Your Anxious Child

Dr Kissen is a clinical psychologist who is the CEO of Light On Anxiety CBT Treatment Center. I talked with her about her recent book on using cognitive behavior therapy to help with parental anxiety. 

In this interview, I talked with Ellen Hendriksen, PhD about social phobia and her book How To Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety She is clinical psychologist  who works at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD) in Boston MA. Her website ELLENHENDRIKSEN.COM contains a number of helpful resources for dealing with Social Anxiety and a very helpful online course on Social Anxiety.  I have found the way in which she talks about Social Anxiety in terms of a worry that a fatal flaw will be revealed in four potential ways a very helpful tool in my work, but there much more as you will see in the interview 

Michael A. Tompkins, PhD has just published the anxiety & depression workbook for teens: simple cbt skills to help you deal with anxiety, worry, and sadness with New Harbinger Publications. He a cofounder of the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy, an Assistant Clinical Professor at the Universtiy of California at Berkleley and an adjunt faculty at the Beck Institute for Cognitve Therapy. Among his other publications relevant to this podcast are My Anxious Mind: A Teens Guide to Managing Anxiety and Panic and Zero to 60: A Teen's Guide to Manage Frustration, Anger and Everyday Irritations. Given the documented increase in the prevalence of depression and anxiety in teens, this is a timely and important topic that I was fortunate to talk with Dr Tompkins about.  

Jeremy W. Pettit, PhD and Ryan M. Hill, PhD,  experts on suicidal ideation and suicide in teens talk about their new book overcoming suicidal thoughts for teens: cbt activities to reduce pain, increase hope, build meaningful connections I apologize for the sound quality in this interview, there were some unexplained technical problems, but the content is still very important and worth your listening time.

Ed Tronick, PhD is one of the leading authorities on infant development. His collaboration with the famous pediatrician, Berry Brazelton, MD was instrumental in the development of Brazelton Neonatal Assessment Scale. His Still Face Experiment with mothers and infant monumental in demonstrating the social competence infants. A link to a video demonstration is listed below https://youtu.be/YTTSXc6sARg

Robyn L. Stern, LCSW, is a licensed social and therapist in New York where she specializes in Body Dysmorphic Disorder, OCD and BFRBs. This is a condition someone becomes preoccupied with perceived defects in their appearance which are not apparent to others.  This is an important psychiatric condition to know about. It is more frequent than OCD, and can lead to unnecessary cosmetic surgery. In this interview I talk with Robyn Stern who is passionate advocate for BDD awareness She knows first hand about what it is like to suffer from BDD and she has two very compelling videos in which she bravely tells her story. I would strongly recommend watching these videos.  https://youtu.be/77JthR5HXv8 and https://fb.watch/go3vJ3C-2q/

Heather White is the author of One Green Thing: Discover Your Hidden Power to Help Save the Planet. She is the founder of OneGreenThing.org and has two decades of experience in environmental advocacy including serving as a presidential campaign staffer for Al Gore and numerous other activities. Climate change is the big challenge for the younger generation and many therapist such as myself are noticing how much it comes up with our young clients. Heather White discusses the importance of a intergenerational discussion of climate change, how doing one green thing a day can create the necessary cultural shift to deal with this crisis and most importantly how to identify the ways in which you and your child can play a part. The program of action Heather White describes are crucial in managing the understandable anxiety that comes with thinking about climate change. 

Silke Rose West and Joseph Sarosy have written a wonderful book How to Tell Stories to Children. Anxious children can greatly benefit from stories that parents tell them and this book tells you how to get started. As they explain storytelling "... becomes like a Swiss Army knife for parents-a multi-tool that helps a child learn new skills, build empathy, soothe difficulty emotions, and make meaning out the challenging moments in life". Story telling is as much and probably more  about building a connection with your child than making a narrative. As they explain "The goal is not perfect story. The goal is connection". And if we are going to help our anxious children, it begins with connection.   You can learn more about this story telling method at HowToTellStoriesToChildren.com and there is also a podcast on itunes with the same name

Jon Hershfield, MFT is the Director of The Center for OCD and Anxiety at Sheppard Pratt in Baltimore Maryland. He is the author of several books on OCD and is prominent figure in the world of OCD treatment. In this interview, we talk about his book for teens the ocd workbook for teens: mindfulness & cbt skills to help you overcome unwanted thoughts & compulsions  with illustrations by Sean Shinnock, New Harbinger Publications.  Jon Hershfield has provided a workbook that provides both an explanation of  the treatment of OCD and relevant exercises presented in a very adolescent friendly fashion. This is a valuable resort for clinician, parent and teen. 

Perfectionism in children and adolescence is a growing problem with serious implications. Drs Molnar and Flett are leading investigators on perfectionism and children. In this interview they provide an overview of perfectionism, discuss an intriguing study they did on the effect of the pandemic and provide a cautionary word about perfectionism and suicide.  Danielle Molnar, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University in Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Her blog/vlog on her most recent research findings can be found at https://brocku.ca/dphwb-lab-blog-the-young-and-the-perfectionistic Gordon Flett, PhD is a professor in the Department of Psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada. His most recent book with Paul Hewitt is Perfectionism in Childhood and Adolescence: A Developmental Approach.