The SPACE Approach: Helping Children Cope with Anxiety and OCD

In today's fast-paced world, childhood anxiety and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are increasingly prevalent concerns among parents and caregivers. Fortunately, innovative therapeutic approaches like Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE) by Dr. Eli Leibowitz offer promising solutions. In this post, we'll delve into the SPACE approach, its principles, and how it can effectively support children struggling with anxiety and OCD.

Understanding Childhood Anxiety and OCD

Before delving into the SPACE approach, it's crucial to grasp the challenges faced by children with anxiety and OCD. Anxiety disorders manifest in various forms, including generalized anxiety, separation anxiety, social anxiety, and specific phobias. OCD, on the other hand, is characterized by intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors (compulsions) aimed at alleviating anxiety. While it is no longer classified as an anxiety disorder, many of the treatment approaches overlap with those for anxiety disorders.

What is the SPACE Approach?

Developed by Dr. Eli Leibowitz, the SPACE approach is a novel intervention designed to empower parents in supporting their children with anxiety and OCD. Unlike traditional therapy models where the child is the primary focus, SPACE recognizes the crucial role parents play in their child's recovery journey. By fostering a supportive and validating environment, parents can effectively aid their child's emotional resilience and coping skills.

Key Principles of the SPACE Approach:

Encouraging Autonomy: SPACE encourages parents to empower their children by fostering independence in managing their anxiety and OCD symptoms. Parents of children with anxiety or OCD often protect their children from their anxious feelings by engaging in accommodations. While it is natural to want to protect your child from distress, accommodations have been found to promote anxiety rather than alleviating it. In SPACE, parents learn to recognize and reduce their accommodating behaviors.
Validating Emotions: Central to the SPACE approach is the validation of children's emotions. Instead of dismissing or minimizing their feelings, parents are encouraged to acknowledge and empathize with their child's experiences. Many parents inadvertently invalidate their children’s emotions by trying to talk them out of feeling anxious. Validating their emotions fosters trust and strengthens the parent-child bond.
Promoting Acceptance: SPACE emphasizes acceptance of uncertainty and imperfection. Rather than seeking to eliminate anxiety or OCD altogether, the focus is on helping children develop adaptive strategies to coexist with their symptoms while leading fulfilling lives. This, in turn, tends to lead to a decrease in anxiety.

Implementing the SPACE Approach:

Implementing the SPACE approach involves collaboration between parents and mental health professionals. Through psychoeducation, role-playing exercises, creating an action plan, and ongoing support, parents learn how to effectively respond to their child's anxiety and OCD symptoms while promoting resilience and self-efficacy. SPACE can be used alongside Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for the child, but children are not required to participate in SPACE.

Benefits of the SPACE Approach:

The SPACE approach with parents has been show to be as effective in treating childhood anxiety and OCD as CBT with the child directly.
Parental accommodations have been shown to interfere with CBT in children - SPACE helps parents to recognize and eliminate these behaviors, making their child’s therapy more effective.
Children do not always want to participate in therapy - SPACE gives parents the ability to address their child’s anxiety or OCD without requiring their child’s agreement to participate.
SPACE improves children’s functioning, decreases their anxiety and OCD symptoms, and can improve the parent-child relationship.

In Conclusion:

Childhood anxiety and OCD can have a profound impact on a child's life, but with the right support and intervention, they can learn to navigate these challenges successfully. The SPACE approach offers a valuable framework for parents seeking to empower their children and promote emotional resilience. By learning to reduce accommodations and respond more effectively to their children’s symptoms, parents can help their children with anxiety and OCD to thrive.

For more information about treating child anxiety and OCD, click here.