Emotion Regulation and the Effects of School-based Group Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Youth

• Main Author: Keller, Marisa F
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01.01.2016
• Subjects: Clinical psychology; Cognitive psychology
• ISBN: 0355127059; 9780355127058

Most youth with mental health issues demonstrate a complex presentation that spans multiple diagnoses. Nevertheless, the majority of research on evidence based interventions for children and adolescents focuses on single disorders. Furthermore, many youth receive mental health services through the school system, yet limited research explores the effectiveness of school-based interventions for children with comorbidity. Transdiagnostic constructs are core underlying mechanisms that transcend diagnostic categories and streamline interventions. Emotion regulation is a key transdiagnostic construct that is relevant to wide range of disorders in youth. This study is a single group pretest-posttest design with multiple measures. The project examines the effect of school-based cognitive behavior therapy for youth on emotion regulation and internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Participants were recruited from an ongoing clinical service and include 5th to 12th grade children. Three within-subjects t-tests were run comparing total scores on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1997), the Cognitive Restructuring scale of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (ERQ-CA; Gullone & Taffe, 2012) and the Expressive Suppression scale of the ERQ-CA at pretest and posttest. Results indicated that 8 weeks of school-based group treatment did not result in a significant reduction in symptoms or significant improvement in emotion regulation.