 Hey there, welcome to the anxious truth. This is my very first study slash work slash focus with me video There's a twist. It's targeted for people who are struggling with chronic anxiety or anxiety disorders Because if you are new to this channel, my name is Drew I am the creator and host of the anxious truth and here we focus on issues like chronic anxiety Anxiety disorders and anxiety recovery So I am also a second-year master's degree student in clinical mental health counseling Which means I am training to be a licensed psychotherapist here in the state of New York in the united states And I am working in a trauma and crisis counseling class that is coming to an end I have final projects to do today I am going to attempt in the next hour to finish my one of my final projects for this course Where I have to do a complete case conceptualization including a case summary A justified diagnosis and an empirically validated treatment plan that I would use with this fictitious case study client So I'm going to take you with me. We are going to use what's called a pomodoro timer Which means you will see a little timer on the corner of the screen when I switch to This view so you know what you're going to see while we're working You'll see a little corner a little timer in the corner of the screen and since we're sort of focused on People that are dealing with chronic anxiety and anxiety disorders Sometimes people like that will have an issue sitting for long periods of time because they feel very agitated and anxious So we are putting our pomodoro timer down to 12 minute work sessions with three minute little short breaks in between So we will do four of those which is 12 plus three is 15 times four is an hour So this will last about an hour If you are here just because you're interested in maybe becoming a therapist or you're also a therapist in training Or maybe you're an older in life back to school student Notice the gray my beard and you're interested in the experience of somebody who's doing that as well Welcome if you are here because you're part of my regular audience and you're struggling with anxiety And you want to kind of hang out with me While I finish this particular project. That's great Do the best you can if you can't make each of the 12 minute work sessions or focus sessions That's totally fine. You don't have to be studying. You could be reading You could be just listening to music you could be writing You could be working on like work work for your job It doesn't really matter But we're going to do 12 minutes of quiet focus and then we're going to do a three minute break Where we get to sort of shake up the cobwebs reset and get back to it We'll do that four times for an hour total. Hopefully I finished the paper by then And yeah, just do the best that you can if you have to bail if you have to stop the video if you have to take a break That's totally fine. This is a practice. This is the thing that you are working on You're not going to get it perfect all the time be nice to yourself Do not declare failure if you can't get through a 12 minute session Do the best you can this is totally casual and the way you can use this video is to maybe a little bit Learn a little bit more about what it takes to become a therapist And also just to practice sitting and focusing for short periods of time take little breaks to sort of reset when you need to So we're going to get started. I'm going to start the timer. You'll see in the corner of the screen Like I said, I'm going to basically work either silently or I'm going to put my headphones on and listen to music that I like to listen to I can't play that for you because youtube won't like that for copyright reasons But you may be watching this video where all you will hear is silence or background noise You might hear copper or my dog barking. I have the windows open You might hear general background stuff or you might be listening to the version of the video that does have some ambient music playing in the background So whichever one it is if you look in the video description, you can see the link to the other video either without the background music So I hope you find it helpful while you're here consider subscribing to the channel Maybe hit the notification bell so you know when I upload new content Leave a comment if you will if you have questions suggestions for more of these down the road Or you just want to say hi totally fine So let's get to it. I'm going to put on my music I'm going to switch the scene what I do when I switch the scene is I am going to turn off this giant overhead light Because I normally would not use that giant overhead light when I'm working So I'm going to turn that off. You're going to see my desk. You're going to see a little my computer screen We're going to go for 12 minutes and I'll be back at the end to take a three minute break leave So let's do it I'll explain a little bit what I'm doing here in case it is of interest to you guys So essentially what I I already wrote most of this paper last night and this morning And uh, that's why I'm just sort of copying pasting now into word. I promise. I'm not plagiarizing anything So I've had to essentially in a in a Exercise like this and of course like this. This is going to be clearly it's a trauma and uh