A Pilot Study of Emotion Regulation Therapy for Generalized Anxiety and Depression: Findings From a Diverse Sample of Young Adults.

Emotion regulation therapy (ERT) for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and accompanying major depressive disorder (MDD) is a theoretically derived, evidence-based treatment that integrates principles from traditional and contemporary cognitive-behavioral and experiential approaches with basic and translational findings from affect science to offer a blueprint for improving intervention by focusing on the motivational responses and corresponding self-referential regulatory characteristics. Preliminary evidence supports the efficacy of a 20-session version of ERT. However, previous trials of ERT and other traditional and contemporary cognitive-behavioral therapies have often utilized relatively homogeneous samples.

Social connectedness, stressful life events, and self-injurious thoughts and behaviors among young adults.

Objectives: Preventing self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs) is particularly challenging on commuter campuses, given lower social cohesion and higher levels of stress than among traditional college populations. The present study examined the relationship between stressful life events (SLEs) and risk for different forms of SITBs, along with the potential buffering role of social connectedness, in a diverse sample of young adults from a commuter college.

Methods: Participants were 1712 (81% female; 61% racial/ethnic minority; 20% sexual minority) undergraduate and graduate students from a public commuter college in New York City.