REACH OUT
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What is SPACE Therapy?
Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions is a parent-based treatment program for childhood and adolescent anxiety and OCD.
Anxiety is a very common mental health problem for children and according to many clinical research studies, around 30% of children will suffer from clinical levels of anxiety sometime throughout their childhood.
One of the main ways parents are involved in a child’s anxiety is through a process we call family accommodation. Family accommodation refers to any changes the parents make in their behavior to help the child avoid or alleviate their anxious feelings. Learning how to reduce these accommodations in a supportive way is at the core of SPACE treatment.
The following video featuring Dr. Eli Leibowitz from Yale Child Study Center will provide an overview of the treatment program.
How does SPACE therapy work?
SPACE has been designed as a short-term treatment program working directly with parents and usually lasts between 12-16 sessions.
It includes a set of practical tools that help parents identify the various forms of provided accommodation, help parents design and implement detailed plans for reducing family accommodation, and equip parents with strategies for coping with the range of difficult responses often exhibited by children when accommodation is not provided.*
*Lebowitz, 2013; Lebowitz, Omer, Hermes, & Scahill, 2014