Child Psychopathology Treatment of anxiety Videotape Uncontrollable thoughts
Child Psychopathology Treatment of anxiety Videotape: Uncontrollable thoughts Reading for today: Chapter 7
Post-Traumatic Stress in children • John was camping on Tilley’s point when Swiss Air 111 went down. He now has PTSD. • Diagnostic criteria: – event(s) with real or threatened death or serious injury – reexperiencing event through intrusive thoughts, dreams, symbols of event, repetitiveee play – numbing of responsiveness and avoidance of stimuli – increased arousal- sleep, concentration, startle, irritable – symptoms for 1 month – clinically significant distress or impairment
Helping Children • Acknowledge frightening aspects of disaster • Parents need to acknowledge fear, but model coping with trauma • How does the child experience the stimuli? What does a child see or hear during or after the disaster? What are the images? Child’s age? • Talking through these experiences is helpful • Blame, timing, previous traumas, heightened state of arousal, all need to be considered • Figure 7. 2: Child PTSD after Hurricane Andrew
Treatment of anxiety in children • Behavior therapy: Exposure to feared stimulus (Gradual vs. Flooding; Real vs. Imagined) – often paired with relaxation as in systematic desensitization (opposite of arousal/fear) • Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Changing maladaptive thoughts, thought control • Medications, esp. selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI’s) such as prozac • Family interventions may have more dramatic and lasting results • Combinations of treatments most effective
Thought control and treating panic disorder • Videotape modeling treatment for panic disorder
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