Managing Your Holiday Stress

Member Since 2004

Karen Cassiday, PhD, ADAA Past President's areas of interest are anxiety disorders in children and teens, social anxiety disorder, treatment-refractory OCD, and working with children and teens who suffer from both developmental concerns and anxiety disorders. Her research has focused on information processing in posttraumatic stress disorder and cognitive-behavioral treatment of anxiety disorders in children, teens, and adults.

Dr. Karen Cassiday is a lively, sought-after speaker and commentator on national media such as Nightline, The Today Show, Animal Planet, The Joy Behar Show, Huffington Post, public radio and many more. She is a TEDx speaker who shared her personal experience as a mother overcoming her own anxious perfectionism in the middle of Walt Disney World! She is the host of the Moms Without Worry radio show. She served as the President of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America and is the founder of the Anxiety Treatment Center of Greater Chicago, the longest-running clinic to first use modern exposure-based treatment for anxiety disorders in the Chicago region. She won the Anxiety and Depression Association of America’s prestigious Clinician of Distinction Award and is a Clinical Fellow. She is also a Diplomate and Founding Fellow of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy, served as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Chicago OCD Foundation/Beyond OCD, and has been listed on numerous Who’s Who lists.  She has published numerous scientific articles and articles on parenting and managing anxiety. Dr. Cassiday is dedicated to helping mothers overcome the cultural pressure to be perfect and to raise perfect kids. She enjoys using her expertise from over thirty years in the field to help families overcome the dilemmas of parenting in a high-stress digital world. Her goal is to help all mothers embrace the messy hilarity of parenting with unshakable self-confidence so they can raise kids who thrive!

Dr. Cassiday and ADAA

"My graduate school advisor, Rich McNally, suggested ADAA would be a great place to join as a student so I could present my research and network with other like-minded people who were really interested in researching and treating anxiety disorders.”

“ADAA has given me many things I needed at different stages of my career that were either unavailable or hard to find.  Early in my career, I was often the only professional who knew about evidence-based therapies for anxiety and I needed a place to be with my own kind without having to explain myself and combat skepticism. Then I needed inspiration from the ideas of scientists and other clinicians so I could improve my clinical skills. ADAA also gave me a multi-disciplinary group that mirrored my daily work life and that felt great. I have really enjoyed the opportunity to share my knowledge by giving presentation. Lastly, ADAA has given me the opportunity to serve humankind in a bigger way by sharing my leadership skills on committees, the Board and as president.”

“I have depended on my ADAA colleagues throughout my career to give me inspiration, encouragement and mentoring for my clinical dilemmas and business dilemmas. The friendly non-competitive atmosphere has made it easy to call up anyone to get their advice. I don't believe that my patients and staff would have fared as well as they have had I not been very involved with ADAA."

Dr. Krystal M. Lewis received her Ph.D. from Virginia Tech, where she worked closely with Dr. Thomas Ollendick at the Child Study Center. She has experience providing one-session treatments to children with Specific Phobias and extensive experience assessing and treating pediatric populations with anxiety and depression. Dr. Lewis completed her pre-doctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and a two-year services fellowship at the Urban Youth Trauma Center at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her clinical interests include pediatric anxiety, stress, and mood disorders. Currently, Dr. Lewis is a licensed Clinical Psychologist with the Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience (SDAN) at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

She has a small private practice and also conducts psychoeducational testing with children and adolescents. SDAN seeks to understand how information processing in the brain differs among children, adolescents, and adults with anxiety and depression across the lifespan. Dr. Lewis specializes in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and has interest in identifying the mechanisms of change in psychological treatment for pediatric anxiety, specifically CBT. Self-efficacy is an identified mechanism of therapeutic change and important target in CBT and Dr. Lewis has interest in further exploring the role of self-efficacy in exposure work with youth. In addition, she has a particular interest in minority mental health and is working towards increasing representation within research trials and clinical treatment by becoming more involved with diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at NIH. Dr. Lewis has conducted many media interviews and has given numerous community talks in an effort to highlight the important of mental health and share evidence-based practices.

Dr. Lewis has been a member of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) for over 10 years. She has participated in the Career Development Leadership Program as an awardee, mentor, and now Co-Chair and is an ADAA Clinical Fellow. She received the Emerging Leader Award from ADAA in 2019 and initially joined the board as the early career professionals representative. She has held several leadership positions with ADAA and is invested in bridging research findings and clinical practice to improve diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of individuals with anxiety and depressive disorders. With her continued tenure on the board, Dr. Lewis will focus on developing the Diversity Membership Scholarship program and has plans to start the first podcast for ADAA focused on highlighting ADAA researchers and clinicians and disseminating scientific and clinical insights for the public.

“It is an honor and privilege to continue my tenue on the ADAA Board- I look forward to working closely with colleagues and membership to develop innovative ways to increase our reach and promote scientific findings and clinical application for the public as well as working towards reducing the burden of anxiety and depression disorders."

Tynessa Franks, PhD, earned her doctorate in psychology at the University of Virginia and has worked at VA hospitals in Atlanta, GA and Orlando, FL. Most recently, she has pursued a passion for helping people who have problematic social anxiety with the creation of Bashful & Bright where she aims to make evidence-based treatment strategies for social anxiety more widely available through weekly YouTube videos, group therapy services, and an online program.