What is cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is gold standard of treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxiety disorders, says HealthMaker Jerry Bubrick, PhD, with the Child Mind Institute. In this video, he explains how the therapy works.
Transcript
So the treatment we use for OCD is within the context of what's called cognitive behavioral therapy.
Considered the gold standard of treatment for OCD and anxiety disorders. The specific strategy that we use within cognitive behavioral therapy
is referred to as exposure and response prevention. So we systematically and slowly expose kids to the things
that they're afraid of. So let's say that you are afraid of-- I don't know, let's say you're afraid of dogs.
And you see a dog-- any time you see a dog on the street, you want to hide or you want to jump into your parents arms
and be carried away and not have to face the dog. And that's true whether it's a little chihuahua in a sweater or it's a big bad German shepherd or something.
Your response is the same no matter what given the situation. So what we would do in the treatment is we would say, OK, let's start with easier level tasks
and talk about how difficult those tasks would be for you to face. So for example, if I said, how hard would it be on a scale
from 0 to 10, with 0 being no problem and 10 being-- really being very, very anxious-- how uncomfortable would you be if we looked at pictures
of dogs on the computer? And you would tell me, OK, that would be a 2 out of 10. So I would write that down. And I would say, OK, how about if we looked at videos of dogs
on the internet? And you'd say, OK, that would be a 4 out of 10. So I'd write that down. I'm making now a list of things that I think would be reasonable for us to do in treatment.
How about if you and I went outside and we just sat on a corner and we watched dogs from across the street just walking
in the street? Well, that would be a 6. How about if we walked up to the dogs and didn't pet them, but just got closer to them?
That would be an 8. And then maybe petting a dog would be a 10. So we would start by working with the lower ones.
Looking at pictures of dogs over and over and over and over until the child no longer feels any anxiety. Just like jumping into the pool and letting yourself
get used to the temperature, now, we're getting used to the anxiety that comes from looking at pictures of dogs, instead of doing the avoidant behavior, which is to look away
or to not have that experience at all. Then the child would go home and practice those skills at home.
So the same pictures of dogs that we looked at in the office, they would take home and look at at home. So that it's not just getting better
with my fear in the laboratory setting of someone's office, but now, actually, doing it real world. And then doing it at home.
And they would come back for the next session. We would go to the next step. And that next step would be looking at videos of dogs
online. And watching more and more videos and the child's anxiety would go up. But eventually, they would kind of reach a peak and then they would get used to their anxiety
and it would drop down. And we would do that over and over and over and the child would take that home and practice that at home. And we'd just kind of work our way along that path
until the child feels no anxiety approaching and petting a dog. [AUDIO LOGO]
mental health behavior
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