Lindsey Bergman

• PhD
• University of California, Los Angeles

Getting Better Faster: A Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Treatment for Youth with OCD provides a full guide for clinicians who are creating, running, or planning intensive treatment programs for youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It offers practical guidance on how to administer evidence-based treatments for OCD, including cognitive beh...

Getting Better Faster: A Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Treatment for Youth with OCD provides a full guide for clinicians who are creating, running, or planning intensive treatment programs for youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It offers practical guidance on how to administer evidence-based treatments for OCD, including cognitive beh...

Getting Better Faster: A Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Treatment for Youth with OCD provides a full guide for clinicians who are creating, running, or planning intensive treatment programs for youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It offers practical guidance on how to administer evidence-based treatments for OCD, including cognitive beh...

Getting Better Faster: A Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Treatment for Youth with OCD provides a full guide for clinicians who are creating, running, or planning intensive treatment programs for youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It offers practical guidance on how to administer evidence-based treatments for OCD, including cognitive beh...

Getting Better Faster: A Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Treatment for Youth with OCD provides a full guide for clinicians who are creating, running, or planning intensive treatment programs for youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It offers practical guidance on how to administer evidence-based treatments for OCD, including cognitive beh...

Getting Better Faster: A Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Treatment for Youth with OCD provides a full guide for clinicians who are creating, running, or planning intensive treatment programs for youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It offers practical guidance on how to administer evidence-based treatments for OCD, including cognitive beh...

Getting Better Faster: A Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Treatment for Youth with OCD provides a full guide for clinicians who are creating, running, or planning intensive treatment programs for youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It offers practical guidance on how to administer evidence-based treatments for OCD, including cognitive beh...

Getting Better Faster: A Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Treatment for Youth with OCD provides a full guide for clinicians who are creating, running, or planning intensive treatment programs for youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It offers practical guidance on how to administer evidence-based treatments for OCD, including cognitive beh...

Getting Better Faster: A Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Treatment for Youth with OCD provides a full guide for clinicians who are creating, running, or planning intensive treatment programs for youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It offers practical guidance on how to administer evidence-based treatments for OCD, including cognitive beh...

Getting Better Faster: A Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Treatment for Youth with OCD provides a full guide for clinicians who are creating, running, or planning intensive treatment programs for youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It offers practical guidance on how to administer evidence-based treatments for OCD, including cognitive beh...

Getting Better Faster: A Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Treatment for Youth with OCD provides a full guide for clinicians who are creating, running, or planning intensive treatment programs for youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It offers practical guidance on how to administer evidence-based treatments for OCD, including cognitive beh...

Getting Better Faster: A Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Treatment for Youth with OCD provides a full guide for clinicians who are creating, running, or planning intensive treatment programs for youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It offers practical guidance on how to administer evidence-based treatments for OCD, including cognitive beh...

Getting Better Faster: A Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Treatment for Youth with OCD provides a full guide for clinicians who are creating, running, or planning intensive treatment programs for youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It offers practical guidance on how to administer evidence-based treatments for OCD, including cognitive beh...

Getting Better Faster: A Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Treatment for Youth with OCD provides a full guide for clinicians who are creating, running, or planning intensive treatment programs for youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It offers practical guidance on how to administer evidence-based treatments for OCD, including cognitive beh...

Getting Better Faster: A Clinician’s Guide to Intensive Treatment for Youth with OCD provides a full guide for clinicians who are creating, running, or planning intensive treatment programs for youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It offers practical guidance on how to administer evidence-based treatments for OCD, including cognitive beh...

Although exposure-based cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and pharmacotherapy have demonstrated efficacy for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), the lack of clinicians effectively trained in these treatments significantly limit effective intervention options for affected youth. This is very unfortunate since child onset is reported by 50% of adults...

Intensive psychosocial treatment is presented as a specialized model of care to bridge the research-to-practice gap for evidence-based treatments (EBTs). In the present paper, we describe the UCLA Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Intensive Outpatient Program as an exemplary intervention setting for clinicians to adapt empirically supported t...

The core symptom of the anxiety disorder selective mutism (SM) is absence of speech in specific situations, such as at school. The most commonly used standardized instruments to assess speaking behavior are the parent-rated Selective Mutism Questionnaire (SMQ) and the teacher-rated School Speech Questionnaire (SSQ), scored from 0 to 3, indicating t...

Innovations in CBT for Childhood Anxiety, OCD, and PTSD - edited by Lara J. Farrell April 2019

Pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) co-occurs frequently with other mental health conditions, adding to the burden of disease and complexity of treatment. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is efficacious for both OCD and two of its most common comorbid conditions, anxiety and depression. Therefore, treating OCD may yield secondary benefi...

