抄録
Cognitive behavioral therapies are now considered the treatment of choice for a wide variety of emotional disorders. Despite the increasing utilization of these techniques, the majority of practicing clinicians are unfamiliar with cognitive behavioral treatments. Some have concluded that complex manualized protocols have discouraged dissemination and effective training. Yet, as research on the etiology and nature of emotional disorders progresses, it is becoming clear that the various emotional disorders may actually emerge from similar latent structures or processes. This new understanding suggests the possibility of extracting a set of psychological principles that could be integrated into a single, cohesive treatment protocol and applied to any emotional disorder. Based on emerging data and theory from learning, emotional development and regulation, and cognitive science, three principles have been identified that may be fundamental to the treatment of emotional disorders. These include (a) altering antecedent cognitive reappraisals; (b) preventing emotional avoidance; and (c) modifying action tendencies. Data from the clinical application of the protocol will be presented for an adult population. In addition, the evolution and initial usage of an adaptation of the treatment of emotional disorders in adolescents will be reviewed. Although still in the early stages of development, this unified approach may represent a more efficient, and possibly more efficacious, way to ameliorate overlapping emotional disorder symptomatology (comorbidity) ; in addition to facilitating effective dissemination of empirically supported treatments to practicing clinicians.
