Specific phobias are one of the most prevalent childhood anxiety disorders. Research suggests that phobias in children, such as animal or situational phobias, lead to significant impairments in peer relations, social and academic competence. Hence it is imperative to treat phobias within children and adolescents early to avoid more serious, engrained symptoms later in the lifespan. This review focuses on traditional exposure-based cognitive–behavioural therapies, and the more recent one-session exposure therapy for phobia treatment (Ost, 1987), a procedure that has only begun to be administered to children. Further, controlled trials evaluating the efficacy of 1-session exposure therapy with phobic children are urgently required. We also address challenges for researchers using psycho-education to control nonspecific treatment effects.

The experiences of clinicians working with the ASD population suggest that parents of children with autism frequently misattribute their child's behaviour, particularly misbehaviour, to autism and that this can be a barrier in behavioural interventions (Howlin and Rutter, 1987). However, no research on the specific attributions that parents of children with ASD make for their child's behaviour could be found. The current study is an exploration of parental attributions within the ASD population. Fifty-nine families participated in this study. Analysis identified a tendency for parents to generalise attributions about ASD-related behaviour to misbehaviour. In addition, analysis identified a tendency to believe that the child's positive behaviour is more stable and controllable by the child than misbehaviour. A relationship was found between parental autistic traits and a tendency for the parent to attribute responsibility to themselves for ASD-related behaviour and misbehaviour.

There is an urgent need to find strategies to promote positive mental health in the workplace. The current study presents outcomes of a pilot trial of the Promoting Adult Resilience (PAR) program, an innovative mental health promotion program, which is conducted in the workplace over 11 weekly sessions. The PAR program is a strengths-based resilience-building program that integrates interpersonal and cognitive–behaviour therapy (CBT) perspectives. Pre-, post- and follow-up measures on 20 PAR participants from a resource-sector company were compared with a non-intervention-matched comparison group. At follow-up, the PAR group had maintained significant post-test improvements in coping self-efficacy and lower levels of stress and depression, and reported greater work-life fit than the comparison group. The program appeared to be ecologically valid and treatment integrity was maintained. Process evaluations of PAR program showed that skills were rated highly and widely used in everyday life at both post and follow-up measurement times.

Despite the continuing development of effective cognitive and behavioural interventions for Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) less attention has been paid to the important issue of improving treatment accessibility and affordability. Self-management approaches that utilise the convenience of the Internet may provide a means by which more people can avail themselves of effective treatments. To date, studies examining the effectiveness of such approaches for GAD lag behind the work conducted with other clinical problems. This study describes the response of three individuals with a primary diagnosis of GAD to an Internet-based treatment completed at their own pace. The intervention (‘What? Me Worry!?!; Saulsman, Nathan, Lim, and Correia, 2005) combines several cognitive and behavioural components with the inclusion of a significant metacognitive component. All participants achieved clinically significant improvement on measures of worry, GAD symptomatology, and metacognitions. Moreover, none of the participants met the diagnostic criteria for GAD at the completion of the study. A larger randomised controlled trial of this intervention is indicated.

Perfectionism can maintain depression, anxiety and eating disorders, yet few studies have evaluated treatments for perfectionism. This study examined the effectiveness of individual cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) in treating perfectionism in four adults with a diagnosis of either an anxiety disorder or depression. The study used an A-B single case experimental design series with follow-up, and a 3-week pre- and postbaseline phase. Treatment involved 8 sessions and a 2-week follow-up session. Visual inspection of data revealed downward trends in overall perfectionism and clinically significant decreases in perfectionism for two participants. No clinically significant reductions were observed in depressive or anxious symptomatology. CBT for perfectionism warrants further investigation.