Objective Although adult hoarding disorder is relatively common and often debilitating, few studies have examined the phenomenology of pediatric hoarding. We examined the clinical phenomenology and response to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) treatment in youths with a diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) with and without hoarding sym...

Background: Childhood obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a heterogeneous psychiatric condition, with varied symptom presentations that have been differentially associated with clinical characteristics and treatment response. One OCD symptom cluster of particular interest is religious symptoms, including fears of offending religious figures/obj...

Objective Exposure tasks are recognized widely as a key component of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for child and adolescent anxiety. However, little research has examined specific exposure characteristics that predict outcomes for youth with anxiety and that may guide its application in therapy. Method This study draws on a sample of 279 chil...

Objective To date, few studies of childhood obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) have been adequately powered to examine patterns and predictors of comorbidity, despite the frequency with which it occurs. We address this gap, drawing on a large sample of youth with OCD who were systematically assessed through research and clinical programs in a univ...

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is effective for pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), but non-response is common. Brain glutamate (Glu) signaling may contribute to OCD pathophysiology and moderate CBT outcomes. We assessed whether Glu measured with magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) was associated with OCD and/or CBT response. Youth...

Prior research has identified OCD subtypes or “clusters” of symptoms that differentially relate to clinical features of the disorder. Given the high comorbidity between OCD and anxiety, OCD symptom clusters may more broadly associate with fear and/or distress internalizing constructs. This study examines fear and distress dimensions, including phys...

Behavioral engagement and cognitive coping have been hypothesized to mediate effectiveness of exposure-based therapies. Identifying which specific child factors mediate successful therapy and which therapist factors facilitate change can help make our evidence-based treatments more efficient and robust. The current study examines the specificity an...

Objective: We report active treatment group differences on response and remission rates and changes in anxiety severity at weeks 24 and 36 for the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS). Method: CAMS youth (N = 488; 74% ≤ 12 years of age) with DSM-IV separation, generalized, or social anxiety disorder were randomized to 12 weeks of cog...

The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) is a widely used parent-report of child and adolescent behavior. We examined the ability of the CBCL-A scale, a previously published subset of CBCL items, to predict the presence of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), separation anxiety disorder (SAD), and social phobia (SoP), as well as anxiety severity, among 4...

To evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of a novel behavioral intervention for reducing symptoms of selective mutism and increasing functional speech. A total of 21 children ages 4 to 8 with primary selective mutism were randomized to 24 weeks of Integrated Behavior Therapy for Selective Mutism (IBTSM) or a 12-week Wait...

Anxiety disorders are among the most common conditions affecting children and adolescents (Costello and Angold, 1995) with most modern epidemiological reports estimating the prevalence of significant anxiety disorders at greater than 10% worldwide (Pine, 1994) and from 12% to 20% in the USA (Kessler et al., 1994; Achenbach et al., 1995; Shaffer et...

Treatment for Children with Selective Mutism outlines the sequence and essential elements to guide clinicians through a comprehensive, integrated program for young children who display symptoms of SM. It explains how this approach utilizes behavioral interventions targeting gradual increases in speaking across settings in which the child initially...

Objective: To examine family conflict, parental blame, and poor family cohesion as predictors of treatment outcome for youths receiving family-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (FCBT) for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Method: We analyzed data from a sample of youths who were randomized to FCBT (n = 49; 59% male; M age = 12.43 years) as pa...

The brain mechanisms of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), a highly effective treatment for pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), are unknown. Neuroimaging in adult OCD indicates that CBT is associated with metabolic changes in striatum, thalamus, and anterior cingulate cortex. We therefore probed putative metabolic effects of CBT on thes...

Objective: To report on remission rates in anxious youth who participated in the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS). The CAMS, a multisite clinical trial, randomized 488 children and adolescents (ages 7-17 years; 79% Caucasian; 50% female) with separation, social, and/or generalized anxiety disorder to a 12-week treatment of sertrali...

To examine the efficacy of exposure-based cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) plus a structured family intervention (FCBT) versus psychoeducation plus relaxation training (PRT) for reducing symptom severity, functional impairment, and family accommodation in youths with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). A total of 71 youngsters 8 to 17 years of a...

The purpose of this investigation was to examine correlates of parent, child, and therapist treatment expectations and their role in the exposure-based treatment of childhood obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Treatment expectations were assessed among 49 youth with primary OCD, their parents, and therapists as part of the baseline evaluation and...

