Beyond Coping Skills: Practical Interventions for Anxiety and Depression in Adolescents

Session Description

Anxiety and depression are common concerns among adolescents, yet treatment can become overly focused on symptom management or a growing list of coping skills. While coping strategies have an important place in treatment, effective clinical work also requires helping adolescents understand patterns, build emotional awareness, challenge unhelpful thinking, increase behavioral engagement, and develop skills they can use beyond the therapy room.

This Practice Well Lunch & Learn focuses on practical interventions counselors can use when working with adolescents experiencing anxiety and depression. Participants will explore developmentally responsive strategies drawn from evidence-informed approaches, including cognitive, behavioral, mindfulness, and emotion-regulation interventions.

Emphasis will be placed on selecting interventions intentionally based on the adolescent’s presentation rather than simply adding more coping skills.

Learning Objectives

After this session, participants will be able to: