
Dr. Pamela Wilansky-Traynor, Ph. D., C. Psych., is the Clinical Manager, Professional Practice Leader, and Internship Director for Psychology at Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences (Ontario Shores). In addition to her positions at Ontario Shores, Dr. Wilansky-Traynor is a Lecturer at the University of Toronto. She has been involved in work funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, as well as personal donations made to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Hospital for Sick Children. Her current research collaborations include a project entitled “Implementing a Cognitive Behavioural Skills Program for Anxious and/or Depressed Adolescents in Durham Region: A Knowledge Translation Project” which seeks to adapt evidence-based cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) programs to services dealing with adolescents with depression in the Durham Region (starting with service providers at Ontario Shores). Additionally, she is collaborating on a meta-analysis entitled “Does Age Moderate Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Treatment Effect in Child and Adolescent Anxiety?: Results from an Individual Patient Data Meta-Analysis”, which examines whether age moderates CBT effect size via interaction of age and effect of CBT exposure (funded through The Provincial Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health at CHEO). Some recently completed projects are a randomized controlled trial of school-based CBT for anxious and depressed children, a comparison of CBT for youth with depression with and without parental involvement, and a pilot project adapting Supportive Expressive Therapy for adolescents with depression and anxiety. Dr. Wilansky-Traynor has co-authored several training manuals for professionals and workbooks for treating children and adolescents with CBT.
Current Research Projects:
Title: Implementing a Cognitive Behavioural Skills Program for Anxious and/or Depressed Adolescents in Durham Region: A Knowledge Translation Project
Investigators and Collaborators: Dr. K. Manassis, Dr. K. Bennett
Funding: Private Donation to the Dept. of Psychiatry, Hospital for Sick Children
Title: Does Age Moderate Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Treatment Effect in Child and Adolescent Anxiety? Results from an Individual Patient Data Meta-analysis
Investigators and Collaborators: Kathryn Bennett, Katharina Manassis, Stephen Walter, Amy Cheung, Natalia Diaz-Granados, Stephanie Duda, Susan Baer, Paula Barrett, Deborah Beidel, Denise Bodden, Vanessa Cobham, Mark Dadds, Ellen Flannery-Schroeder, Golda Ginsburg, David Heyne, Jennifer Hudson, Phil Kendall , Juliette Liber, Carrie Masia-Warner, Sandra Mendlowitz, Maaike Nauta. Ron Rapee, Lynne Siqueland, Wendy Silverman, Sue Spence, Jeff Wood
Funding: CIHR grant to Dr. Bennett as PI
Title: Supportive Expressive Therapy for Depressed and Anxious Adolescents
Investigators and Collaborators: Diane Warling
Title: Assessment of Child and Adolescent Anxiety and Depression
Investigators and Collaborators: Diane Warling
Recent Publications:
Manassis, K., Wilansky-Traynor, P., Farzan, N., Kleiman, V., Parker, K., & Sanford, M. (In Press). The feelings club: A randomized controlled trial of school-based intervention for anxious and depressed children. Depression and Anxiety.
Nobel, R., Manassis, K., & Wilansky-Traynor, P. (In Press). The role of perfectionism in relation to an intervention to reduce anxious and depressive symptoms in children. Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive Behavior Therapy.
Wilansky-Traynor, P., Manassis, K., Kleiman, V., Monga, S., Shaw, M., & Merka, P. (2010). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for depressed youth: Predictors of attendance in a pilot study. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 19(2), 81-87.
Wilansky-Traynor, P., & Lobel, T. (2008). Differential effects of an adult observer's presence on sex-typed play behavior: A comparison between gender-schematic and gender-aschematic preschool children. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 37(4), 548-557.