crisis counseling course So it's going to be trauma and crisis related You're given a fictitious case study in this situation. I'm giving an intake form I'm given a suicide risk assessment And I'm I'm given what's called a cultural formation interview Cultural formulation interview and I have to go through all of this data on this case and come up with basically like a case conceptualization Which is a summary of the presenting problems where the trigger points are what is maintaining the problem? What are the client strengths? What is the client looking to get out of this? I have to come up with a diagnosis Which is the part that I'm at right now in this situation my diagnosis and that is why you saw me using this The diagnostic and statistical manual My diagnosis in this case is going to be a huge stress disorder because the this particular fictitious client sort of meets all that Diagnostic criteria and again, it's a trauma and stress related subject matter So we're going to go into that section of the book And what I have to do is justify that diagnosis So I can't just say this is what I think it is I have to literally go by diagnostic criteria and support that with empirically validated data Um, and then after that I will be working on a treatment plan So I have to decide based on this case summary and this diagnosis that I justified in this way Now I plan to use this type of treatment with this particular fictitious client and here's why Now the beauty of this sort of thing is that I don't get to just pick Therapy types and treatments that I like just because I like them or I feel like they Emotionally resonate with me or they were good for me. I don't get to do that I have to pick a empirically validated treatment That has been tested in this particular diagnosis diagnosis and in case of similar to this one and shown to be effective Uh shown to have positive in we would say positive impact or positive effect So that's what I'm going to work on next No matter what you did in the last 12 minutes if you had to get up and fidget or take a break Or you're struggling with that a little bit. That's totally fine Next time we have a three minute break which will be another 12 minutes after the timer starts again We'll go over some strategies that you can use if you are struggling to sit for extended periods of time because of your anxiety But uh, yeah, shake it out a little bit relax your body get back to a better way of breathing No panting no deep breaths. No holding your breath. Uh, get your focus out of your own head Let's get back to it. Do the best you can I'm going to switch the scene again. Turn off the big overhead light Let's get back to work and we'll talk about it more in a little bit into a break number two now Let's talk about some strategies that you can use if you do struggle with chronic anxiety or an anxiety disorder And this type of thing maintaining focus or sitting quietly and focusing is a struggle for you It is okay to try to do this a little bit at a time so if you cannot do an entire 12 minutes and again That's the reason why I'm using such short pomodoro intervals because I'm targeting a specific audience here But if you can't do 12 minutes right now, that's okay. You can't do 12 minutes yet It is totally okay to practice the art of quiet focus in very small chunks You can start with a minute or two minutes at a time do the best you can and just keep practicing The object of the game always is to relax your body To get your focus out of internal focus So you're not in your head and in your body and constantly evaluating how you feel and responding to with inner dialogue to scary anxious thoughts You're trying to get your focus out Into what it is that you're working on That can be difficult if you're working on tasks like reading or writing things that require sort of mental Gymnastics sometimes because in an anxious state our ability to do those things can be a bit diminished That's okay. You don't have to be perfect or optimal You're practicing you're learning a new way to relate to your anxious state So that's totally fine And the little micro breaks that we're putting in here And if you have to put in a lot of little micro breaks The best way to use those is again to just take a few minutes Maybe breathe a little bit if you have breath focused anxiety You do do not have to use breath as a focus tool You can use visual focus or tactile focus or olfactory focus or music as a focus It doesn't matter get refocused out of yourself Maybe play with your dog or pet your cat have a snack have something to drink some water or tea or coffee Whatever it happens to be get up and move around a little bit move your body a little bit Just relax into those sensations get your focus out of your head Allow those things to be there drop your resistance reset and go back in again for another 12 minutes that we're about to start Or another two minutes or whatever it is you can do there is no wrong way to do this It's a practice be nice to yourself be kind to yourself and do the best you can I'm happy that you're here trying this along with me I hope you're finding it useful in some way shape or form And if you are maybe subscribe to the channel if you already haven't done that And if you have any questions or comments or just want to