This application is a request for a Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award (K23) from the NIMH to foster the academic career development of the applicant, Jill T. Ehrenreich, Ph.D. The applicant will work with her primary mentor, Dr. David Barlow, her co-mentor, Dr. Wendy Silverman, and expert consultants, Dr. Laura Mufson, Dr. John Weisz, Dr. James Gross, Dr. Richard Lerner, and Dr. Timothy Brown, to develop expertise in conducting clinical research to establish innovative and efficacious interventions for adolescents with emotional disorders. In a career development plan spanning five years, the applicant has delineated short-term and long-term goals to prepare her for a patient-oriented research career. Short-term goals include obtaining didactic training and mentoring in several """"""""core"""""""" areas that have been chosen to deepen her existing skills and to expand her skills into new areas. The applicant's long-term goals are to develop a programmatic line of research that is focused on developing innovative treatments for anxiety disorders in childhood and adolescence, and their most commonly comorbid conditions, as well as to launch a highly productive career as a clinical scientist. A formal research plan is proposed to investigate emotional disorders in adolescence, focusing specifically on anxiety disorders and unipolar mood disorders. Despite theory and research that suggests these disorders may share common biological and psychological vulnerabilities, demonstrate high comorbidity with one another, and evidence a potentially chronic impact on development, there have been few treatment studies investigating the efficacy of a single protocol with the applicability to treat this array of conditions in adolescence. The primary goal of the proposed research plan is to develop and apply a novel treatment for adolescents with emotional disorders, based on efficacious treatments for anxiety and depression in youth and an existent intervention for adults that unites fundamental treatment components appropriate for intervention with wide range of emotional disorders. The main goals of this project are: (1) to create a new treatment, entitled Adolescent Depression and Anxiety Protocol Treatment (ADAPT), for adolescents exhibiting a range of emotional disorders;(2) to conduct a small open trial using ADAPT with 15 adolescents evidencing anxiety and/or unipolar mood disorders;and, (3) to establish an initial effect size for the ADAPT program in a pilot study with 60 adolescents with anxiety and/or unipolar mood disorders and to assess maintenance of change at 3 and 6 months following treatment. The resulting treatment may have a far-reaching impact via dissemination to community providers treating adolescents with anxiety and depression by virtue of its relative consistency in format, combined with its breadth of application.
| Ehrenreich-May, Jill; Rosenfield, David; Queen, Alexander H et al. (2017) An initial waitlist-controlled trial of the unified protocol for the treatment of emotional disorders in adolescents. J Anxiety Disord 46:46-55 |
| Levin, Laura; Henderson, Heather A; Ehrenreich-May, Jill (2012) Interpersonal predictors of early therapeutic alliance in a transdiagnostic cognitive-behavioral treatment for adolescents with anxiety and depression. Psychotherapy (Chic) 49:218-230 |
| Ehrenreich-May, Jill; Bilek, Emily L (2011) Universal Prevention of Anxiety and Depression in a Recreational Camp Setting: An Initial Open Trial. Child Youth Care Forum 40:435-455 |
| Ehrenreich, Jill T; Goldstein, Clark M; Wright, Lauren R et al. (2009) Development of a Unified Protocol for the Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Youth. Child Fam Behav Ther 31:20-37 |
| Trosper, Sarah E; Buzzella, Brian A; Bennett, Shannon M et al. (2009) Emotion regulation in youth with emotional disorders: implications for a unified treatment approach. Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev 12:234-54 |
| Ehrenreich, Jill T; Fairholme, Christopher P; Buzzella, Brian A et al. (2007) The Role of Emotion in Psychological Therapy. Clin Psychol (New York) 14:422-428 |
