​Effectively Treating Childhood Anxiety Without The Child In the Therapy

In this episode, Eli discusses how his background in working in one clinic treating children with anxiety, and another clinic treating significant childhood behavioral problems, lead him to develop his program SPACE. Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE) has been found to reduce childhood anxiety at the same levels as a course of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for children by working directly with the parents. He discusses how the previous thinking was that children who are not willing to do CBT were not going to be able to benefit from therapy, and yet for behavioral problems there were treatments that were effective by working only with the parents. He found that treatment for childhood anxiety was based on methods for adults, but was leaving out the important distinction that children look to their parents for help in coping with anxiety provoking situations. This lead him to develop a treatment that focused on parents changing behaviors in order to not accommodate anxiety, using support as well as communication, and disengaging from the anxiety process in a loving way. Eli Lebowitz, Ph.D. is the Director of the Program for Anxiety Disorders at the Yale Child Study Center, creator of SPACE (a parent-based treatment program for child and adolescent anxiety and related disorders), as well the author of Treating Childhood and Adolescent Anxiety: A Guide for Caregivers with Haim Omer and Breaking Free of Child Anxiety and OCD: A Scientifically Proven Program for Parents, his most recent published work. Dr. Lebowitz's research focuses on the development, neurobiology, and treatment of anxiety with a focus on cross-generational and family influences.