Depression is the most common comorbidity among adults with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), yet little is known about depressive symptoms in childhood OCD. This study examined clinical and cognitive variables associated with depressive symptomatology in 71 youths (62% male, M age = 12.7 years) with primary OCD. Youths presented with a range of...

Individuals with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) may lack insight into the irrational nature of their symptoms. Among adults with OCD, poor insight has been linked to greater symptom severity, increased likelihood of comorbid symptoms, lower adaptive functioning, and worse treatment outcomes. Parallel work regarding insight among children and a...

The present study examines the construct validity of separation anxiety disorder (SAD), social phobia (SoP), panic disorder (PD), and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) in a clinical sample of children. Participants were 174 children, 6 to 17 years old (94 boys) who had undergone a diagnostic evaluation at a university hospital based clinic. Parent...

The present study examines the influence of diagnostic comorbidity on the demographic, psychiatric, and functional status of youth with a primary diagnosis of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Two hundred and fifteen children (ages 5-17) referred to a university-based OCD specialty clinic were compared based on DSM-IV diagnostic profile: OCD wit...

Reports the characteristics of a large, representative sample of treatment-seeking anxious youth (N=488). Participants, aged 7-17 years (mean 10.7 years), had a principal DSM-IV diagnosis of separation anxiety disorder (SAD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), or social phobia (SP). Although youth with a co-primary diagnosis for which a different...

The present study examined the development of elevated startle reactivity in anticipation of mild anxiogenic procedures in school-age children with current anxiety disorders and in those at-risk for their development due to parental anxiety. Startle blink reflexes and skin conductance responses were assessed in 7 to 12 year old anxious children (N...

Objective: To examine attention bias toward threat faces in a large sample of anxiety-disordered youths using a well-established visual probe task. Method: Study participants included 101 children and adolescents (ages 7-18 years) with generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, and/or separation anxiety disorder enrolled in a multisite anxiety...

Pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic, impairing condition associated with high levels of family accommodation (i.e., participation in symptoms). Understanding of factors that may engender accommodation of pediatric OCD is limited. This study conducted exploratory analyses of parent-, child-, and family-level correlates of fami...

Aversive conditioning and extinction were evaluated in children with anxiety disorders (n=23), at-risk for anxiety disorders (n=15), and controls (n=11). Participants underwent 16 trials of discriminative conditioning of two geometric figures, with (CS+) or without (CS-) an aversive tone (US), followed by 8 extinction trials (4 CS+, 4 CS-), and 8 e...

Research on selective mutism (SM) has been limited by the absence of standardized, psychometrically sound assessment measures. The purpose of our investigation was to present two studies that examined the factor structure and initial reliability and validity of the Selective Mutism Questionnaire (SMQ), a 17-item parent report measure of failure to...

The present study examined threat interpretation biases in children 7-12 years of age with separation, social and generalised anxiety disorders (N=15), non-anxious offspring at risk due to parental anxiety (N=16) and non-anxious controls of non-anxious parents (N=14). Children provided interpretations of ambiguous situations to assess cognitive, em...

This article documents the development, factor structure, and psychometric properties of the parent- and youth-report forms of the Child Obsessive Compulsive Impact Scale-Revised (COIS-R), a measure of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)-specific functional impairment. Using a sample of 250 youth (M age = 11.7, 54% male, 80% Caucasian) diagnosed wi...

The current article presents suggestions for modifications to common manualized treatments to tailor the interventions to specific anxiety diagnoses and common comorbid diagnoses. The authors utilize one cognitive-behavioral treatment manual (Coping Cat; Kendall, 2000) to demonstrate appropriate clinical accommodations. As the majority of cognitive...

Developmental factors direct optimal implementations of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) protocols with children and adolescents. Although chronological age can approximate level of development, youthful clients benefit when clinicians carefully assess each child's cognitive, social, and emotional skills and adjust manualized treatments according...

This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between risk for, and manifestation of, anxiety disorders, and acquisition, extinction and spontaneous recovery of aversive associations. Three pilot groups of youths were compared: anxiety disordered (generalized anxiety, social anxiety, panic or separation anxiety, n519), high risk (anxious parents bu...

Davis and Ollendick (this issue) provide an insightful review and critique of the current state of treatment for childhood specific phobias. Their review is guided by bio informational theory (Lang, 1979) and the degree to which empirically supported treatments for childhood specific phobia use the main tenets of the theory in assessing their outco...

