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.

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The purpose of this study was to develop and standardize the Anger Self-Statements Questionnaire (ASSQ) designed to measure self-statements in interpersonal situations which may cause anger arousal. A factor analysis extracted five factors of anger self-statements: "injustice by others" (Factor 1); "hostile thoughts" (Factor 2); "justification for revenge" (Factor 3); "self-condemnation" (Factor 4); and "blaming others" (Factor 5). Cronbach's alpha coefficients demonstrated high reliability for each subscale and the ASSQ total. Concur-rent validities of the subscales and the ASSQ total were confirmed based on the correlations of these scales and other relevant scales. To test the construct validity of the ASSQ, an experiment was carried out to investigate if the ASSQ total score would increase when participants are exposed to anger arousing imaginary situations. The results showed that the scores on the ASSQ and the State-Anger Scale increased significantly from the pretest to the posttest. The ASSQ may therefore be used as a reliable and valid assessment tool in cognitive behavior therapy especially focused on cognitive aspects of anger.

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The purposes of this study were to develop the Children's Self-Statement Scale (CSSS) and to investigate the relationship between self-statements and anxiety symptoms in children. In study I, the items of the CSSS were developed by using open-ended questions. As a result of factor analysis of data obtained from 693 elementary school students, it was revealed that the CSSS has 40 items with two factors: "positive self-statements" and "negative self-statements." Reliabilities of the scale using the test-retest method and Cronbach's alpha coefficient were high. The concurrent validity of the CSSS was also demonstrated. In study II, 546 elementary school students were asked to complete the CSSS and the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS). As results of regression analysis, all factors of the SCAS correlated positively with the "negative self-statement" subscale. Results of MANOVAs suggested that the "positive monologue group," defined by using the State of Mind (SOM) ratio, had significantly lower SCAS scores than those of other groups. Therefore, the results of this study suggested that interventions on self-statements would be necessary for children with anxiety disorders.

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This study investigated differences in the cognition of contingency by depression tendency. A total of 393 healthy college students were screened for depression, and 24 students were selected for each of the following two groups: highly-depressed and slightly-depressed. In this experiment, the participants evaluated the contingency between an action (occurrence of button pressing) and its result (occurrence of light being illuminated). Our results revealed that the depressive realism theory and the illusion of control phenomenon were observed only in the non-contingent situation. (1) In the non-contingent situation, which is more difficult to evaluate, there was a significant inaccuracy for the slightly-depressed subjects compared with the highly-depressed subjects. (2) In the contingent situation, which is easier to evaluate, there was no difference in judgment accuracy between the groups. (3) The slightly-depressed subjects did not think much of the baseline information compared with the highly-depressed subjects.

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The present study reports the development of the cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) program for a child with anxiety symptoms, and the results of the CBT intervention. The purpose of the CBT program was to improve anxiety symptoms by restructuring the child's cognitive errors. The CBT program had 8 sessions: 1) education about psychological problems, 2) descriptions of the emotions, 3) introduction of the cognitions, 4) 5) cognitive restructing, 6) listing of anxiety situations, and 7)8) exposure. The characteristics of the CBT program were relating assessment to the intervention based on the measurement and improvement of the child's cognitive errors. The patient was a 14 year-old boy with anxiety symptoms. The result of the CBT program was that the child's anxiety symptoms and cognitive errors improved not only at the end of the CBT program but also at the 1 and 2 month follow-ups. It should be noted that the improvement of the child's cognitive errors preceded the improvement of the anxiety symptoms. Therefore, it was suggested that the anxious child's cognitions affect anxiety symptoms and modifications of cognitions are necessary for the improvement of anxiety symptoms.

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