1. Child Psychopathology
Treatment of anxiety
Videotape: Uncontrollable thoughts
Reading for today: Chapter 7

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. Thought control and treating panic disorder
Videotape modeling treatment for panic disorder