By Sydney Stilwell
Severe anxiety fills you with fear and dread. It makes you doubt yourself. It seeps into the dark nooks and crannies of your psyche to feed you intrusive thoughts that make you worry you are losing your mind.
Most often, the first instances of anxiety will occur in someone’s life around the ages of 18-24 – the college years. While the first semester of college represents a societal narrative of newfound freedom, for others, it marks the terrifying beginnings of not beginning to trust yourself.
For Sarah, a 17-year old residing in New York, her first semester of college marked a time of such severe anxiety that she began missing classes out of fear that she would have an anxiety attack during a lecture. Yet, as she withdrew from class and isolated herself, her fears intensified thus creating the likelihood that those attacks would indeed occur. She began to experience anxiety attacks regularly. In fact, her anxiety became so paralyzing, she dropped out within that first semester.
Dropping out of college only increased Sarah’s already debilitating anxiety, adding to her list of worries that if her mental health continued this way, she could develop more serious symptoms like psychosis. According to the NIMH, an estimated 32% of youth have an anxiety disorder, with 8.3% having severe impairment. Sarah is part of that 8.3% – with anxiety so severe she is high-risk for developing psychosis or schizophrenia later in life.
Motivated to manage her anxiety, Sarah joined over 800 young people between the ages of 12-22 in participating in the New York based Recognition and Prevention (RAP) program; where AIM-funded researcher and director of the RAP program, Dr. Barbara Cornblatt, is working to determine the predictors of serious mental illnesses (like psychosis and schizophrenia) and prevent their development earlier on.
Programs like Dr. Cornblatt’s are some of the most important research being done. Early Intervention treatments like the RAP program approach mental health as a help-first system, in order to engage individuals – to arm them with the tools, techniques, and the language to understand their mental health – before the development of serious mental illness.
Dr. Cornblatt’s RAP program has been a leader in prevention research for twenty years. However, despite the research’s long standing significance, funding still remains scarce as a result of the stigma surrounding mental health. Dr. Cornblatt shares, “as we were on the brink of a new prevention study [the very study Sarah was enrolled in], gaps in funding forced our research program to come to a halt. But not so fast, AIM stepped in and saved the day!” As a result of AIM’s emergency funding, the RAP program was able to move forward and put those twenty years of findings to good immediate use. It is expected that from this research, Dr. Cornblatt can establish a fully automated platform to deliver an intervention package to youth struggling with severe mental health challenges. This would allow for at-risk youth across the nation to lower their vulnerability to developing a serious mental illness later in life.
Reflecting on the program, Sarah shares, “It was very beneficial for my overall thinking, reaction skills, and other facets of daily life. How I react in other situations and how I make decisions in situations. I’m more considerate now…I consider other options, perspectives, and think more critically…and have a bigger picture mindset, I believe.”
As a result of RAP’s continuous programming, Sarah was able to learn tools to manage her anxiety. She approached RAP’s brain training tasks as a distraction, but also as a proactive tool to strengthen her cognitive abilities and rebuild her confidence. With these improvements and the knowledge of how to work on herself moving forward, Sarah lowered her risk for developing psychosis later in life. She opened the door to her education again. She now has a hopeful glimpse into all her future has in store for her.
“We now have great expectations that we will contribute substantially to understanding of the causes of [serious mental illness] and to preventive treatment in at-risk teens as a result of AIM support at just the right time,” says Dr. Cornblatt. “It is likely from this pilot study that Sarah and many other youths will benefit from a longer-term intervention of this kind.”
*Dr. Barbara Cornblatt is a member of AIM’s esteemed Scientific Advisory Board.
Moving Upstream: A Proactive Approach to Addressing Behaviors and Bullying
Krista Reuther is the Assistant Director of Ohana’s Community Health and Prevention Program. She received her Masters in Public Health and Social Work at UC Berkeley. She comes to this position after 14 years of clinical social work experience at Stanford Children’s Hospital in pediatric oncology, critical care, and bereavement. Her goal is to reduce the incidence of mental illness in children and adolescents in Monterey County.