Although anxiety disorders are prevalent among children and adolescents, with a chronic and often disabling course, there is a paucity of research examining the specific ways in which anxiety interferes with various domains of functioning in childhood. The purpose of the current investigation was to examine the initial reliability and construct val...

Turning biases are known to occur in the direction of the brain hemisphere with decreased dopamine (DA). Although elevations in urinary DA have been shown in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), evidence for dysregulation of dopaminergic activity in the brain is lacking. Turn bias and urinary DA levels were examined in mothers of childhood cancer...

Although obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic and oftentimes debilitating disorder, the specific impact of this illness on the psychosocial functioning of affected youngsters has not been systematically described. A total of 151 clinic-referred youngsters (mean age 11.8 years, 57% male, 83% Caucasian) with primary Diagnostic and Statist...

To examine whether age, gender, ethnicity, type of anxiety disorder, severity of illness, comorbidity, intellectual level, family income, or parental education may function as moderators and whether treatment adherence, medication dose, adverse events, or blinded rater's guess of treatment assignment may function as mediators of pharmacological tre...

Examined the utility of CBT for childhood obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) including a preliminary exploration of predictors of response to this form of treatment. A total of 42 youngsters (mean age 11.8 years, 60% female, 52% on medication at baseline) with DSM-IV OCD were treated openly using a developmentally sensitive treatment protocol base...

To examine the prevalence of selective mutism (SM) in a public school sample and compare the functioning and symptoms of children with SM to age- and gender-matched unaffected children. Kindergarten, first, and second grade teachers in a large district were asked to identify pupils who met DSM-IV criteria for SM and to complete ratings of speaking...

Evaluated the concurrent validity of the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. [DSM-IV], American Psychiatric Association, 1994): Child and Parents Versions (ADIS for DSM-IV-C/P; Silverman & Albano, 1996) social phobia, separation anxiety disorder (SAD), generalized anxiety disor...

Anxiety disorders among children are quite common with prevalence rates estimated at up to 20%. Although somewhat neglected in the past, recent empirical studies have increased our understanding of childhood anxiety significantly. Along with the development of empirically supported treatments, the assessment of anxiety among youth has been refined,...

An 8-week placebo-controlled study, the Research Units on Pediatric Psychopharmacology Anxiety Study, documented beneficial effects of fluvoxamine in the treatment of pediatric social anxiety, separation anxiety, or generalized anxiety disorders. Following completion of this study, participants were invited to enter a 6-month open-label treatment p...

Background Drugs that selectively inhibit serotonin reuptake are effective treatments for adults with mood and anxiety disorders, but limited data are available on the safety and efficacy of serotonin-reuptake inhibitors in children with anxiety disorders. Methods We studied 128 children who were 6 to 17 years of age; who met the criteria for soci...

Anxiety disorders in childhood are among the most common mental health problems in this age group and are often associated with significant distress and functional impairment. This article reviews the cognitive processes thought to underlie the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders in childhood and the cognitive and behavioral treatment...

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in childhood is a chronic and distressing disorder that can lead to severe impairments in social, academic, and family functioning. Until the past decade, childhood OCD was thought to be rare and not subjected to systematic research. Recently, significant advances have been made in the understanding of the etiolo...

This study examined a model of worry as verbal activity that suppresses imagery and autonomic fear. The effects of emotional imagery vs. verbalization upon worry and fearfulness of an impending public speaking situation were assessed in 54 public speaking anxious participants who were categorized as worriers. Randomly assigned groups that processed...

Both researchers and therapists who study schizophrenia make inferences about enduring family roles from observed patterns of interactional talking behavior within families. Evidence regarding the stability of these patterns is rarely investigated. The present study examined the short-term stability of intrafamilial speech patterns (who talks to wh...

Medicated and unmedicated schizophrenic patients and normal subjects (n's = 4) were examined on the extent to which their information-processing performance became automated over time, as reflected by increased competence in dual task performance. The central task was a computerized version of the Continuous Performance Test, and the secondary task...

Schizophrenic patients and patients with schizotypal personality disorder were significantly more likely than normal controls to demonstrate impaired eye tracking performance. Fifteen of 27 schizophrenics and 15 of 27 schizotypals had impaired eye tracking, compared with 11 of 39 normal controls. In the schizophrenic group, including 10 out-patient...

Schizophrenic patients and patients with schizotypal personality disorder were significantly more likely than normal controls to demonstrate impaired eye tracking performance. Fifteen of 27 schizophrenics and 15 of 27 schizotypals had impaired eye tracking, compared with 11 of 39 normal controls. In the schizophrenic group, including 10 out-patient...