Dr. Muniya Khanna is a clinical psychologist specializing in CBT for anxiety disorders and OCD. She is Founder and Director of the OCD & Anxiety Institute in Pennsylvania and Research Scientist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Prior to this, Dr. Khanna held a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychiatry and Associate Director of the Child and Adolescent OCD, Tic, Trich, and Anxiety Group (“COTTAGe”).
Dr Khanna has been involved in some of the most important research in the field of child anxiety, including (1) the Pediatric OCD Treatment Study (JAMA; Franklin et al. 2011), (2) Family-based Treatment of Early Childhood OCD (JAMA; Freeman et al., 2014), and (3) the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Treatment Study (NEJM; Walkup et al., 2008) trials. She is currently conducting 2 large-scale clinical trials at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), funded by the NIMH, focused on the dissemination of evidence-based treatments for anxiety in urban and rural public schools.
Dr. Khanna is a pioneer in web-based mental health research and services for anxiety disorders. In partnership with her mentor, Dr. Philip Kendall, she developed and tested Camp Cope-A-Lot, one of the first empirically-supported computer-assisted treatment programs for anxious youth. More recently Drs. Khanna and Kendall developed, Child Anxiety Tales, an empirically-supported online parent-training program for parents of anxious youth, along with www.CopingCatParents.com, a free informational website for parents and professionals who work with anxious youth and their families.
She is author of numerous research articles, chapters, treatment manuals, and computer programs for the treatment of childhood anxiety disorders. She is co-author with Dr. Kendall of “The Resilience Recipe: A Parent's Guide for Raising Fearless Kids in the Age of Anxiety,” endorsed by Adam Grant, Judi Beck, and Steve Hayes, as the go-to book for parents on how to help children build confidence and resilience in today’s challenging world. She is also author of “The Worry Workbook,” a workbook full of activities and strategies to help kids 7-13 learn how to manage stress and worry.
Among her professional activities, she is on the review board of the Journal of Evidence-based Practice in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, has served on the Association of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies (ABCT) as Associate Editor of the journal Cognitive & Behavioral Practice, Program Chair, Chair of the CE committee, and as Leader of the Child Anxiety Special Interest Group of ABCT. Dr. Khanna has also previously served on the board of Division 53 Society for Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology of the APA as well as the APA Continuing Education Committee.
Dr. Khanna graduated with Honors in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Temple University, completed her pre-doctoral training at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, and her NIH-sponsored postdoctoral (T-32) fellowship at Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons.