Coping Cat treatment: what it is and how it is applied to children with anxiety

Over the last few years, the number of cases of anxiety has increased considerably, especially as a result of the pandemic triggered by covid-19. And there is another pandemic that is mental health, anxiety disorder being one of the most prevalent, affecting both adults and children.

In order to treat anxiety in children, there is the Coping Cat treatment, a psychological treatment for anxiety, framed within the model cognitive-behavioral, which uses language adapted for children so that they can understand what anxiety is and how it can affect you forehead.

In this article we will see what the Coping Cat treatment consists of and how it should be used.

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What does the Coping Cat treatment consist of?

The Coping Cat treatment (the brave cat), created by Dr. Phillip Kendall in the 1990s, consists of a psychological intervention program that is framed within the cognitive-behavioral model for the treatment of a series of diverse anxiety problems in children

aged between 7 and 13 years. This program is developed over 16 sessions through which the child must be able to understand your anxiety and also develop a series of skills and strategies to deal with that anxiety.

This treatment is used to address various anxiety disorders with children (for example, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, or separation anxiety disorder).

It should be noted that the Coping Cat treatment has a manual that explains in detail how to carry out this program step by step, starting from the premise that the psychologist must use a language that is adapted to children, especially with the youngest, since, as we have said, it can be applied from the age of 7 years.

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Main objectives of the Coping Cat program

Below we will briefly explain what the main objectives of Coping Cat treatment are when dealing with various anxiety problems suffered by children.

The first objective is help the child being treated to be able to recognize their anxiety symptoms from different points such as the sensations in the body, the emotions felt and the thoughts that arise in his mind when he feels anxiety.

Second, the child must be helped to identify the situations that cause that anxiety, that causes so much discomfort, so that he is also aware of how he normally acts in these situations and thus be able to assess whether the the way he normally behaves helps him cope with anxiety or actually hurts him more yet.

Once the above has been achieved, the psychologist must help the child to develop and train a series of strategies that allow him to be able to face and manage the anxiety that he suffers.

Finally, another of the fundamental objectives of the Coping Cat treatment would be help the child to learn to evaluate his own way of behaving in situations that cause anxiety and also teach him to reinforce himself in some way when his behavior is appropriate and allows him to do facing the situations that caused him anxiety so that this way of coping is maintained in the long term.

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How is the Coping Cat treatment applied?

For the application of the Coping Cat treatment, a booklet is used in which the story of a cat is told. On the first page, the cat that is the protagonist of the story appears, introducing himself before telling his story.

In short, the psychologist must tell him the story of the cat explaining to him that the cat had been adopted and that when he arrived at the new house with his new family he was very afraid of being in an unknown place, so he used to hide under the sofa; however, the cat ended up learning to handle that fear.

As we can see, this story serves as an example for the child to see that if the cat managed to face and manage the fear that he felt when living in a new home, he can also manage to manage his anxiety and face the situations that trigger it in a effective.

The manual used for Coping Cat treatment is structured in two main parts: the first part is psychoeducation, which is aimed at training the skills that the child must learn during sessions in a therapeutic context; while the second part, the exhibition part, is focused on the practice of these skills in a real context.

As we can see, the Coping Cat treatment is a way to address anxiety disorders in children in a way that can be fun, without becoming traumatic for him with the aim that at the end of the treatment the child have the necessary skills and the confidence to launch when you need it. need.

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Main techniques used in Coping Cat treatment

In the Coping Cat treatment manual, various cognitive-behavioral techniques are exposed that have high scientific evidence to treat anxiety problems. Let’s see below what are the main techniques used in this treatment.

1. Modeling

Modeling is one of the fundamental techniques of Coping Cat treatment, since it is the psychologist who must be in charge of showing the child how he should put into practice the skills that she has been acquiring throughout the treatment program for the anxiety.

Therefore, the therapist must previously act as a model in order to show the child how she should behave in the situation she fears, being a mode of learning by observation that has proven to be quite effective.

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2. relaxation techniques

In the Coping Cat treatment, relaxation techniques are used with the aim of teaching the child to control anxiety levels and also be able to reduce them, since it is essential that he is in a state of calm when facing the feared situations.

Therefore, relaxation techniques will make it easier for the child to learn to manage their own levels of activation and get them to go down when they are too high due to the anxiety suffered in certain moments.

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3. Roleplay

Role-playing is another technique used during the Coping Cat treatment program that should be used to rehearse the effective way to deal with feared situations before facing them in real life, being a safe way to train these skills so that the child is prepared to face these situations in a real context.

4. exposure techniques

During the Coping Cat treatment program it is important that exposure techniques are used with the aim that the child will gradually face those situations that generate anxiety. Therefore, as he acquires the tools to control discomfort and to know how to act before feared situations, he gradually exposes himself to those feared situations.

The way to carry out this technique, being gradual, is that the child can move on to the next situation (one that generates a little more anxiety) when you have managed to stay in a situation with significantly decreased levels of anxiety with respect to the initial levels, so that now the situation does not generate discomfort, getting to do this each time in a situation that generates higher levels of anxiety.

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5. Self-instruction training

Self-instruction training serves to teach the child to direct himself through messages that instill motivation and support, leading the child in the right direction when he has to face the situation that generates that anxiety.

6. Reinforcement

Finally, other techniques that are most often used during the Coping Cat treatment for anxiety in children is the reinforcement, which serves to reinforce each step that the child is taking in the right direction that allows him to overcome his fears. Therefore, each advance that the child achieves must be reinforced.