The Coping Bear is an intervention with parental involvement for children with: social phobia, depression, simple phobia, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and/or separation anxiety disorder. The treatment program utilizes a group process problem-solving approach with the overall goals of: 1) teaching children to recognize their emotional distress, and to learn and practice new coping skills; and 2) facilitating the generalization of these coping skills by involving parents in the treatment process. The program can be implemented in both individual and group settings and includes systematic desensitization techniques, reinforcement principles, approaches to resistant behavior, aids to exposure to anxiety-provoking situations, and relaxation techniques. Two separate randomized clinical trials evaluated the therapeutic efficacy of this program. In the 1999 study, participants were randomly assigned to a child only therapy group (no parental involvement), parent only group (no child involvement), or child and parent group (separate groups of children and parents run concurrently), or a wait list control condition. Less anxiety and depression were reported post-treatment by all children. Children who were treated with their parents used more active coping strategies than children in the other treatment groups. In the 2002 study, participants were randomly assigned to either separate individual therapy sessions for child and for parent, or concurrent child-only and parent-only groups. Assessments pre- and post-treatment showed that regardless of treatment setting, children and mothers reported decreased anxiety and improved global functioning post treatment. In addition, children with high social anxiety had more improvement in an individual treatment setting than in a group setting. Click here to view more detailed information on this program.