Unified Protocol For Transdiagnostic Treatment Of Emotional Disorders In Children And Adolescents: Therapist Guide

The Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Children and Adolescents: Therapist Guide provides mental health professionals with a flexible, transdiagnostic framework for treating emotional disorders in young clients. Building on the principles established in the adult unified protocol (UP), this guide addresses the wide array of emotional disorders often seen in children and adolescents, including anxiety, depression, trauma, somatic symptom disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. By emphasizing common elements across these disorders—such as intense negative emotions, avoidance behaviors, and a propensity toward distress—this protocol equips therapists to treat not only individual diagnoses but also the underlying vulnerabilities that contribute to multiple or co-occurring conditions.

The Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Children and Adolescents comes in three volumes. This page is for the Therapist Guide. Click here for the UP-C Workbook (Children). Click here for the UP-A Workbook (Adolescents).

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Introduction

Chapter 1 – Core Module 1: Building and Keeping Motivation

Chapter 2 – Core Module 2: Getting to Know Your Emotions and Behaviors

Chapter 3 – Core Module 3: Introduction to Emotion-Focused Behavioral Experiments

Chapter 4 – Core Module 4: Awareness of Physical Sensations

Chapter 5 – Core Module 5: Being Flexible in Your Thinking

Chapter 6 – Core Module 6: Awareness of Emotional Experiences

Chapter 7 – Core Module 7: Situational Emotion Exposure

Chapter 8 – Core Module 8: Reviewing Accomplishments and Looking Ahead

Chapter 9 – Module-P: Parenting the Emotional Adolescent

Chapter 10 – Introduction to the Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Children (UP-C)—Structural and Pragmatic Considerations

Chapter 11 – UP-C Session 1: Introduction to the Unified Protocol—C Skill: Consider How I Feel

Chapter 12 – UP-C Session 2: Getting to Know Your Emotions—C Skill: Consider How I Feel

Chapter 13 – UP-C Session 3: Using Science Experiments to Change Emotions and Behavior—C Skill: Consider How I Feel

Chapter 14 – UP-C Session 4: Our Body Clues—C Skill: Consider How I Feel

Chapter 15 – UP-C Session 5: Look at My Thoughts—L Skill: Look at My Thoughts

Chapter 16 – UP-C Session 6: Use Detective Thinking—U Skill: Use Detective Thinking and Problem Solving

Chapter 17 – UP-C Session 7: Problem Solving and Conflict Management—U Skill: Use Detective Thinking and Problem Solving

Chapter 18 – UP-C Session 8: Awareness of Emotional Experiences—E Skill: Experience My Emotions

Chapter 19 – UP-C Session 9: Introduction to Emotion Exposure—E Skill: Experience My Emotions

Chapter 20 – UP-C Session 10: Facing Our Emotions Part 1—E Skill: Experience My Emotions

Chapter 21 – UP-C Sessions 11–14: Facing Our Emotions Part 2—E Skill: Experience My Emotions

Chapter 22 – UP-C Session 15: Wrap-up and Relapse Prevention—S Skill: Stay Healthy and Happy

Chapter 23 – UP-A Group and UP-C Individual Therapy Variations, Other Adaptations—Considerations for Adapting UP-A and UP-C for Different Populations

References

Front Matter

Introduction & Theoretical Background

The Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Children and Adolescents: Therapist Guide provides mental health professionals with a flexible, transdiagnostic framework for treating emotional disorders in young clients. Building on the principles established in the adult unified protocol, this guide addresses the wide array of emotional disorders often seen in children and adolescents, including anxiety, depression, trauma, somatic symptom disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. By emphasizing common elements across these disorders—such as intense negative emotions, avoidance behaviors, and a propensity toward distress—this protocol equips therapists to treat not only individual diagnoses but also the underlying vulnerabilities that contribute to multiple or co-occurring conditions.

Developed as part of the Treatments That Work™ series, this guide applies a spectrum-based approach that targets emotional dysfunctions without focusing on a single diagnostic category. Youth struggling with high levels of neuroticism, for example, tend to experience emotions like fear, sadness, and anger more intensely

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Therapist Guidance

Each Treatments That Work® title is published in multiple volumes:

  • Clients use the Workbooks, which contain elements of psychoeducation, skills development, self-assessment quizzes, homework exercises, and record forms.
  • Therapists use the Therapist Guides, which contain step-by-step instructions for teaching clients’ skills, overcoming common difficulties.

Although written for the client, the exercises in the workbook are intended to be carried out under the supervision of a mental health professional. The authors suggest that the most effective implementation of these exercises requires an understanding of the principles underlying the different procedures, and that mental health professionals should be familiar with the companion workbooks (Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Children: Workbook; Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Adolescents: Workbook) as well as this therapist guide. Therapists with an active subscription to a Psychology Tools ‘Complete’ plan are licensed to use Treatments That Work® titles, and to download and share

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References And Further Reading

  • Ammerman, R. T., Bellack, A. S., Van Hasselt, V. B., Ellard, K. K., Deckersbach, T., Sylvia, L. G., & Barlow, D. H. (2012). Transdiagnostic treatment of bipolar disorder and comorbid anxiety with the unified protocol. Behavior Modification, 36(4), 482–508. doi:10.1177/0145445512451272
  • Barlow, D. H., Farchione, T. J., Bullis, J. R., Gallagher, M. W., Murray-Latin, H., Sauer-Zavala, S., … Cassiello-Robbins, C. (2017). The Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders compared with diagnosis-specific protocols for anxiety disorders: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2017.2164
  • Bentley, K. H. (2017). Applying the unified protocol transdiagnostic treatment to nonsuicidal self-injury and co-occurring emotional disorders: A case illustration. Journal of Clinical Psychology. doi:10.1002/jclp.22452
  • Bentley, K. H., Nock, M., Sauer-Zavala, S., Gorman, B., & Barlow, D. H. (2017). A functional analysis of two transdiagnostic, emotion-focused interventions on nonsuicidal self-injury. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. doi:10.1037/ccp0000205
  • Bullis, J. R., Fortune, M. R., Farchione, T. J., & Barlow, D. H. (2014).

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