Transcript O3 4053X1 trauma and panic

Child Psychopathology
Trauma
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