Dr. Guss is a 35-year veteran educator with a doctorate degree in Educational Leadership. She served as a classroom teacher for 10 years, including two years as a teacher in a bilingual program in South Central Los Angeles. She has also served as a college professor, mentor teacher for new teachers, and a master teacher for teacher candidates completing their student teaching experience. She continues to be a strong advocate for the teaching profession.
Fellowship: Stanford University School of Medicine (1994) CA
Michael G. Thompson, Ph.D. is a consultant, author and psychologist specializing in children and families. He is the supervising psychologist for the Belmont Hill School and has worked in more than seven hundred schools across the United States, as well as in international schools in Central America, Europe, Africa and Asia.
is 15 years old and a sophomore at Marina High School in Marina, CA. Her academic interests include math, history, and psychology. She joined the AIM Ideas Lab in 2021 because she wanted to be a part of something that could have a great impact on her community. Marwa is interested in youth mental health because she has always been fascinated with the human mind and she wants to support those that are suffering who may feel like their challenges in life aren’t important enough or are too afraid to seek necessary help.
Giovanna Panetta is a 16 year old junior at Carmel High School. She has always been called to STEM subjects, specifically biology. The AIM Ideas Lab instantly attracted her attention as a research opportunity. Gia has always comprehended the importance of mental health. She knows that COVID only exacerbated previously existing problems, and that as a community we can try and find the root of those problems. Mental health is an integral part of life, and can impede a body’s ability to be healthy. She strongly believes that life is worth living, and she wants to help anyone that thinks otherwise.
Dr. Friedman completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology from University of California San Diego (UCSD). She went on to complete her masters and doctorate degrees (Ph.D.) in Clinical Psychology from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science/Chicago Medical School. Dr. Friedman completed her pre-doctoral internship at Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, and her post-doctoral fellowship training at the VA San Diego Healthcare System. Her clinical training and experience has been focused primarily on comprehensive assessment and effective treatments for anxiety, mood and related disorders. Dr. Friedman has extensive experience in providing Cognitive Behavioral Therapies for anxiety disorders (e.g. worry, OCD, social anxiety, phobias and PTSD), depression, adjustment disorders/life stress, insomnia and body-focused repetitive behaviors (e.g. Trichotillomania and skin picking). She has received training in evidence-based interventions for a variety of specific problems, including exposure with response prevention (ERP) for treatment of OCD, Prolonged Exposure (PE) for treatment of PTSD, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I). Moreover, she has specialty training in the treatment of childhood anxiety and related disorders, such as ADHD, selective mutism, separation anxiety, PTSD, depression and specific phobias. In addition, Dr. Friedman has developed an expertise in research on Trichotillomania and body-focused repetitive behaviors, which has led to numerous local and national presentations. Dr. Friedman regularly attends local and national conferences, training seminars and workshops in order to stay informed on the most up to date treatments and apply state of the art science into her clinical practice.
Dr. Piacentini is a board-certified clinical child and adolescent psychologist and Professor in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. He directs the UCLA Child OCD, Anxiety, and Tic Disorders Clinic and Tourette Association Center of Excellence which provide diagnostic evaluation and treatment (both therapy and medication) for youth with the above problems. He also directs the UCLA Center for Child Anxiety Resilence, Education, and Support (CARES; carescenter.ucla.edu) which provides education and programming to parents, teachers, and clinicians about anxiety prevention and management.
Citlalli Nava is 18 years old and a first year majoring in Psychology at Hartnell Community College in Salinas, CA. She is passionate about understanding how mental health affects how youth think, act, and feel. Citlalli joined the AIM Ideas Lab in 2021 after witnessing the increase in mental health challenges in teenagers and considering the mental health issues they are facing. Citlalli is interested in youth mental health because it is a real problem faced by her generation.
Clinical and community psychologist and health care innovator Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD, is CEO of the American Psychological Association, the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. With more than 146,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students as members, APA promotes and disseminates psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve lives – a mission consistent with Evans’ life work.
