The Science
Behind Insight

Insight uses evidence based techniques to build skills and help young people and their families better manage stress and anxiety.

Empirical studies have shown the effectiveness of these techniques and our trained Educational and Clinical Psychologists have tried and tested them in their ongoing clinical practice with families.

How it works

There are unhelpful ways that we can think, behave, and respond to anxiety that can keep the cycle of anxiety going – for ourselves and for our children.

Understanding what these unhelpful patterns are allows us to recognise them and do something more helpful. This is a key step in breaking the cycle of anxiety.

Build your skills

Children need their parents to support them with managing stress and anxiety. They’re constantly learning from us, so how we manage our own stress and anxiety is so important.

How we respond to our child’s stress and anxiety is also important and parental response can reduce anxiety, build emotional literacy, and even change the structure of their brain allowing for better self-regulation.

Research shows that children of parents who emotionally coach are more resilient, perform better in school, have fewer behavioural problems, and get on better with peers.

Psycho-education

Insight draws on research and clinical expertise about emotions in the brain and body, family dynamics, attachment, emotion coaching principles, compassion-focussed work, and the fight/flight/freeze response to provide you with helpful and accurate information.

Cognitive Behavioural research has shown us that the way we think and act can reinforce our anxiety. Tackling our behaviours and thoughts can help to break these cycles. Attachment research helps us understand the role of the parent-child relationship in the battle against stress and anxiety.

Insight empowers families and individuals with this knowledge, so that they can avoid common pitfalls and build up helpful patterns of responding.

Insight teaches skills that have been shown to decrease the impact of stress and anxiety on day to day life.

Skills Teaching

Often in our desire to help ourselves or our children we can jump in with unhelpful responses. These can maintain or even increase anxiety over time. Insight teaches skills which will help you recognise and catch unhelpful strategies and responses. These include evidence based strategies such as; emotion coaching, problem solving, self-esteem building, the promotion of self-care, relaxation and mindfulness exercises.

Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness involves focussing our awareness in a particular way, allowing us to be more aware and accepting of our thoughts, physical sensations, and emotional experience in the moment. This helps us be present rather than getting carried away by thoughts about the past or worries for the future.

Mindfulness is an effective treatment for stress and anxiety. Research has shown the benefits of mindfulness training through the medium of electronic devices with children, adolescents and adults.

References

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The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind, Survive Everyday Parenting Struggles, and Help Your Family Thrive. Random House USA Inc. New York, US.Rapee, M. R. (2008). Helping Your Anxious Child : A Step-by-step Guide for Parents. New Harbinger Publications. Oakland, CA, US.

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A cognitive model of social phobia. Social phobia: Diagnosis, assessment, and treatment, 41(68), 00022-3.

Hodson, K., McManus, F., Clark, D., & Doll, H. (2008).
Can Clark and Wells’ (1995) Cognitive Model of Social Phobia be Applied to Young People? Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 36(4), 449-461. doi:10.1017/S1352465808004487

Warren, S. L., Huston, L., Egeland, B., & Sroufe, L. A. (1997).
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A randomised controlled trial of a CBT intervention for anxiety in children with Asperger syndrome. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 46(11), 1152-1160.

Wenck, L. S., Leu, P. W., & D’Amato, R. C. (1996).
Evaluating the efficacy of a biofeedback intervention to reduce children’s anxiety. Journal of clinical psychology, 52(4), 469-473.

James, A. C., James, G., Cowdrey, F. A., Soler, A., & Choke, A. (2013).
Cognitive behavioural therapy for anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. Cochrane database of systematic reviews, (6).

Semple, R. J., Lee, J., Rosa, D., & Miller, L. F. (2010).
A randomized trial of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for children: Promoting mindful attention to enhance social-emotional resiliency in children. Journal of child and family studies, 19(2), 218-229.

Thompson, M., & Gauntlett-Gilbert, J. (2008).
Mindfulness with children and adolescents: Effective clinical application. Clinical child psychology and psychiatry, 13(3), 395-407.

Bratton, S. C., Ray, D., Rhine, T., & Jones, L. (2005).
The efficacy of play therapy with children: A meta-analytic review of treatment outcomes. Professional psychology: research and practice, 36(4), 376.

Zeman, J., Cassano, M., Perry-Parrish, C., & Stegall, S. (2006).
Emotion regulation in children and adolescents. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 27(2), 155-168.

Hannesdottir, D. K., & Ollendick, T. H. (2007).
The role of emotion regulation in the treatment of child anxiety disorders. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 10(3), 275-293.