clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01243606.

No abstract

The Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders: Workbook was developed to help people who are struggling with intense emotions like anxiety, sadness, anger, and guilt. A person may have an emotional disorder when his or her emotions are so overwhelming that they get in the way of moving forward in life. Although emotions affect our lives in different ways, there are three features that often occur across emotional disorders. These are (a) frequent, strong emotions; (b) negative reactions to emotions; and (c) avoidance of emotions. The goal of this workbook is to change the way that people with emotional disorders respond to their emotions when they occur. This treatment program is applicable to all anxiety and unipolar depressive disorders and potentially other disorders with strong emotional components. The strategies included in this treatment are largely based on common principles found in existing empirically supported psychological treatments.

We present a transdiagnostic definition of the commonly used, but poorly defined, term emotional disorder. This definition transcends and possibly complements traditional descriptive diagnostic categories, and candidate dimensional models of psychopathology by focusing on putative mechanisms that contribute to the onset and maintenance of disorders characterized primarily by dysfunction in the interpretation and regulation of emotion. We review three intermediate transdiagnostic mechanisms that characterize emotional disorders, such as, but not limited to, anxiety and depressive disorders, and then illustrate how this proposed definition applies to additional diagnoses beyond anxiety and depression. Implications of this new conceptualization of disorders of emotion are then discussed in the context of assessment, treatment, and prevention.

The Unified Protocol (UP) for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders: Therapist Guide is a treatment programv applicable to all anxiety and unipolar depressive disorders and potentially other disorders with strong emotional components (e.g., eating disorders, borderline personality disorder). The UP for the Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders addresses neuroticism by targeting the aversive, avoidant reactions to emotions that, while providing relief in the short term, increase the likelihood of future negative emotions and maintains disorder symptoms. The strategies included in this treatment are largely based on common principles found in existing empirically supported psychological treatments—namely, fostering mindful emotion awareness, reevaluating automatic cognitive appraisals, changing action tendencies associated with the disordered emotions, and utilizing emotion exposure procedures. The focus of these core skills has been adjusted to specifically address core negative responses to emotional experiences.