Bespoke Members
Introduction
On Friday October 3, 2025, Dr. Melisa Robichaud delivered a half-day workshop on CBT strategies for decision-making worries within the context of GAD.
The event will be equivalent to 2.3/4hrs of CPD.
Content
The primary feature of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is excessive worry about daily life events, with the content of worry tending to be dynamic and regularly shifting according to the day. As a consequence, CBT for GAD is typically most effective when targeting processes that underlie excessive worry, rather than the specific worries themselves. Despite this, there are certain common worry themes that do emerge for many GAD clients, and can be more directly addressed within a larger CBT protocol for GAD. Among these is worries related to indecisiveness. Daily life decisions, such as what to wear on a given day or which colour to paint one’s walls, are inherently uncertain as there is no clear “right” answer. Within the CBT for GAD protocol targeting intolerance of uncertainty (CBT-IU), uncertain situations are a trigger for worry, such that daily life decisions can become a significant catalyst for worries.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this workshop, participants will learn to:
• Understand a clinical model of GAD within a CBT framework that highlights the role of intolerance of uncertainty
• Describe the unique presentation of decision-making worries and associated safety behaviours
• Describe decision-making styles and the problem with the search for a ‘perfect’ or ‘correct’ choice when making daily life decisions
• Develop behavioural experiments for excessive worries that specifically target negative beliefs about uncertainty
• Develop behavioural experiments that are adjusted for decisional worries and their unique presentation
Training Modalities
Didactic content, case examples
Key References
Bullens, L., van Harreveld, F., Förster, J., & van der Pligt, J (2013). Reversible decisions: The grass isn’t merely greener on the other side; it’s also very brown over here. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 1093-1099.
Dugas, M.J., Sexton, K.A., Hebert, E.A., Bouchard, S., Gouin, J.-P., & Shafran, R. (2022). Behavioral experiments for intolerance of uncertainty: A randomized clinical trial for adults with generalized anxiety disorder. Behavior Therapy, 53, 1147-1160.
Rassin, E., & Muris, P. (2005). Indecisiveness and the interpretation of ambiguous situations. Personality and Individual Differences, 39, 1285-1291.
Robichaud, M., & Buhr, K. (2018). The worry workbook: CBT skills to overcome worry and anxiety facing the fear of uncertainty. New Harbinger: Oakland
Robichaud, M., Koerner, N., & Dugas, M.J. (2019). Cognitive-behavioral treatment for generalized anxiety disorder: From science to practice (2nd ed.). Routledge: New York.
Schwartz, B. (2004). The paradox of choice: Why more is less. New York: Harper Collins
About the presenter
Dr. Melisa Robichaud is a Founding Director of the Vancouver CBT Centre, where she works as a clinical psychologist specializing in the assessment and treatment of anxiety disorders. She is currently an adjunct faculty member in the University of British Columbia (UBC) Department of Psychology, a clinical instructor in the UBC Department of Psychiatry, and a clinical associate in the Simon Fraser University (SFU) Department of Psychology.
Dr. Robichaud is a past President of the Canadian Association of Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies (CACBT) and has been certified as an expert in CBT by the organization. She also formerly served on the Anxiety Canada Board of Directors, and was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board. Her area of clinical specialization is CBT for anxiety disorders, with a special emphasis on generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). She has provided workshops internationally and has published numerous scientific articles and book chapters on the subject, as well as co-authoring several books on the cognitive-behavioural treatment of GAD.
Who should attend
This workshop is most suitable for mental health professionals with some prior exposure to CBT and its application to GAD and to excessive worry across the anxiety spectrum.
Low Intensity clinical contact hours survey - BABCP Low Intensity Special Interest Group
Please click below if you are interested in contributing to the survey.
The BACP Low Intensity SIG are interested in the impact of clinical contact hours on Low Intensity/Wellbeing Practitioner wellbeing. This questionnaire contains six multi-choice questions and a free text box for you to share your experiences. The answers to these questions will help the BABCP SIG plan how to meet CPD topics and other developments within the SIG. The SIG hope to produce a write up of the answers to this questionnaire to be shared with SIG members and to be used in training.
This FREE conference is for Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners working in Talking Therapies for Anxiety and Depression services and is brought to you by Bespoke Mental Health in collaboration with the NHS National PWP Leads Network.