This chapter covers generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, specific phobia, social anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, separation anxiety disorder, and selective mutism. Based on a review using the new criteria for empirically supported treatments, there is strong research support for: (a) exposure therapies for specific phobias, (b) cognitive and behavioral therapies for generalized anxiety disorder, (c) cognitive-behavioral therapy for panic disorder, and (d) cognitive-behavioral therapy for social anxiety disorder. The two primary components of treatment include exposure and addressing cognitive biases. Each of these components is broken down into additional parts. A sidebar also discusses acceptance and commitment therapy.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a neurobehavioral condition that can lead to functional impairment and decreased quality of life. In this chapter, clinical presentation, diagnostic considerations, and pathophysiology of OCD are reviewed. An overview of the theoretical models of OCD are provided, and evidence-based treatments for OCD, specifically cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with exposure and response prevention (ERP), pharmacotherapy, and neurosurgery, are discussed. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research directions.

Chapter 7 acknowledges that, despite the best planning for positive engagement, students will still exhibit disengaged and disruptive behaviours. It examines the research to discuss which behaviours are the most common and the most difficult to manage in a classroom environment. It makes the distinction between frequent disengaged behaviour and rare ‘challenging’ behaviour discussed in Chapters 9 and 10.

Building on previous chapters, this chapter also discusses the best ways to prevent disengaged behaviours through implementing consistent classroom routines, structures and expectations, including the explicit teaching of expected behaviour. Ongoing strategies such as social-emotional learning to build strong relationships, low-key techniques to remind and redirect behaviours, class meetings to support student voice and engaging lessons are explored.

In September 2008, the oldest investment bank on Wall Street, Lehman Brothers, declared bankruptcy. Immediately, the world’s financial system seized up. Hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of financial assets were frozen in place, the value of securities made uncertain, and the solvency of seemingly rock-solid financial institutions called into question. By the end of 2008, the United States’ economy was in freefall, shrinking at an annualized rate of 8%. Growth rates in other major industrialized economies also plummeted as well. The recession was so deep, and the recovery so labored that it took more than a decade for output to return to full employment levels. Figure 19.1 illustrates the situation rather dramatically.

In the early neoclassical era, the smooth adjustment of agents’ marginal utilities dampened the response of market prices to supply disturbances. But when agents do not make smooth trade-offs, they will tend consume goods in specific combinations, as in the model of safety bias. A negative shock to supplies can then send prices soaring, a common feature of energy markets for example. Postwar general equilibrium theory permits agents to be safety-biased but has dismissed these volatility scenarios on the grounds that they occur only at vanishingly unlikely output levels. The no-volatility conclusion fails to hold however once the production of goods is taken into account: the seemingly unlikely output levels arise systematically. Production on the other hand spells out countervailing forces that curb the most extreme cases of price volatility. Volatility is closely related to the indeterminacy of equilibria and the chapter critiques the claims of general equilibrium theorists that these phenomena are unlikely.