Author: Charles Frank

Home Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

If left untreated, symptoms may become so severe that a person has significant problems with their friends, family, or job. Some people may experience several months or years of frequent symptoms, then many symptom-free years. There is some evidence that many people, particularly those whose symptoms begin at an early age, may naturally experience a partial or even complete reduction in symptoms after middle age.

  1. This treatment is organized around modules that allow the program to be tailored to the developmental level of the child.
  2. These people may live for years without leaving their homes, while happily seeing visitors in and working from their personal safety zones.
  3. Patients can elect to receive treatment through one of our excellent clinical programs or, if eligible, may receive treatment as a participant in a research trial at no cost.
  4. Before entering a treatment program at the Center, patients first complete a phone screening interview with one of our intake coordinators.
  5. Individuals with panic disorder regularly suffer intense episodes of anxiety, known as panic attacks (see below).

Treatment at the CTSA

Occasionally, children may focus their anxiety on the occurrence of catastrophic events such as earthquakes or nuclear war. Children with GAD may be appear to be perfectionists and might require excessive reassurance or approval from adults regarding the quality of their work. Full attendance with video display is required to obtain CE credit for this program. “Loneliness is different from social isolation,” said Hillary Ammon, PsyD, an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Evidence-Based Treatment for Panic Disorder

The outward symptoms of a panic attack frequently result in social difficulties, such as embarrassment, stigma, or social isolation. However, people who have had these attacks for a long time are often able to restrain outward signs of even very intense panic attacks. Sometimes people will suffer milder attacks with only 3 or less of the above symptoms, which are known as Limited Symptom Attacks (see below). In addition to occurring alongside other mental disorders, patients with GAD may also suffer from other physical conditions as a result of their constant anxiety, such as irritable bowel syndrome.

Many of the state-of-the-art treatments for this disorder have been developed at the Center. The CTSA specializes in a cognitive-behavioral treatment for OCD called Exposure and Response Prevention (Ex/RP). Decades of research on Ex/RP have yielded findings that clearly support the high efficacy of Ex/RP in reducing OCD symptom severity and improving the long-term management of these symptoms. Danielle Cooper, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety (CTSA) in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. At Boston University working at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD).

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

And Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Ohio University working within psychotherapy and anxiety research labs, such as the Psychotherapy and Interpersonal Process (PIP) and Factor of Emotional/Affective Risk (FEAR) Labs. The Center was founded in 1979 by Edna B. Foa, Ph.D., a world leader in anxiety disorders research, who is the Director of the Center. The Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety is a division of the University’s Department of Psychiatry, and is located on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. If both of these requirements are met, you will receive a continuing education certificate after the conclusion of the workshop. If you are interested in our Trichotillomania or Excoriation treatment program, the first step is to complete our New Patient Questionnaire for Adults 18 and over or our New Patient Questionnaire for Children Under 18.

Doctors seeing patients with chronic physical complaints who also report continuous feelings of worry and anxiety may be likely to recognize this as GAD and make an appropriate mental health referral. The Center provides evidence-based treatment programs for anxiety and related disorders on a fee-for-service basis. When treatment research programs are available, eligible participants may enroll. Agoraphobics may experience panic attacks in the situations where they feel trapped, insecure, out of control, or too far from their comfort zone.

Welcome to the CTSA

Once an individual develops GAD, the course of the disorder is most often chronic. If you are interested in any of our OCD treatment programs, the first step is to complete our New Patient Questionnaire for Adults 18 and over or our New Patient Questionnaire for Children Under 18. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) has been a specialty at the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety since its founding in 1979.

Penn Behavioral Health Clinical Programs

In exposure therapy, you choose to gradually expose yourself to feared situations repeatedly, until your thinking about it changes and it no longer triggers fear and anxiety. This can be done via “imaginal exposure” (i.e., confronting the feared situation in one’s mind), or via “in vivo exposure” (i.e., confronting the feared situation in real life). Exposure therapy is most effective when it is done frequently and lasts long enough for the fear to decrease. Your clinician will create a personalized treatment plan with you that will outline the steps to take to make treatment most effective and will work with you throughout treatment on helping you to approach feared situations systematically. The Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety offers a number of professional workshops for mental health practitioners who are looking to extend their training in empirically-supported treatments for anxiety disorders.

Dr. Brown received her Bachelors of Science Degree in Psychology at Drexel University and her Doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology and Learning and Behavior Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Psychiatric evaluation of the utility of medications (used in addition to Ex/RP or alone) is also available for established CTSA patients. You will be asked to affirm the previous conditions and your agreement to them prior to the commencement of the workshop. Applicants will be notified of acceptance within one week of receipt of their application.

Please do not make travel or other arrangements until your application is accepted. “Getting access to treatment was bad enough before the pandemic, and it’s only gotten worse,” says the CTSA’s director, Dr. Lily Brown.

After several years in private practice, she returned to the CTSA in order to be more involved in disseminating empirically-supported anxiety treatments. She is a licensed clinical psychologist who has a variety of clinical experiences with patient populations ranging from children, adolescents, and adults. Dr. Turk-Karan specializes in Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE) for PTSD, Exposure and Response Prevention (EX/RP) for OCD, and cognitive-behavioral treatment for social anxiety, panic disorder, specific phobias, and generalized anxiety. The treatment program begins with the therapist and patient outlining a model of the patient’s social anxiety by evaluating factors that help to maintain the anxiety. As treatment progresses, the patient’s safety behaviors and avoidances are identified and a hierarchy of avoided situations to which the patient will expose themselves to is created. Other treatment techniques (such as video feedback, surveys, imaginal exposure, social skills training, and assertiveness training) are also used on an as needed basis.