Dr. Ehrenreich-May is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Assistant Department Chair for Academic Affairs and Research at the University of Miami and the title of her talk is
Transdiagnostic Treatments for Emotional Disorders: One Pathway for Getting "What Works" to More Children and Families
Emotional disorders, including anxiety and depression, are highly prevalent in children and adolescents, commonly comorbid with one another, and yield impairments in functioning over time that create a significant public health burden. Unfortunately, clinicians face several barriers to treating these problems in youth. One of the biggest barriers is the common practice of treating these disorders one-by-one, each with a different treatment manual. Here, it is proposed that clinicians can utilize a transdiagnostic approach to treat these youth (i.e., an approach that cuts across disorders and treats them simultaneously). This address will provide an overview of approaches clinical scientists have taken to the transdiagnostic or multi-diagnostic treatment of youth with emotional disorders, as well as current research on one such approach, the Unified Protocols for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Children and Adolescents (UP-C and UP-A). Although promising and efficacious for use in specialty treatment and private practice settings, current findings highlight the need for personalization, abbreviation, and other strategies to streamline this approach. The challenge for the research that lies ahead is to understand the circumstances in which UP-C and UP-A work, and for whom an under what conditions, they work.