Any experience with cognitive behavior therapy?

Jen M
Just wondering if your child is on any medication now? Our son who is 12 is presently taking Concerta and for him it causes ANXIETY. We are switching when we see our new ped next week. Honestly, We may forgo medication all together–- I am so tired of all the side effects! Sorry I haven’t tried the Cognitive Therapy, but then again where we live there is absolutely nothing for ADHD children, We just all try to stay afloat on our own……..

Jen,

One of my friend’s son has OCD. He was put on medication but along with it did cognitive behavior therapy. He is 17 now and his parents report that he really isn’t any different than any other kid.

I think they did both at same time so hard to know exactly. His mother is a clinical social worker who put great stock in it.

Beth

My husband did it, along with meds, for anxiety and depression. For him, it was a lifesaver. Much better than straight talk therapy. There is a quite a bit of research supporting the use of CBT for anxiety disorders. Check medline.

I have been researching anxiety and the therapy is supposed to be very effective. My daughter is taking adderall and I know stimulants can affect anxiety. However, her anxiety has always been an issue even without meds. It was no different with the concerta either. The initial hope was that her anxiety was secondary to the adhd, in other words, her uncontrolled adhd was causing her to feel anxiety. In some ways it is better since we started treatment for adhd almost a year ago. She does better now in overstimulating environments than she did before. I don’t think that the anxiety is really worse. It’s just still there and still an issue. If anything it’s more of an issue because of her age and it’s starting to stop her from doing more things. She really wants to go to overnight summer camp with her sister next summer for a week but is already anxious and worried. She has had these anxiety issues her entire life. When she was younger we got used to it and really didn’t think about it. We would do things to minimize her anxiety not really realizing what we were doing and that it wasn’t typical. Now we are talking about a comorbid anxiety disorder. The more I research the more I know I have to help her.

Believe me, I have been trying to pick this apart and figure out what is what and it’s time I get help trying to sort it out. She is only seven and has already had panic attacks. I will not allow her to watch the weather channel because she will (and has/does, trust me) obsess about things like tornadoes. She doesn’t like to play on the swings in the yard because there may be a spider out there. She’ll be 30 before she has the training wheels off of her bike and one can only hope that some day she’ll actually learn to swim because she won’t let the instructor let go of her!

Things have been worse in the past couple of weeks so I took her to the doctor thinking it’s because of the adderall. She actually tested better than she ever has on the neurodevelopmental tests. I’ve been really looking at things carefully and I’m thinking she may also be depressed. We recently lost our 14 year old dog and it has been very difficult on my daughter. Yesterday she cried and cried and said it’s harder now a few weeks later than when the dog first died. I know she thinks about the dog a lot at night and then she says she has scary thoughts and can’t sleep. It doesn’t help that the dog had gotten very sick and had to be put down. She is angry a lot and I know anger can be a sign of depression in children.

So, right now everything is kind of all mixed up and it’s hard to tell what is what. I’m glad we have that screening tonight because we really are at the point where we need another opinion or insight. I have the feeling the psychologist will recommend the anxiety medication at one point or another but maybe I just need to hear another doctor give me that second opinion.

Jen,
I seem to answer a lot of your posts. Were our kids separated at birth?
I learned about CBT when my youngest displayed OCD at 3. It has been wonderful. It impowers the child to have control over the obsessive thoughts. My older bright ADHD child has anxiety that sounds really similar to your daughter’s. It is often at night so that she can’t sleep or has fitful sleep. Then she ends up getting into a cycle of fearing just going to bed. I got her a CD alarm clock and that helped a lot. The other thing that I have done is that I started the CBT on her kind of out of habbit from dealing with my child with OCD and it works. For example, she read a bood about a horse ghost last night. The ghost is friendly for goodness sakes, she doesn’t believe in ghosts and she is 8. She probably 30 seconds of contact with her bed and she was up and complaining that she couldn’t sleep. I was a little ticked that she was up so fast without trying the CBT herself but hopefully that will come later. What she did, with coaching and her own little imagination, was she “bossed” away the fear. She said out loud “I don’t believe in ghosts, did a blabber, went to her window and did the same thing, wiggled her bottom in a little victory dance and went to bed.
Terry

P.S. I’m going online to buy another CD alarm clock (one of my kid’s broke.) The classical music at bedtime seems to push their brain activity into calmer thoughts. I even have them visualize what the song might be about.

Terry, the good thing about this is we can compare notes and hopefully offer some support! I know it helps me when I hear from people who can relate to what we are going through. I really find the anxiety harder to deal with than the adhd. There’s just no reasoning with her. I have found some things that work to help us get by at home but I am really looking forward to her hopefully making progress with therapy. When we’re camping, which we do a lot, I equip her with a dollar store push light that she keeps next to her sleeping bag and sometimes glow sticks. She also has her own fly swatter that she keeps either in her tent or her end of the popup. I really don’t know if doing that is a good thing or not but camping with an anxious child can be quite an experience! She did make some awesome progress this summer and I was very proud of her!

