Browsing by Subject "Ahdistuneisuus"

Several recent studies have suggested that the commonalities between mental disorders outweigh their differences. A transdiagnostic approach has been proposed, which refers to a point of view that exceeds current psychiatric classifications, focusing instead on the shared properties of mental disorders. In this literature review, a brief overlook of the literature on transdiagnostic therapy in the treatment of anxiety disorders is presented, focusing especially on one transdiagnostic therapy, the Unified Protocol (UP) by David Barlow et al. (2011). The UP is an emotion-based, transdiagnostic cognitive-behavioral therapy and it is one of the most studied transdiagnostic therapies to date. So far, several studies preliminarily support the use of the UP in the treatment of anxiety disorders. However, little research has been done on this topic and the existing studies are modest in quality, and therefore strong conclusions should not be drawn yet. Further research that is methodologically more sound, with bigger sample sizes and longer follow-ups needs to be done. In the future, it is especially important to compare the UP with a diagnosis-specific therapy, so that its efficacy can be evaluated more competently. If the UP turns out to be as efficacious as the diagnosis-specific interventions already in use, but in addition offers significant practical advantages, the wide use of UP should be seriously considered. In the future, it might be beneficial to move toward integrating both transdiagnostic and diagnosis-specific therapy methods in clinical practice, while taking into account the individuality of patients’ pathology.