Brief Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety and Depression in Youth: Therapist Guide
Abstract
Taken together, anxiety and depression are the most common mental health problems across the lifespan, with most adults dating the onset of their struggles to childhood and adolescence. The Brief Behavioral Therapy (BBT) program for youth is a transdiagnostic intervention for anxiety and depression designed to efficiently treat the cluster of internalizing symptoms most commonly seen in childhood and adolescence: feeling stressed, sad, bad, nervous, worried, moody, irritable, or scared. BBT works by targeting core processes implicated in both anxiety and depression. In BBT, youth learn to reduce their avoidance of situations that produce negative feelings and increase their approach toward and engagement with sources of reward and meaning. Of note, the BBT model eliminates cognitive restructuring, a central ingredient in cognitive-behavioral therapies for depression and anxiety. BBT is intended to be briefer and less complex to learn and to teach as compared to alternate transdiagnostic and disorder-specific interventions for pediatric anxiety and depression. This volume is the Therapist Guide, designed to be used in combination with the BBT Workbook for youth and families. Each session in this guide builds on skills taught in the previous session, and each session has matching material in the Workbook. The Therapist Guide also includes supplemental material for working with less common clinical situations and therapist reflection exercises designed to mimic the supervision style of research studies using BBT. Overall, the BBT program has been found to significantly reduce symptoms and improve functioning in daily life for youths with anxiety and depression.
Keywords:
anxiety,
depression,
internalizing,
primary care,
youth,
pediatric,
transdiagnostic,
treatment,
behavior therapy,
mental health
Bibliographic Information
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- Print Publication Date:
- Oct 2021
- Print ISBN-13:
- 9780197541470
- Published online:
- Sep 2021
- DOI:
- 10.1093/med-psych/9780197541470.001.0001
Authors
V. Robin Weersing,
author
Director, Child and Adolescent Anxiety and Mood Program (ChAAMP) and Professor, San Diego State University; SDSU / UC San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology
Araceli Gonzalez,
author
Associate Professor, Dept. of Psychology, California State University, Long Beach
Michelle Rozenman,
author
Director, Behavioral Research for Anxiety interVention Efficiency (BRAVE) Lab and Professor, Dept. of Psychology, University of Denver
