Coping strategies often begin for good reasons. Avoidance, distraction, reassurance seeking, withdrawal, and overworking may reduce distress or create needed protection. They can also become rigid patterns that maintain anxiety, disconnection, or restricted living. This interactive webinar helps clinicians distinguish protective coping from avoidance that is no longer serving the client, without shaming the strategy or pushing change before the client is ready.

Using a continuing case vignette, reflection, and applied practice, participants will map short-term relief and longer-term cost, assess safety and readiness, and use ACT-, CBT-, and exposure-informed interventions to expand choice. Attention will be given to trauma, culture, context, pacing, and collaborative language.

Upon completion of the webinar, participants will be able to:

• Differentiate protective coping from avoidance that limits functioning.
• Identify what an avoidance strategy protects and its short- and long-term effects.
• Apply trauma-informed strategies that expand choice while respecting client readiness, culture, and context.