[Photo by Ellen Webber]
NPR reporter Patty Neighmond does a great eight-minute feature on how 11-year-old Noah Cummings and his parents, Heather (an anxious parent) and Dave, used cognitive behavioral therapy to help Noah overcome his anxiety. One study shows that therapy for children AND their parents (and no drugs) helps prevent children from becoming anxious.
The first step for Noah was to help him understand how anxiety made his stomach ache. Lyons often draws cartoons to show children how their bodies react to anxiety, with an increase in stress hormones accompanied by a racing heart, faster breathing, tense muscles and a churning stomach. Noah got the message.
The biggest surprise, though, was for Heather and Dave. Lyons told them that all their efforts to help Noah avoid his anxiety were actually fueling it.
"The way you learn how to manage life is by making mistakes or by stepping into things that feel uncertain, uncomfortable, or overwhelming and then proving to yourself through experience that you can manage it," [psychotherapist Lynn Lyons in nearby Concord] says. The Cummingses were inadvertently suggesting to Noah that he couldn't handle it.
Noah had to learn how to face his fears, and his parents had to help him. This meant no more reassurance. It wasn't easy, but both Heather and Dave were committed to change. So was Noah.
Lyons used a technique called cognitive behavioral therapy that helps people learn how to change negative thoughts about specific experiences. This therapy has been shown effective in treating anxiety disorders, but can be useful as well for anyone dealing with stressful life situations.
....Cognitive behavioral therapy may also help prevent anxiety from developing in the first place, [Golda Ginsburg, a psychologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who studies childhood anxiety] says. She has studied vulnerable children who had at least one anxious parent. In her study, half of the children ages 7 to 12 and their parents received cognitive behavioral therapy. Half did not.
It turned out that one-third of those who did not receive therapy developed an anxiety disorder within a year. None of those who received therapy developed anxiety.
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