Parental Emotion Regulation Strategy Use and Responses to Youth Negative Affect

Parental responses to youth negative affect have been associated with social and emotional outcomes in youth. However, the association between such parenting behaviors and essential components of youth emotion regulation is not well studied, especially in youth with anxiety and depressive disorders. This investigation examined the influence of parents' emotion regulation strategies and their responses to youth negative affect on adolescent-reported emotional awareness and emotional expression in a clinical sample of youth with anxiety disorders. In addition, this study examined the relationship between parent-reported use of emotion regulation strategies and parental reactions to youth negative affect. Questionnaires were completed by 67 adolescents (ages 12-18 years) and by one of their parents during an intake assessment at a university-based clinic. Adolescents had a primary anxiety or depressive disorder diagnosis. Results indicated a positive relationship between parent-reported use of suppression and youth report of poor emotional understanding in adolescents with a primary anxiety or depressive disorder. A positive relationship between parent-reported use of reappraisal and emotion-coaching responses to youth negative affect was also found. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed in the context of parental socialization of youth emotion regulation and in terms of prevention and intervention efforts

Treatment of Childhood Anxiety in the Context of Limited Cognitive Functioning

Children with intellectual disabilities (ID) may be more susceptible to developing anxiety disorders than those without ID; however, research on the phenomenology, diagnosis, and treatment of anxiety disorders in this population is scarce. This chapter reviews the available literature on this topic in children with mild to moderate ID. A case study showcases considerations needed when conceptualizing and treating anxiety disorders in children with ID

Emotion regulation interventions and childhood depression

In this chapter, we address the ways in which ineffective emotion regulation may contribute to depression and comorbid emotional disorders in youth by interfering with effective self-regulation, and how new transdiagnostic treatments, such as the Unified Protocol for the Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Adolescence (UP-A; Ehrenreich et al., 2008), target these failures of self-regulation directly and indirectly via the UP-A's focus on increasing adaptive emotion regulation. Deficits in emotion regulation and self-regulation in emotional disorders, and both observed and hypothesized changes in these processes over the course of treatment, are illustrated through a case scenario. We also discuss preliminary evidence for the efficacy of the UP-A and future directions for applying theories of emotion regulation and self-regulation to treatment development and refinement of the Unified Protocol models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved

An initial waitlist-controlled trial of the unified protocol for the treatment of emotional disorders in adolescents

•Conducted a randomized waitlist-controlled trial of the UP-A in 51 adolescents.•UP-A outperformed WL condition at mid-treatment on clinician-rated severity.•UP-A outperformed WL at post-treatment on clinician, parent, and self-report measures.•Within-subjects analyses from all adolescents showed improvement on all measures.•Improvements continued through the follow-up period but occurred more slowly. A substantial proportion of adolescents are non-responders to well-established treatments for anxiety and depression, and many existent approaches do not adequately address comorbidity. There is a need to develop and evaluate unified treatments for adolescents that flexibly address higher order factors shared among internalizing or emotional disorders. The Unified Protocol for the Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Adolescents (UP-A) is a transdiagnostic treatment that targets shared vulnerability and maintenance factors in a flexible format. This study examined initial outcomes of a randomized, waitlist-controlled trial of the UP-A. The UP-A outperformed waitlist at mid-treatment with respect to disorder severity and functional impairment, and there was a significant treatment effect in favor of the UP-A on all outcome measures at post-treatment. Within-subjects analyses collapsing across participants revealed significant improvements on outcome measures over time. Results support further study of the UP-A and its potential efficacy in treating adolescent anxiety and depression