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Child & Adolescent
Anxiety Practice (CAAP)

Challenging your worries and fears.

About CAAP

CAAP is a specialty clinic in New Jersey for children, adolescents, and young adults with anxiety and related disorders. Dr. Shelley Avny, the founder of CAAP, has expertise in the full range of anxiety disorders, and sub-specializations in selective mutism (SM) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).​

Dr. Avny has been at the forefront of the conceptualization and treatment of older youth with selective mutism, and developed WeSpeak, the first structured behavioral group intensive for tweens and teens with SM. Dr. Avny is actively involved in disseminating her work with older youth with SM, presenting regularly at national conferences and leading trainings for other clinicians across the country. Dr. Avny has also co-authored book chapters and scholarly articles.

If you are looking for help for anxiety, it is likely that one of the services that Dr. Avny provides would meet your needs. Dr. Avny relies on evidence-based principles to guide her work, while using a flexible and individualized approach to meet each family’s needs. Various treatment plans are available (individual therapy, individual intensives, and the WeSpeak program), and after a thorough evaluation, a collaborative decision is made regarding which approach would be most beneficial. 

Dr. Avny is currently licensed in New York, New Jersey, and Florida, and can provide telehealth services to patients/families in any of those states. She sees patients in-person in Pennington, NJ.

Watch The BBC Documentary

Harriet Shawcross, an award winning documentarian, spent a week with WeSpeak families and myself, to gain an understanding into selective mutism and this unique treatment intervention.  

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