Anxiety Expert to Offer Advice to Rockwood Parents

Rockwood School District parents and students have the opportunity to discuss with an expert on April 19 how to handle anxiety issues that accompany worries about school achievement. In general, achievement anxiety is termed as a fear of failure. It often occurs when students get overly self-conscious about academic performance.

area residents are invited to attend the April coffee at 7 p.m. at Professional Development Room, 4525 Highway 109 in Eureka, with C. Alec Pollard, Ph.D., director of the Anxiety Disorders Center of the Saint Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute and professor of Community and Family Medicine at Saint Louis University.

Understanding the causes and symptoms of achievement anxiety can help students avoid it or at least better control it.

Pollard's clinical interests include panic disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, phobias, and other anxiety disorders. She is vice chair of the Clinical Advisory Board for the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. She also is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation.

Pollard's undergraduate degree was from the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS, while her graduate's degree was completed at the California School of Professional Psychology in San Diego, CA. She finished two internships in San Diego; one at Mesa Vista Hospital and the Linda Vista Healthcare Center. Her fellowship was done at the Temple University Health Sciences Center in Philadelphia, PA.