let me know how you did Put them in the comment section and I will read all of them and respond to as many as I can So at this point we're going to get back into Pomodoro session number three we're going to do another 12 minutes before we have another break And here I have to start to bolster my argument for trauma focused CBT. I'll talk about that in the end With some empirical data. I have a bunch of it I just have to read a bunch of papers right now and sort of apply them So I'm going to turn out the lights. We're going to change the scene back to my desk We're going to get back to the next 12 minutes scene a bit minutes into it right now We only have about 15 minutes left in the session Which should be enough for me to pretty much wrap up this paper Then I'll take a little bit of a break myself Maybe grab some lunch and then I'm just going to have the proof read I may have to cut a little bit out of the paper because it's running a little bit long now But uh, otherwise, I think it wouldn't accomplish my goal Total time spent on this paper will be roughly about six hours Including the hour I'm spending with you now to sort of finish it up and polish it This is great because I did find some of the research that I was looking for One of the ways that I tend to do that sometimes and hopefully this is of interest to you And that's why you're watching is uh If you can follow the chain through papers that you know Aren't exactly what you need, but you know are going to have references to what you need Which I've gotten really good at over the last year and a half of this graduate program And I was able to find a great study that I can use That actually gives me everything that I need in this situation, which is great So I'm going to cite that I'm going to put it in the paper then I'm going to proof read and I think I'm going to be done so Yeah, I appreciate that So again, just some quick reminders If you're watching and you do not have an anxiety issue and it is not a struggle for you to sit for longer periods of time This video may be a little bit annoying to you because I stop every 12 minutes and talk I promise I will do more study with me videos And where I will do a little more traditional length in the pomodoro timers Which usually like 20 minutes with a five minute break or 25 and five or 50 and 10 So we'll do some more of those I have Two more weeks this week and next week left in this term Then I have a week off and then I have another 10 week term where where I am taking Two courses at a time So there's plenty of reading and studying and assignments to do So I'll have 10 weeks to make a whole lot more of these videos if you guys are interested in seeing more of them Some of them will be a little more anxiety focused Some of them will be a little bit more traditional where we have longer focus times And that sort of stuff. So yeah, maybe it'll be something new that I get into over the next 10 weeks that you guys can get some use out So again, if you're taking a little break right now to reset Get out of your head focus elsewhere. Look at the world around you move your body take a drink take a snack Breathe let go of all your resistance. It's okay. If you've gotten this far Excellent if you've had to break it up and and take a few micro breaks along the way And you're still hanging in there with me Also excellent the effort that you're putting in actually counts pack yourself on the back So we're going to do another 12 minutes And then we will be done I will wrap it up and that will be the end of this video an hour-long study with me new experiment for me Hopefully you guys are digging it. I want to see more of it And uh, yeah, let's get back to it. We have about 15 seconds before the next time or starts And then we will be done. So whatever it is you're doing reading writing listening to music Doesn't matter doing schoolwork doing work work. Let's get at it. What's up guys If you hung in there with me all this time you did it all for the intervals It means you did a full hour of study work focus if you have an anxiety problem That's a huge win No matter how you got to this hour Even if you had to take some breaks totally fine patch yourself on the back and uh, yeah, that's it I have a little bit of wrap up to do. I maybe have 10 15 minutes worth of proof reading and cutting in this paper But then I am going to submit it and I'm going to celebrate that because I also have another Another thing to submit today for this course and then my final projects for this counseling and This trauma and crisis counseling Course are done and then next week will be a light week week 10 of a term is always a light week So if you guys dug this again, let me know in the comment section subscribe to the channel Maybe like the video and hit the notification bell so I know that this is cool stuff You want to see more of and I promise I will do more of that if you asked me to Thanks for hanging out with me. I appreciate it. It was a cool experiment I hope you got out of it the same that I got out of it, which was that this is fun useful It's nice to know people are maybe watching I don't feel so alone or in my office doing all this work And hopefully you had fun keeping me company while I did my work and you did yours So I'll see you in the next one. Take care