People who are affected by multiple types of emotional difficulties often have these things in common:
- They feel emotions strongly.
- They’re distressed by their intense emotional experiences.
- They often try to avoid experiencing them.
Although avoiding the strong feelings of emotional experiences may feel helpful in the moment, in the long run it can contribute to a vicious cycle: The effort to bury the uncomfortable feelings becomes so heavy that they don’t have capacity to do the things they want to do, like spending time with friends or creating art. Others may find themselves struggling to keep up with work, school or relationships.
Some of the more common emotional difficulties that can feed this cycle are:
- Anxiety in social situations.
- Experiencing panic attacks.
- Feeling generally worried about things.
- Experiencing a low or depressed mood.
- Having thoughts that feel out of control.
- Compulsively doing things.
- Doing things impulsively and later regretting those actions.
If you find yourself struggling in any of the above areas, you would likely benefit from therapy with the Unified Protocol (UP). The UP was designed to treat the common underlying factors of many emotional difficulties by targeting avoidance of uncomfortable emotions through a multi-step method. It’s a course of group therapy that has been shown to reduce symptoms of emotional disorders significantly: People who go through it should be equipped to walk away after the group with strong skills for facing uncomfortable emotions moving forward.
In a group setting, the UP enriches lives by allowing people with seemingly different concerns to relate to each other and help each other by opposing avoidance. This evidence-based treatment is cognitive behavioral, goal-directed, present-day focused, and time-limited.
The UP group at the Center for Evidence Based Treatment (CEBT) meets online weekly, and includes skill learning, progress review and group support for all members striving toward their mental health goals. If you believe the UP group might be helpful to you, please check out the details on the CEBT website and let us know if you’re interested.
NOV
About the Author:
Yehudis Keller, MA, is a clinical psychology doctoral student at Case Western Reserve University. With clinical experience and training in the Unified Protocol for Adults and Adolescents, she is a member of CEBT's psychology training program. She earned bachelor’s degree in psychology and master’s in experimental psychology at Brooklyn College, and recently her master’s in psychology at CWRU.