Has anyone used SPACE when the child's primary source of anxiety was misophonia? I have had a family seek out SPACE whose daughter, who potentially has Autism (had a recent assesment which led to a deferal for reassessment once anxiety is better managed), struggles with Misophonia and this is the source of anxiety and avoidance. Given that this is a sensory sensitivity, I would love to hear other people's thoughts about if SPACE would still be a good fit? Thanks
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Hi Lila,
I have spent a lot of time researching this and thinking about it in collaboration with my colleague who is an expert in misophonia and treats many teens with misophonia. Technically, we don't yet have research to show that accomodation and misophonia are linked in the exact same way that we know that accomodation makes anxiety grow over time. However, it can function very similarly if we think of misophonia as a disorder in which we have a highly uncomfortable physiological and emotional reaction to specific trigger sounds. In our work, we see youth and adults can dramtically transform thier relationship to thier misophonia when they become more willing to allow the discomfort to be present and reduce avoidance of the unwanted internal experience. Thus, I have woven together a parent program that piesces together evidence-based components from other treatments: psychoeducation on misophonia and the model of how misophonia impacts the family system, teaching caregivers the supportive response from SPACE with a heavy focus on validation, teaching caregivers defusion and self-validation to model this for youth and then education about accomodation. We see a lot of families are accomodating in ways that are causing really signficant life disruption for all and these breeds resentment, anger in parents and shame/guilt in those with misophonia. I am being clear with families about where we are in the reserach and I'm hoping that a more formal testing of SPACE for misophonia might be on the way. I am offering this treatment in a group format open to all families in PsyPact states and you can read more here: https://www.tapclinicnc.com/intune