Using Research to help youth and families
Understanding Dynamics
The Unified Protocols for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Children and Adolescents (UP-C/UP-A), developed by Dr. Jill Ehrenreich-May and colleagues present the compelling idea that there may be a more efficient method of presenting effective strategies, such as those commonly used in cognitive behavior therapy and third-wave behavior therapies, in order to simultaneously address an array of emotional disorder concerns in children and adolescents. The child and adolescent Unified Protocols frame treatment strategies in the general language of strong or intense emotions and promote change through a common lens that can be flexibly adapted across youth emotional disorders, including anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorders and others, sub-threshold presentations of such or combinations of these problem areas. Specifically, the UP-C and UP-A help youth by allowing them to focus on a straightforward goal across emotional disorders: reducing intense negative emotion states by extinguishing the distress and anxiety these emotions produce through emotion-focused education, awareness techniques, cognitive strategies, problem-solving and an array of behavioral strategies, including a full-range of exposure and activation techniques.
Research-Backed support
The UP-C outperforms control conditions in reducing internalizing symptoms in youth
Two randomized control trials conducted by Kennedy and colleagues (2019) and Caiado and colleagues (2024) demonstrated the effectiveness of the UP-C in reducing internalizing symptoms.
There are many applications of the UP-C/A for various presenting concerns
There is emerging evidence for the effectiveness of the UP-C/A in treating primary irritability (Hawks et al., 2020), obsessive compulsive disorder (Shaw, Halliday, & Ehrenreich-May, 2021); post-traumatic stress disorder (Varkovitzky et al., 2017; O’Donnell et al., 2021), eating disorders (Thompson-Brenner et al., 2018; Eckhardt et al., 2020), borderline features (Sauer-Zavala, Bentley, & Wilner, 2016; Tonarely et al., 2021), misophonia (Lewin et al., 2021; Tonarely et al., 2022), anger and irritability in youth (Hawks, Kennedy, Holzman & Ehrenreich-May, 2020; Grossman & Ehrenreich-May, 2020), early onset serious mental illness (Weintraub et al., 2020), sexual minority stress (Seager van Dyk et al., 2024).
There are many adaptations of the UP-C/A for different treatment settings
Research has examined the success of the UP-C/A in various health care settings. There are adaptations of the UP-C/A for community clinics (Ehrenreich-May et al., 2025), residential and intensive outpatient settings (Kennedy et al., 2023), pediatric settings (Landoll et al., 2021) and residential care for maltreated youth (Dimitropolous et al. 2023).
The UP-C demonstrates advantages in reducing symptoms at follow-up evaluation compared to singular d
In a randomized control trial, Kennedy and colleagues (2019) randomly assigned 47 youth ages 7 to 13 to the UP-C or a sole anxiety-focused treatment. Results indicate differences in favor of UP-C with respect to treatment response at follow-up, depression symptoms, sadness dysregulation, and cognitive reappraisal.
High satisfaction with UP-C/A
Numerous studies indicate that families report high satisfaction with the UP-C/A (Bilek & Ehrenreich-May, 2012; Fujisato et al., 2021; Caiado et al., 2022; 2024).