Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE) is a parent-based treatment for anxiety disorder in childhood and adolescence. SPACE was developed by Dr. Eli Lebowitz at the Yale Child Study Center and studies show its effectiveness.

Only parents attend sessions in SPACE treatment. Parents learn specific skills and tools to help their child overcome anxiety. Treatment focuses on helping parents make changes in the way they respond to their child’s anxiety symptoms, including learning to become more supportive and decreasing parental reactions that unintentionally impact the disorder. Parents are coached on how to use specific skills and tools to help their child overcome anxiety and OCD.

Treatment includes psychoeducation about childhood anxiety and the issues that increase anxiety. Parents learn about supportive responses to their child’s anxiety and responses that communicate acceptance of the child’s distress and confidence in the child’s ability to tolerate distress. By reducing their accommodation, parents allow their child to improve their ability to regulate their anxiety, and to avoid situations and activities less and become more confident. SPACE also includes tools for helping parents cope with potentially difficult child reactions to the steps parents are taking.

Examples of anxiety disorders treated with the SPACE treatment program:

• Selective Mutism
• OCD
• Failure to Launch
• ARFID
• Separation anxiety
• Social anxiety
• Generalized anxiety
• Specific phobias
• Panic disorder