Dr. Carmen Tumialan Lynas, Ph.D.

Advanced Therapeutic Solutions for Anxiety

I adhere to the gold-standard treatment for selective mutism, which includes behavioral treatment in the clinic, school, and home settings. I use Parent-Child Interaction Therapy Adapted for Selective Mutism (PCIT-SM) as my main intervention, folding in behavioral strategies such as stimulus fading, contingent reinforcement, verbal shaping, and hierarchical exposure therapy.

When you see your child not talking or engaging with their friends or in their classroom, it’s such an awful, heartbreaking feeling. Of course you jump in to help your child, but it can also feel overwhelming when it seems like everything you do is not helping and possibly making the matter worse, especially the older your child gets and friendship groups start to solidify, leaving them out. But thankfully, there IS something you can do. Over the last 15 years in this field, I have seen children like yours blossom into fully functioning (and impressive!) adults. So please stay hopeful! Get treatment now for your child. If you feel like you have, and it's failed, keep reading to see if my approach is the right fit for your child.

My goal is not just to treat your child, but to support the adults in your child’s life so that their environment continues to reinforce beneficial behaviors (verbal behaviors) while fading out what is not adaptive (mutism). Therefore, parent training is a large part of my treatment approach. To enhance parent training, I use video clips of your sessions to provide more effective feedback to you on what to do / what not to do, and then you can use those clips in the same way to teach other family members. This maximizes the value of your sessions and enhances learning and progress within the family. My goal is to empower you and help you realize the power you have as agents of change for your child.

Not only is parent training a large part of treatment with me, but school is equally important. I find it less effective to treat a child with SM if I can’t go into their school. Therefore, you can expect school observations, school team meetings, and school goals as part of treatment to maximize treatment gains. If you believe it may be challenging to do that with your child’s school, know that over the last 15 years, my team and I have developed a successful track record of working collaboratively with schools, even if at first they were hesitant. We want schools to be cautious and not just let anyone in, right? So we understand and support schools doing their due diligence and are happy to provide more information and answer their questions.

Treatment typically starts in the clinic; however, sometimes children warm up with more ease in their home setting, in which case I would begin my work with your child in your home. After your child develops a verbal relationship with me, then we can leave the confines of the clinic (or home) and go out into the school and community settings to help generalize speaking behaviors across settings.

If you're outside Illinois, I am PSYPACT credentialed, meaning I can provide teletherapy and travel for embedded intensives in 42 states (and growing). This includes working with your child in their school, alongside teachers, to model verbal interaction strategies that make a real difference. To see if your state is a PSYPACT state, visit the PSYPACT map here: https://psypact.gov/mpage/psypactmap

I understand that private, out-of-network care is an investment. But the cost of ineffective treatment—or no treatment—is far greater in the long run. My goal is to empower your child to find their voice, gain confidence, and thrive into adulthood.

Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, I strive to understand your child, get into their world so they don’t feel alone, hold the anxiety with them, look at it from all different angles, and work on using their brave together.

More about Dr. Lynas:

Dr. Lynas received her Ph.D. from Palo Alto University, completed her internship at Northwestern University Medical School, and her postdoc at Shared Vision Psychological Services. She specializes in anxiety, OCD, & related conditions. She founded Adventure Camp Intensive Treatment for Selective Mutism in 2011 and is a Certified Trainer & Therapist in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy adapted for Selective Mutism (PCIT-SM). Dr. Lynas provides outpatient treatment, in-service trainings, outreach to schools, professional consultation, supervision of doctoral students, and continues to run both Adventure Camp and Winter Adventure Camp.

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of it.” – Mark Twain

Carmen M. Tumialán Lynas, Ph.D.

Advanced Therapeutic Solutions

600 W 22nd Street, Suite 250

Oak Brook, IL 60523

630-230-6505

630-230-3362 Fax

DrLynas@AdvancedTherapeuticSolutions.org

www.AdvancedTherapeuticSolutions.org