About this course
This course explores Cognitive Behavioral Play Therapy (CBPT) as a developmentally sensitive approach for treating internalizing disorders in young children — conditions marked by anxiety, sadness, and withdrawal rather than outward acting-out behavior. Participants will review the DSM-5 framework across key anxiety, depressive, and somatic symptom presentations, along with prevalence data and clinical considerations for each.
The course then covers the core CBPT toolkit — modeling, behavioral rehearsal, positive reinforcement, and structured/unstructured play — along with standard treatment components from psychoeducation to exposure and fear hierarchies, giving clinicians a clear, practical framework for treating internalizing disorders using CBPT.
Learning Objectives
- Define internalizing disorders and distinguish them from externalizing presentations in children
- Identify the DSM-5 criteria, prevalence, and clinical considerations for key anxiety disorders, including Generalized Anxiety, Separation Anxiety, Social Anxiety, and Specific Phobia
- Recognize the clinical features of Depressive Disorders and Somatic Symptom Disorder in young children
- Apply core CBPT techniques — modeling, behavioral rehearsal, positive reinforcement, and structured/unstructured play — to treatment
- Implement standard CBPT treatment components, including psychoeducation, relaxation, thought challenging, distraction, and exposure
- Build developmentally appropriate exposure hierarchies (fear ladders) for common childhood fears and phobias.
Example Curriculum
Your CBPT Instructor — Meena Dasari
Dr. Meena Dasari is a licensed clinical psychologist in New York City and Clinical Director of Dasari & Associates, PLLC, specializing in the practical application of cognitive-behavioral therapy for children with anxiety, including complex clinical presentations. She spent over a decade on faculty at NYU School of Medicine and Bellevue Hospital Center, supervising psychiatry residents and working within the Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Dasari holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Case Western Reserve University, where she is an Adjunct Assistant Professor, and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the NYU Child Study Center. She has published extensively and presented at national conferences on child mental health.