ABSTRACT
This chapter will ®rst discuss the differences between providing help for adult and child anxiety dif®culties, and then focus on planning a ®rst family meeting, obtaining a history and assessment, formulation, and referral for specialist help. Finally psychological treatments are outlined. It is not the purpose of this chapter to provide a detailed guide to specialist treatment: several excellent books on specialist aspects of assessment and treatment of child and adolescent anxiety disorders have been published in the last few years (Beidel and Turner, 2005; Morris and March, 2004; Ollendick and March, 2004; Weisz, 2004). This chapter examines some of the issues that may arise (for children with complex anxiety dif®culties, living in adverse family and social circumstances) in the very ®rst stages of help-seeking in community settings (Sayal, 2006).
