An investigation of parent-child interactions in anxious adolescents and a pilot evaluation of a novel family treatment

二十分之一的英国青少年患有焦虑症。这些疾病比年幼的儿童更为常见和严重。有一种心理治疗，认知行为疗法，对治疗年轻人的焦虑症很有效。然而，治疗并没有充分解决青少年的具体需要。有证据表明，与不焦虑的孩子的父母相比，焦虑孩子的父母不太可能让孩子自己做事情，也不太可能以恐惧的方式应对挑战。早期的报告表明，类似的模式可能出现在焦虑青少年的家庭中。本研究的目的：一是了解焦虑青少年的家庭过程；第二，通过实验确定父母的行为是否会导致青少年焦虑；最后，通过对焦虑的青少年及其父母进行小型临床试验，开发并测试一种新的心理治疗方法，以针对导致青少年焦虑的主要父母行为。这项研究有可能对临床实践产生重大影响，通过提供对青少年焦虑的更多理解和改进治疗技术来更有效地治疗青少年焦虑。

One in twenty British adolescents has an anxiety disorder. These disorders are more common and severe than in younger children. There is a psychological treatment, cognitive-behaviour therapy, which is effective in treating anxiety disorders in young people generally. However, treatments do not adequately address the specific needs of adolescents. There is evidence that parents of anxious children are less likely to let their children do things for themselves, and also respond in fearful ways to challenging situations, compared to parents of non-anxious children. Early reports suggest similar patterns may occur within families of anxious adolescence. This research has the following aims: first, to understand the family processes experienced by anxious adolescents; second, to conduct experiments to establish whether parents‘ behaviours lead to adolescent anxiety; and finally, to develop and test a new psychological treatment through a small clinical trial with anxious adolescents and their parents to target the key parental behaviours that contribute to adolescent anxiety. This research has the potential to have a significant impact on clinical practice by providing greater understanding of adolescent anxiety and improving therapeutic techniques to more effectively treat anxiety in adolescence.