Mountain Valley’s own Dr. Dan Villiers and Dr. Nick Maltby joined forces with Massachusetts General Hospital’s Staff Psychologist, Dr. Nathan Doty, and presented at the Independent Educational Consultants Association’s Spring Conference in Boston on May 3, 2012.  Their session, The Age of Adolescent Anxiety: A Roadmap for Educators, Clinicians, and Independent Educational Consultants, was incredibly well received by the more than 100 professionals in the audience and served to educate and inspire educators, clinicians, and consultants with facts and specific techniques to best serve children and families struggling with anxiety.

Their message was clear – anxiety has evolved. What was once an acute state tailored to protect against momentary danger has now become a prolonged experience of apprehension. Or, as a former student articulated: “it’s a feeling that the ground could be yanked out beneath my feet at any moment.” Anxiety has gone global, a virus if you will, infecting not just the predisposed-to-be sensitive, but the born-to–be-resilient, too. Research has demonstrated that anxiety disorders are the most common mental health condition today, affecting one in eight adolescents. Left untreated, individuals are at higher risk to perform poorly at school, to miss out on important social experiences, and to fall victim to worsening symptoms with resultant greater degree of impairment as they move on into adulthood.