A groundbreaking guide to managing the emotional and behavioral components of your child’s sensory processing challenges Imagine having the flu, while lying in a bed of ants, listening to heavy metal at high volume, and trying to do calculus. Now consider living in that body all the time. It becomes easy to understand how kids with difficulties processing and controlling sensory information can become avoidant, anxious, impatient, irritable, or oppositional. If you have a child who has a sensory regulation issue, you may find yourself confused or frustrated by their behavior. This book will help you understand your child’s behavior, as well as the root cause of their emotional outbursts, and provides an arsenal of tools to help your child self-regulate. This book addresses the often-overlooked connection between sensory sensitivity and emotional and behavioral issues, which can often lead to a diagnosis of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), an anxiety disorder, or a host of other disorders of childhood. You’ll gain a better understanding of how your child’s sensory sensitivity affects how they feel and act, and also learn powerful sensory regulation skills to help your child manage their emotions and improve relationships with family and friends. Whether your child has been diagnosed with sensory processing disorder (SPD), ADHD, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), you’ll find proven-effective tips and strategies for dealing with the sensory sensitivity that drives your child’s emotions and behavior, and discover ways to ease tension in your home caused by your child’s disorganization, oppositional behavior, refusal to eat, disruptive behavior, and anxiety. Parenting can be challenging even when behavior is predictable and age-appropriate, and when a child has a nervous system that is dysregulated, it is even more so. With this book, you will not only learn to understand your child’s behaviors, but will also learn sensory regulation skills to help your child—and your family as a whole—find some much-needed balance.

Morbid obsessions with sex, germs, or with one's appearance, and uncontrollable compulsions to hoard objects, to check and recheck locks, or to pull one's hair are just a few of the symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders, which afflict over ten million Americans. Many suffer in isolation, not knowing that their disorder has a name, how to seek help, or how to help themselves. Fully updated for this second edition, Dr. Fred Penzel discusses the entire spectrum of these disorders, from the classic form characterized by intrusive, repetitive, and often unpleasant thoughts, to body dysmorphic disorder ("imagined ugliness"), trichotillomania (compulsive hair pulling), compulsive skin picking, and nail biting. He takes the reader through each step of the most effective behavioral therapies, detailing how progress is made and how to avoid relapse. He also offers a completely up-to-date discussion of medication-how it is used as part of the overall treatment, its effect on pregnancy, how to choose the best medicine, and how to know if it is working. In addition, Dr. Penzel discusses the treatment of children with these disorders, offers helpful advice for the families of sufferers, and lists sources of help and information.

Over six million people in the United States suffer from an anxiety disorder known as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The average person takes seven years before getting help for OCD. With over fifteen years of experience treating patients struggling with OCD, Dr. Suzanne Mouton-Odum offers readers hope and guidance for conquering what is a very treatable problem. Fiction writer, Sheri Bloom, a woman who was diagnosed and mastered OCD, shares an intimate account of her personal journey out of the land of compulsions and into a world of freedom. Out of the Rabbit Hole: A Roadmap to Freedom from OCD is part journal, part therapy and one-hundred percent inspiration for tackling an often unspoken, yet common disorder.