Unified Protocol For Transdiagnostic Treatment Of Emotional Disorders In Children: Workbook

The Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Children and Adolescents 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 and frequently

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 workbook and therapist guide (Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Adolescents: Workbook; Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Children and Adolescents: Therapist Guide) as well as this workbook.

• 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).