Webinar: Beyond Talking – Targeting Exposures for the Bathroom and Eating

Speakers: Rachel Busman, PsyD, ABPP & Eleanor Ezell, LCSW
Recorded: June 21, 2022

This webinar is geared toward parents, caregivers, and treating professionals.

CLICK HERE for the presentation slides.

Using the bathroom and eating are two areas that many children with SM struggle with. While for some children, the anxiety has to do with the talking related to these activities (e.g. asking to use the bathroom or asking for help opening food items), many children struggle with the activities themselves. Join Rachel Busman and Eleanor Ezell in a discussion about these two common concerns and learn tips and strategies around targeting them specifically when designing and implementing exposures. This talk is appropriate for professionals, parents and educators. 

Speaker: Rachel Busman, PsyD, ABPP

Rachel Busman, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist specializing in the evaluation and treatment of anxiety and mood disorders in children and adolescents. She is the Senior Director of the Child & Adolescent Anxiety & Related Disorders Program at Cognitive Behavioral Consultants (CBC), where she runs Voices Rising, an intensive group-based program for children with SM. Prior to joining CBC, she ran Brave Buddies, an internationally recognized SM program at the Child Mind Institute. She has extensive experience providing cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to children, teenagers, and young adults struggling with psychiatric disorders, school difficulties, and behavioral problems. Dr. Busman is certified in Parent Child Interaction Therapy for SM (PCIT-SM) and is an interagency trainer. She is the past president of the SMA and continues to actively serve on the board.

Speaker: Eleanor Ezell, LCSW

Eleanor Ezell, LCSW, is a licensed therapist in Tennessee and is the Founder and Clinical Director at Child and Family Therapy Collective based in Nashville, TN. She has extensive experience providing evidence-based therapy to children and young teens who struggle with selective mutism, anxiety, ADHD and disruptive behavior disorders, and a wide range of developmental delays.

She attended New York University for graduate training where she trained with and worked very closely with Dr. Steven Kurtz over 5 years treating children with selective mutism and related disorders. She completed a two-year Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics Fellowship at The University of Mississippi Medical Center where she also was personally grand funded to bring PCIT-SM and the Brave Buddies/Mighty Mouth Kids Camp model to the state of Mississippi. In the last 10 years, she has participated in, or replicated, intensive treatment in New York, California, Mississippi and soon will replicate in Tennessee. Eleanor currently runs the selective mutism program at her Child and Family Therapy Collective in Nashville, TN where she offers weekly sessions, individual intensives and intensive group model treatment.

Eleanor is certified in Parent Child Interaction Therapy for SM (PCIT-SM) and certified PCIT-SM trainer. She has been involved in SMTI with SMA and enjoys working with the community to continue dissemination efforts to increase access to care. Eleanor has a very active clinical practice and is currently on the Board of Directors at SMA.

This webinar is brought to you by the Selective Mutism Association and was made possible by a generous grant from the Gordon and Marilyn Macklin Foundation, Inc.