This online patient workbook is a radical departure from disorder-specific treatments of various emotional disorders, and is designed to be applicable to all anxiety and unipolar mood disorders, as well as other disorders with strong emotional components, such as many somatoform and dissociative disorders. It covers the Unified Protocol (UP), which capitalizes on the contributions made by cognitive-behavioral theorists by distilling and incorporating the common principles of CBT present in all evidenced based protocols for specific emotional disorders, as well as drawing on the field of emotion science for insights into deficits in emotion regulation. It discusses the seven modules of UP, and focuses on four core strategies: becoming mindfully aware of emotional experience; reappraising rigid emotion laden attributions; identifying and preventing behavioral and emotional avoidance; and facilitating exposure to both interoceptive and situational cues associated with emotional experiences.
Background Clinically elevated anxiety is a common, impairing feature of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A modular CBT program designed for preteens with ASD, Behavioral Interventions for Anxiety in Children with Autism (BIACA; Wood et al., 2009), was enhanced and modified to address the developmental needs of early adolescents with ASD and clinical anxiety. Method Thirty-three adolescents (11–15 years old) were randomly assigned to 16 sessions of CBT or an equivalent waitlist period. The CBT model emphasized exposure, challenging irrational beliefs, and behavioral supports provided by caregivers, as well as numerous ASD-specific treatment elements. Independent evaluators, parents, and adolescents rated symptom severity at baseline and post-treatment/post-waitlist. Results In intent-to-treat analyses, the CBT group outperformed the waitlist group on independent evaluators’ ratings of anxiety severity on the Pediatric Anxiety Rating Scale (PARS) and 79% of the CBT group met Clinical Global Impressions-Improvement scale criteria for positive treatment response at posttreatment, as compared to only 28.6% of the waitlist group. Group differences were not found for diagnostic remission or questionnaire measures of anxiety. However, parent-report data indicated that there was a positive treatment effect of CBT on autism symptom severity. Conclusions The CBT manual under investigation, enhanced for early adolescents with ASD, yielded meaningful treatment effects on the primary outcome measure (PARS), although additional developmental modifications to the manual are likely warranted. Future studies examining this protocol relative to an active control are needed.
The therapy manuals included in this volume—the Unified Protocols for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Children (UP-C) and Adolescents (UP-A)—include evidence-based treatment strategies to assist child and adolescent clients to function better in their lives. The manuals include specific guidelines for treatment delivery, and they also contain information about how to introduce parent-directed strategies to help promote long-term uptake of youth-directed therapy skills. The evidence-based treatment skills presented may be applied by therapists to children and adolescents with a wide variety of emotional disorders. This treatment guide takes a transdiagnostic approach to the treatment of emotional disorders. Some of the disorders that may be targeted include anxiety disorders and depressive disorders. This treatment is flexible enough for use with some trauma and stress-related disorders (including adjustment disorders), somatic symptom disorders, tic disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorders. The transdiagnostic presentation of evidence-based intervention techniques within these treatments may be particularly useful for children and adolescents presenting with multiple emotional disorders or mixed/subclinical symptoms of several emotional disorders.
Chapter 1 discusses what emotional disorders are and how this program can be applied to their treatment (social anxiety disorder, depression, panic disorder (and agoraphobia), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and other anxiety, depressive, and related disorders such as anxiety focused on health (hypochondriasis) are all discussed, along with the treatment of several disorders at the same time.
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