anxiety Peaks in Adolescence
The alarm system and the three clinical questions; a remodelling brain in a watching world; the three systems of anxiety, the avoidance engine and the teenage upgrade, safety behaviours.
Engagement, Assessment & Formulation
Working with the teenager who didn’t book the appointment: alliance, confidentiality and its limits, autonomy and readiness. Presentation at 15, validated measures (RCADS, SCARED, SCAS, ADIS), family accommodation, mood and risk screening and a formulation the adolescent signs off on.
The Evidence Base
Why CBT is the front-line treatment for adolescent anxiety - the anchor trials and reviews; when and how medication joins the conversation; and the shape of a course of treatment. A 10-minute break follows.
Resourcing & Reframing
Externalising for teenagers (no worry monsters); psychoeducation that doesn’t patronise; body-settling skills packaged for a 15-year-old; the boring basics; and the values and willingness work that fuels everything that follows.
Cognitive Work & Exposure - The Active Ingredient
Realistic thinking as detective work; defusion when arguing backfires; the 0–100 SUDS scale; the collaboratively built “brave ladder”; behavioural experiments for social anxiety; and the adolescent panic protocol, including interoceptive exposure.
Parents & School as Allies
From accommodating to supportive with autonomy intact; the five parent levers; the graded school return run as a team; and the take-home Courage Toolkit, page by page, including Zoe’s completed example.
“I can’t promise the anxiety leaves before you act - anyone who promises that is selling something. I can promise it shrinks after, if you stop feeding it. So the real question is: what’s worth feeling anxious for?” - from Module 4 · the willingness conversation
Built for the clinicians teenagers actually see
By the end, you’ll be able to…
- Explain why anxiety so often ignites in adolescence and distinguish normal teenage worry from a clinical disorder using degree, appropriateness and interference.
- Engage a reluctant adolescent: alliance, confidentiality and its limits, and an autonomy-respecting, motivational stance from the first minutes.
- Run a developmentally attuned assessment - validated measures, family accommodation, school attendance, and routine mood & risk screening.
- Build a shared formulation the teenager edits and owns and defend CBT as the evidence-based front line, knowing when medication joins the conversation.
- Deliver the active ingredients: realistic thinking and defusion, the SUDS-rated brave ladder, behavioural experiments, and the adolescent panic protocol.
- Coach parents from accommodation to supportive scaffolding, plan a graded school return as a team and send every adolescent home with a personalised Courage Toolkit.
The take-home “Courage Toolkit”
Nine printable, teen-facing tools built into the deck you keep: the anxiety map, settle-the-system skills, the boring basics audit, the values compass, the thought check, the brave ladder, the experiment planner, the safety-behaviour audit, and the parent ally card - plus Zoe’s completed toolkit as a worked example. Co-write them in session; send them home to real life.
Watch Courage, Rewired on demand
Register once, 12 months' access – watch, pause and rewatch in that time. Your registration includes the full 2.5-hour recording, the 52-slide deck with the printable Courage Toolkit, the complete reference list, and your CPD certificate on completion.
- 2.5-hour on-demand video - watch and rewatch anytime for 12 months
- 52-slide deck, yours to keep
- Printable teen-facing Courage Toolkit (9 tools + worked example)
- Full scripted Q&A - the six questions clinicians ask most
- Guided half-hour case task to apply it to your own caseload
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12 months' access from purchase
- 2.5 CPD hours + certificate of completion
Licensed for the registrant’s own clinical and professional use; not to be copied, shared or on-sold. Educational content only - professional development, not certification in any specific anxiety-treatment protocol, and not clinical, legal or supervisory advice.
Interested in buying more than one mini-course?
ADD TO CARTThe practical details
Never work a hard case alone.
Growth happens in the months after the webinar - with the reluctant Year 10, the entrenched school refusal, the family bent around the anxiety. Add the Ongoing Supervision Group to your registration and because you’re buying it alongside a webinar you lock in $995 first quarter instead of $1,195, while keeping your practice under regular, structured review.
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6 × 90-minute sessions a quarterFortnightly, small group capped at 15, board-approved-supervisor-led - bring your real, de-identified cases, including today’s anxious teenagers. Around 36 hours a year.
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A structured CPD activity you can logBring your own case, and leave with an attendance and activity record. How group case consultation counts toward your own requirements depends on your registration category, so confirm it with your registration body.
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Led by Dr Anna Cohen & Isabel FraserBoard-approved clinical supervisors and founders of the CPRC, alongside a community of child & adolescent clinicians.
Save $200 when you add it with today’s registration · about $166 per session.
- Fortnightly 90-minute small-group consultation
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A structured CPD activity, with a record for your portfolio
- A written attendance record for your portfolio
- Billed quarterly ·pause or cancel before any future quarter
Complements your formal supervision · check your registration requirements · standard rate $1,195/quarter
Ready to make it your credential?
The webinar gives you the method. When you’re ready to build it into assessed, supervised competence across the whole span of child and adolescent work, the fullest next step is becoming a Certified Practitioner of the CPRC Integrative Model - Children, Adolescents & Parents: one credential, one formulation-led method, independent judgement.
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Three pathways, one methodParents, children and teenagers - a single, formulation-led approach across the span of child and adolescent work.
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12 months of supervised practiceApplied to your own caseload, with a board-approved supervisor alongside you.
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A competency assessmentAn independent judgement that you can do the work - not a certificate that says you turned up.
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Your name on the CPRC registerCompetency assessed and signed off by a Board-Approved Supervisor
Or $11,000 when you pay upfront.
- Three supervised pathways - parents, children & teenagers
- Twelve months applying the method to your own cases
- Competency assessed by a board-approved supervisor
- Certified Practitioner status & a listing on the CPRC register
A CPRC professional-development credential – not an AHPRA endorsement, specialist title or additional registration, and it does not change your scope of practice.
If you’d like a head start
Entirely optional - the webinar teaches everything from first principles, and the full APA 7th reference list is included in your materials.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this live or on-demand?
Do I need to have done Building Courage (the children’s webinar) first?
What ages does this cover?
How do the CPD hours work?
Is this certification in a treatment protocol?
What’s in the Courage Toolkit?
Can my whole team watch on one registration?
This page describes continuing professional development for qualified and provisional clinicians. It contains no client testimonials and makes no guarantee of clinical outcomes for any young person. All clinical vignettes, including “Zoe,” are de-identified composites. Prices in AUD. Supervision offerings complement and do not replace participants’ existing formal supervision arrangements; participants should confirm requirements with their own registration body.
© 2026 Cohen Fraser Group Pty Ltd trading as Clinical Psychology Resource Centre. ABN 33 700 413 761.
