Up-regulating positive affectivity in the transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders: a case series

Abstract

A growing body of research on transdiagnostic cognitive-behavior therapy protocols for emotional disorders (depression and anxiety disorders) has emerged in recent years, showing that these protocols can be as effective as well-established disorder-specific psychotherapy. Negative affect and positive affect are two higher-order dimensions that play an important role in emotional disorders. A common denominator among transdiagnostic treatment protocols for emotional disorders is that they mainly target negative affectivity, but the inclusion in these protocols of treatment components that more directly address the regulation of positive affectivity has not yet received empirical attention. We have developed a transdiagnostic protocol for emotional disorders that incorporates, as an innovative feature, a specific treatment component to more directly up-regulate positive affectivity. The protocol has been developed in both face-to-face and Internet-based formats. In this study, we present data from a clinical sample of eleven patients with different emotional disorders who received this transdiagnostic treatment protocol delivered in a blended format (face-to-face therapy plus online therapy). Results showed that the protocol was effective for the treatment of a variety of emotional disorders, with overall large effect sizes for positive and negative affectivity, and other measures such as depression, anxiety sensitivity, quality of life and two higher-order personality dimensions (neuroticism and extraversion) at post-treatment. Moreover, the treatment gains were maintained at the 3-month follow-up. Data on the acceptance of the intervention by participants are also presented. The results obtained in this study suggest the importance of including treatment components to up-regulate positive affectivity, in addition to down-regulating negative affectivity, in current and future research on transdiagnostic treatments for emotional disorders.