Anxiety disorders occurs at a high rate amongst autistic children. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is a reasonably well-established multi-component intervention used to reduce anxiety in this population. Whilst there are known effective intervention components in CBT for treating anxiety among autistic children, there are few guidelines for how…

Versions of cognitive behavioral therapy (Coping Cat, CC; Behavioral Interventions for Anxiety in Children with Autism, BIACA) have shown efficacy in treating anxiety among youth with autism spectrum disorder. Measures of efficacy have been primarily nomothetic symptom severity assessments. The current study examined idiographic coping outcomes in…

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder affecting approximately 1 in 59 children (Baio et al. "MMWR Surveillance Summaries," "67"(6), 1, 2018). A commonly experienced psychiatric comorbidity in ASD is anxiety. Although this is known, little research has been done on the specific issues concerning…

Purpose: Those who are socially anxious may use safety behaviors during feared social interactions to prevent negative outcomes. Safety behaviors are associated with anxiety maintenance and poorer treatment outcomes because they prevent fear extinction. Social anxiety disorder is often comorbid with stuttering. Speech pathologists reported in a…

School refusal is a psychosocial problem characterized by a student's difficulty attending school and, in many cases, substantial absence from school (Heyne & Sauter, 2013). It is often distinguished from truancy, in part because of the severe emotional distress associated with having to attend school and the absence of severe antisocial…

The recommended treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) incorporating exposure and response prevention (ERP), which is effective for approximately 50% of patients. However, there has been little advance in treatment outcomes since the introduction of ERP in 1979. It has been suggested that some…

Cases of obsessional slowness, a variant of obsessive compulsive disorder, have been documented in case literature regarding relatively low functioning populations. However, obsessional slowness can also present in higher functioning populations, including college and graduate students, as illustrated here by three case examples from a competitive…

The social justice issue of human sex trafficking is a global form of oppression that places men, women and children at risk for sexual exploitation. Although a body of research exists on the topics of human trafficking, literature specific to the mental health implications for counselors working with this population is limited. Counselors should…

Specific phobias are highly prevalent among college students and can be quite debilitating. However, students often do not present for treatment for phobias and, when they do, often do not receive effective treatment. This article will present a case study of the effective treatment of specific phobia using cognitive-behavioral therapy with an…

Truancy is a problem that normally leads to treatment interventions within different organizations. Within these organizations different perspectives on the causes and consequences of the above problem can be found. The purpose of this literature study is to map out and describe the current state of research within the fields of school refusal,…

Manual-based treatments (therapist manuals, child workbooks) exist for the treatment of anxiety disorders in youth. The current article describes a cognitive-behavioral treatment program, "Coping Cat", for childhood anxiety, with an emphasis on its flexible application and implementation as well as video components to demonstrate aspects of the…

This study examined the concordance (or synchrony/desynchrony) between adolescents' self-reports of anxiety and physiological measures of arousal (heart rate) both prior to and after treatment for panic disorder. Results indicated a decline in reported subjective units of distress (SUDS) for the treatment group only at the post-treatment…

Massed exposure has gained acceptance as an effective method to treat anxiety disorders. When using this intervention in patients presenting with more than one anxiety disorder, specific treatment options need to be discussed. Should exposure be applied in sequential order for each of the comorbid disorders? Or can exposure sessions also be…

New and innovative ways of implementing cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) are required to address the varied needs of youth with anxiety disorders. Brief treatment formats may be useful in assisting teens to return to healthy functioning quickly and can make treatment more accessible for those who may not have local access to providers of CBT.…

Selective mutism is a rare, debilitating condition usually seen in children. Unfortunately, there is little research examining effective treatments for this disorder, and designing an evidence-based treatment plan can be difficult. This case study presents the evidence-based treatment of an 8-year-old Caucasian boy with selective mutism using an…