Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions

SPACE stands for Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions, a parent-based program for children and adolescents with anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder. SPACE was developed at the Yale Child Study Center by Dr. Eli Lebowitz for the caregivers of anxious children and found to be effective in randomized controlled clinical trials.

Parents participate in SPACE treatment sessions. While children do not have to attend SPACE sessions, they are the patients. Parents who participate in SPACE will learn skills and parenting tools to help their child overcome anxiety and OCD.

SPACE treatment focuses on changes that parents can make to their own behavior, they do not need to make their child change. The two main changes that parents learn in SPACE treatment are to respond more supportively to their anxious child and to reduce the accommodations they have been making to the child's symptoms. 

Maureen Donegan, LCSW is trained in SPACE and offers this treatment approach to parents in appropriate situations. For more information, please contact her at yardleyllp@gmail.com or leave a message at 860-688-1240.