We met with the psychologist last night. She is very nice and really does seem to have a great approach to dealing with kids. She said she uses all kinds of approaches along with the CBT. She uses a lot of art which will be great for my artistically gifted child! Last night was just my husband and I with the doctor. My daughter’s first appointment is Saturday afternoon. I am really hoping this will help her.

Last night at bedtime she started crying and didn’t want to go to bed. This is a frequent problem but has been better the past few nights. We go through the routine of reading, talking about our busy day, and putting music on, etc. but last night she was becoming frantic about it. We talked for awhile and she ended up breaking down sobbing that she was scared. She said something like, “mommy, I’m so scared. Help me. I’m scared.” It just about broke my heart. So, that led to the conversation that yes we are going to help and I told her briefly about how we found a doctor that will help her and that we will help as well. The bedtime problem seems to be more of a separation anxiety than anything.

We’re still debating the medication issue. The psychologist is going to communicate with the other doctor to get some more input as the severity of the anxiety and to develop more of a team approach. I don’t have much of a comparison other than knowing it’s affecting her life more as she gets older. The dr also agreed that we can see how the therapy goes for a few weeks and then make a determination regarding anxiety meds.

Jen,
You said that there is “no reasoning” with her. Is there a possibility that she has the form of OCD that only involves thoughts and no compulsions? People with OCD can not be reasoned with until they understand that the OCD thoughts are “unreasonable thoughts.” I’ve actually wondered if my ADHD daughter has a mild form of OCD because the things that she worries about cycle back so much. Firghtening visual images sometimes linger way too long also. I mentioned it to the OCD doctor that we see for her younger sister and she said that she could see her but you would treat severe anxiety and OCT the same anyway with CBT (at least as a starting point.) I think that your daughter is almost as difficult to deal with as my daughter that has the diagnosis of OCD. BUT, we have been successful. The worry thoughts continue to pop up periodically but she fights them off with CBT successfully.
Terry

Terry, at this point anything is possible! She does obsess about things. If it’s basically the same treatment then we can’t go wrong!

I would bet that Exposure Therapy would be good also. You expose the child to what is feared. Obviously this is not for every fear but more for unreasonable fears. Like, it is good that you are taking your daughter camping. Sheltering her from it just makes it seem more frightening than it really is. My youngest is afraid of the dark. So, she challenges herself to go outside after dark to get a toy or just for fun. She always comes back unharmed and extremely proud of herself.
Terry

One of the reasons we aren’t trying stimulant meds for my dreamy inattentive child is that several of our doctors worry it will exacerbate his anxiety. He obsesses, but not about fears. More about the things that interest him ( a story, fantasy, video game etc. )

I’ve been wondering if CBT would be approrpiate for him, but he doesn’t have rituals or fears that interfere with his life. Its more that he gets stuck in his own head when he should be paying attention. Or talking about something else. Keep us posted!

KarenN, I definitely will. I’m very hopeful that this will work but realistic enough to know it won’t be immediate. I guess right now the biggest question is when or IF we start that medication for anxiety. Anxiety was a part of our lives before meds and in some ways is better now but in others worse. In our case, the adhd meds have made the difference between a child with symptoms of learning disabilities and a child who can actually excel on level. At bedtime we had a much better night last night which was encouraging! Tomorrow is the first visit but basically it’ll be a session for the doctor to get to know my daughter. Wish us luck!

Saturday was the first visit for my daughter with the psychologist. It was basically so they could meet and get to know eachother a little bit. She had a great time! She didn’t want to leave and can’t wait to go back! We are going to see how it goes for awhile before adding another medication.

I’m so happy that you have a good start. Trust in the doctor is very important for the patient with anxiety.
Terry

with full-blown OCD. (I say full-blown to illustrate that she has had some REAL challenges to get over — and she’s done it, time and again.) She manages mostly with CBT — only needs meds if she gets ‘out of whack’, usually during very stressful time (has had a pretty unfair lot at times, in her life!) or sometimes as a result of illness — then must have meds to get back to normal, where she can manage with ‘self-talk’ alone. I’m betting that this therapy will help alot, especially with you there to support her, JenM.

I always admire you two for how you are handling these issues for your kids — I think they have alot going for them!

Thank you ElizabethTO! It’s very comforting to hear those words right now. I’m trying not to worry too much but it’s hard. I do feel encouraged.

We have another appointment today. We’re going to be camping this weekend so it had to be during the week. My daughter cannot wait! Last night she started again on the bedtime issues. I’m not sure if the bigger issue is separation or scary thoughts and I’m not sure it even matters which it is. Last night I asked her if she would talk to the dr about it today. She said she might be embarassed. I told her she can tell the dr anything even if it’s something she doesn’t want to tell me. She did agree to talk to the dr but still wants to be able to talk to me. I told her of course she can always talk to me! I told her that we can talk about the bedtime thing again after she talks to the dr! So hopefully, they can start soon working on some of the issues! In the meantime, I just have to remember to have patience at bedtime!