PTSD, anxiety, and phobia

Abstract

The treatment of childhood anxiety disorders is one of the most interest ing and gratifying experiences in clinical psychology. For example, by using techniques such as exposure to feared stimuli, a clinician can regularly effect significant reductions of psychopathology in many youth in as little as a single session for some disorders (e.g., specific phobias; cf., st, Svensson, Hellström,&Lindwall, 2001). Moreover, the clinician is afforded the invigorating oppor tunity to handle and manage various stimuli (e.g., snakes, dogs, and insects) that defy the common treatment session stereotype. Although certainly not all anxiety disorders are so quickly amenable to treatment efforts, there has been something of a renaissance in child anxiety treatment research since the intro duction of evidence-based practices (EBPs) over a decÖade ago and the identifi cation of the first empirically supported treatments (ESTs) for children. Simultaneously, however, this attention and research is overdue and deserved. There is an urgent need to continue child treatment research, particularly with anxiety disorders. Based upon a recent review, it has been estimated that between 2.4% and 23.9% of preadolescent children have anxiety disorders depending on the disorder(s), sample, time period, and methodologies used (Cartwright-Hatton, McNicol,&Doubleday, 2006). Moreover, results of at least one study indicate that by 16 years of age 36.7% of children will meet diagnostic criteria for at least one DSM-IV disorder (i.e., Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fourth edition, American Psychiatric Association, 1994), and that 9.9% will meet criteria for an anxiety disorder (Costello, Mustillo, Erkanli, Keeler,&Angold, 2003). © 2009 Springer New York.