I thought that Dr. Tamar Chansky was a very competent speaker. Her workshop on “Stategies for Anxious Children: Shrinking Worries, Drawing on Strengths” was enjoyable. Aside from her expertise, I especially liked her humor in presenting this very serious topic. All Mental Health Professionals, many teachers and many parents deal with the day to day struggles of the highly anxious child or adolescent. Dr. Chansky offered both insight and techniques to help these children/adolescents with their everyday experience of the symptoms. She was clear that the symptoms are not alleviated overnight but over time, with the cooperation of the parents, teachers and therapists working as a team. I learned a lot & I hope you did also.

Dr. Chansky had much more material to present than time allowed during the three hour presentation. Also, I had many questions but the three hours alloted went too fast. There was little time for questions, and much material in the handouts was not covered in the presentation. Perhaps another three hours in an afternoon session would have helped?

My unasked questions included some thoughts about application of the model presented to treatment of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (especially PDD and Asperger’s Disorder) and lower functioning children and adolescents. I also would have liked to hear an up-date on medication use for children with OCD. Any thoughts about this?

Please post your comments or suggestions.

Thanks,
Dan