Category: Transdiagnostic
Strunk, D. R., DeRubeis, R. J., Chiu, A. W., & Alvarez, J. (2007). Patients’ competence in and performance of cognitive therapy skills: Relation to the reduction of relapse risk following treatment for depression. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 75(4), 523–530. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.75.4.523
, Valentine, S. E., Bankoff, S. M., Poulin, R. M., Reidler, & Pantalone, D. W. (2015). The use of dialectical behavior therapy skills training as a stand-alone treatment: A systematic review of the treatment outcome literature. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 71(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.22114, Southward, M. W., Terrill, D. R., & Sauer-Zavala, S. (2022). The effects of the Unified Protocol and Unified Protocol skills on loneliness in the COVID-19 pandemic. Depression and Anxiety, 39(12), 913–921. https://doi.org/10.1002/DA.23297,Gumport, N. B., Dolsen, M. R., & Harvey, A. G. (2019). Usefulness and Utilization of Treatment Elements from the Transdiagnostic Sleep and Circadian Intervention with Adolescents with an Evening Circadian Preference. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 123, 103504. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2019.103504
Nicole Gumport, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Postdoctoral Fellow
Stanford University
Stanford, California
Laurel D. Sarfan, PhD
Postdoctoral scholar
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Daniel Strunk, Ph.D. (he/him/his)
Professor of Psychology
The Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio
Matthew Southward, Ph.D. (he/him/his)
Research Assistant Professor
University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky
Nicole Gumport, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Postdoctoral Fellow
Stanford University
Stanford, California
Allison Ruork, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Postdoctoral Associate
Rutgers University
Piscataway, New Jersey
Anastassia Cafatti, B.S. (she/her/hers)
Florida International University
Miami, Florida
Laurel D. Sarfan, PhD
Postdoctoral scholar
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California
For many clients, cognitive behavioral treatments reduce symptoms of mental illness and enhance well-being. However, there is room for improvement. When looking across clinical trials, many patients relapse or never respond to treatment (e.g., Cuijpers et al., 2021; Springer et al., 2018; Steinert et al., 2014). One path to boosting treatment outcomes that is gaining theoretical and empirical support is helping clients build a toolkit of treatment skills (e.g., Hundt et al., 2015; Linehan, 2015; Manber et al., 2014; Valentine et al., 2014). Indeed, a central goal of many cognitive behavioral treatments is to equip clients with skills, thereby empowering them to “take over as therapist” and continue healing long after treatment ends (Resick et al., 2013, p. 190).
To this end, our symposium features five presentations of innovative studies on predictors and outcomes of cognitive behavioral skills. Importantly, the skills highlighted in each talk are “transdiagnostic,” meaning that they could be used by clients with a wide range of diagnoses and thus may have broad clinical applicability (Barlow et al., 2004; Fairburn et al., 2003; Harvey et al., 2004). The first speaker will present data from a trial of the Unified Protocol testing (a) whether clients’ skillfulness predicts aversive reactivity to emotions and vice versa and (b) whether skillfulness or aversive reactivity predict session-to-session changes in anxiety and depression outcomes. The second speaker will share findings from two trials of the Transdiagnostic Intervention for Sleep and Circadian Dysfunction (TranS-C) with different populations (i.e., adolescents and adults with serious mental illness). For both populations, participants’ ratings of TranS-C skills will be presented, as well as the extent to which TranS-C skills predict key sleep and circadian and psychiatric outcomes. The third speaker will report on the relationship between Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) coaching calls and change in DBT skills and life-threatening behaviors. The fourth speaker will present data on whether caregivers' homework adherence to internet-delivered Parent-Child Interaction Therapy predicts caregiver skills and children's internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. The fifth speaker will share findings that strategies designed to boost patient memory for the contents of treatment predict improved outcomes to Cognitive Therapy (CT) through boosting client adherence during treatment and CT skill utilization and competence after treatment ends. The discussant, a leader in research on skills and cognitive behavioral treatments, will synthesize these collective findings, comment on their applicability to clinical practice, and discuss cutting-edge directions for future research.
