Article archive / February 2017
Originally published: . Volume 8, No. 2. Source pages: 11, 12.
$2M Grant Study Based in UK LSU’s Dr. Davis Part of International Team to Study One-Session Treatments for Children
One of the few experts in the world on one- session treatments for children with phobias, Dr. Thompson E. Davis, III, PhD, has been named to an international team to study the topic.
Dr. Davis is Associate Professor of Psychology at Louisiana State University (LSU) and Director of the Psychological Services Center. He is also Director for Anxiety, Phobia, & Internalizing Disorder Studies, and the authored numerous articles and books, including the Handbook of Autism and Anxiety.
Last year Dr. Davis was contacted by research scientists in the United Kingdom to be part of the $2 million research program and grant from the U.K. National Institute for Health Research.
The work is titled, “A non-inferiority randomised controlled trial comparing the clinical and cost-effectiveness of one- session treatment (OST) with multi-session cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) in children with specific phobias.”
In the project, researchers will examine the relative benefits of two different types of treatments for specific phobias, which are intense fears, in children in the U.K. Community-based practitioners will administer the different types of treatment, with the goal of finding out which is more effective and which is more cost-effective.
Dr. Thompson (Tom) Davis is one of the few psychological scientists who understand the nuances of the one-session CBT treatment. He is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, Behavior Therapy, the Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, and Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review.
One of Dr. Davis’ books, Intensive One- Session Treatment of Specific Phobias, published by Springer, is considered to be the treatment manual for this approach.
Dr. Davis explained some of the characteristics of one-session therapy to the Times. “One session treatment is a massed exposure therapy that is maximized to three hours in one, single session,” he said. “During that three-hour massed session the patient and therapist perform a continual series of behavioral experiments that gradually move up the patient's fear hierarchy.”
“Along the way,” he said, “the therapist uses participant modeling, verbal praise and reinforcement, skills training and psychoeducation, and cognitive challenges to help the patient overcome their fear.”
“The research has been surprisingly strong for the single session producing amazing benefits,” Dr. Davis said.
“Treatment benefits have been studied immediately after the session and out to as far as one year with gains typically increasing after therapy up to that one year point,” he said.
According to the project authors for the U.K. project, specific phobias cause “an overwhelming and unbearable fear and avoidance” in some of the children who suffer with the disorder. The researchers estimate that between 5% and 10% of all children experience specific phobia to a degree that impacts the quality of their everyday life, and “lasts for an average of about 20 years.”
Despite this, the researchers note, fewer than 10 percent of those suffering with the problem actually report asking for help for their phobia. They do, however, use medical care for other things at a higher rate than most other anxiety disorders.
The research team also points out an additional problem because most cognitive behavioral therapy, which has proven effectiveness, requires that people attend for several sessions. This is both expensive and time consuming, and the inconvenience can lead to dropping out before therapy is completed.
Because of these issues, health system leaders are looking for services that can move toward low intensity treatments with the potential to be implemented across the health system. A promising alternative, One Session Therapy (OST), has been shown to be successful but has yet to be examined with children.”
When the U.K. called for grant proposals in this area, Professor Barry Wright, the organizer, contacted Dr. Davis. “The U.K. put out a call for letters of intent for grant proposals investigating one session treatment of specific phobias and youth,” Davis explained. “I'm one of less than a handful of international experts who specialize in that treatment,” he said. “The grant proposal was specifically looking to move the research from efficacy to effectiveness and examine the comparability of one-session treatment to multiple sessions of other treatments. I was contacted by Dr. Wright as this was the very direction my research was going in,” Dr. Davis said.
“We're gearing up to begin participant recruitment in the coming months. We are tentatively planning for me to go to England to train therapists and examiners in the next couple of months,” he said.
Dr. Davis work and scholarship has also received recognition in related areas. His book, The Handbook of Autism and Anxiety, also published by Springer, was acknowledged at the Second Annual Inventorship Showcase by the Office of Innovation & Technology Commercialization for gathering international experts in the field of autism spectrum disorders and anxiety together and dealing with major health issues.
“This volume was the capstone to a series of studies that I had done investigating anxiety in children with autism,” Dr. Davis said. “I had begun by trying to figure out the pattern of anxiety symptoms across the lifespan, and from there went on to see what the actual phenomenology of anxiety symptoms looked like in these children, as well as associated deficits (e.g., communication issues).”
“The book itself is a collaboration between myself and coeditors at Virginia Tech. Chapters are written by internationally recognized experts in their field, with the goal of not just describing symptoms of autism and symptoms of child anxiety, but also trying to distinguish between disorders being extensions of autism or co-occurring anxiety symptomatology,” Dr. Davis explained. “The volume is then capped off by having renowned expert's provide commentary on these issues as well as what was then the future of DSM-5's revision of autism.”
Davis also has received a $100,000 Economic Development Assistantship Award which aimed to support his work in developing treatments for child anxiety. The award came from the Office of Research and Economic Development and the LSU Graduate School to recruit a strong graduate assistant to help further refine the psychological treatment of child anxiety disorders.
“The EDA grant specifically provides support for 4 years for a graduate student to help me with a database I have created of more than 480 families. The research coming from this project is geared at better understanding the mechanisms underlying child anxiety so we can better refine treatments to be more effective in the future.”
“Unfortunately, even our best to therapies at this time only help two-thirds to three-fourths of children. This leaves a sizable minority of children who don't respond as well as we would like. The goal is to determine a more refined approach to helping those children.”
“Currently at LSU, I'm primarily a tenured associate professor of clinical psychology, but also director of our psychological services center, which is our training clinic for the clinical and school psychology programs,” Dr. Davis said. “My research overall investigates anxiety disorders broadly, but especially in children and especially specific phobias. I'm currently writing up some of those pilot studies that I had done which helped us get the larger grant.”
“We are also looking at undertaking and additional child phobia study in the near future. In addition I'm also branching out with colleagues in our cognitive and brain sciences area as well as faculty at Pennington biomedical research center to incorporate innovative imaging techniques (fMRI) into our work.”
“Beyond the book and the grant I've been trying to keep busy,” he said. “I did an invited colloquium on how to treat phobias at Teachers College, Columbia University and my lab had a personal best of 11 presentations at ABCT this past year in New York!”
Dr. Davis and his team can be reached at LSU Psychology and for the Laboratory for Anxiety, Phobia, & Internalizing Disorder Studies, go to http://sites01.lsu.edu/faculty/tedlab/
It is estimated that up to 10 percent of children suffer from specific phobia. LSU Associate Professor Dr. Tom Davis, III, is one of the few international experts in one-session treatments for these conditions. He is part of a research team in the UK to study this important area.
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