Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders

Abstract

This online therapist guide 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 covers the seven modules of UP, and focuses on four core strategies to help patients: 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.

Culture and affect: the factor structure of the affective style questionnaire and its relation with depression and anxiety among Japanese

“…Interestingly, adjusting had a stronger negative association with anxiety. These results support the view that emotional awareness and emotion utilization play important roles in the treatment of anxiety disorders [13]. …”

“…One of the core aspects of adjusting is the utilization of emotion as important information in a given situation. Recently, emotion-focused transdiagnostic CBT [13] specifically educates patients about the functional importance of emotions and to increase their emotional awareness of their emotional experiences. The goal of Acceptance-and-Commitment Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and various types of Exposure Therapies are to develop the clients’ ability to tolerate distressing emotions [12, 15, 16].…”

The p Factor

“…These findings imply that the causes of different disorders may be similar, highlighting the potential value of a transdiagnostic approach to psychiatric disorders. The value of a transdiagnostic approach has been further underscored by evidence that different disorders often respond to the same treatments (Barlow et al, 2011). …”

Improving Care for Depression and Suicide Risk in Adolescents: Innovative Strategies for Bringing Treatments to Community Settings

“…One innovative example of this approach is the Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders (Barlow, 2011). This approach targets the broader dimension of negative emotionality, which encompasses both anxiety and depression.…”