Depression is one of the most common mental health problems affecting adolescents. In addition to feeling sad, irritable, and depressed for weeks or months at a time, symptoms can also include feeling worthless and hopeless, having frequent thoughts about death or more serious thoughts about harming or killing oneself. Depression can involve the loss of enjoyment or interest in activities, changes in eating and sleeping habits, and trouble concentrating. Depression typically leads to significant interference with daily aspects of life, such as declining performance in school, isolation from friends, and increasing withdrawal, and conflict with family members.
Anxiety is a common emotion that involves feeling nervous, scared, afraid, or worried. Usually we feel anxious when we think something bad is about to happen. Although everyone experiences anxiety, some adolescents begin to feel so anxious or worried that they experience significant levels of distress that become disruptive to their daily lives. The anxiety can be focused on specific situations or events or a general worry about many different things. This level of anxiety is often accompanied by frequent anxious or worry thoughts and physical symptoms such as increased heart rate, rapid breathing, headaches, and muscle tension. It can also lead to a behavioral pattern of avoidance of situations or events that cause high levels of worry and anxiety, which often negatively affect involvement in school and relationships with peers and family.
Currently, there is more evidence available to support the effectiveness of a treatment approach called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to treat children or adolescents with a wide range of psychological difficulties than for any other treatment approach. CBT has been shown through research studies to be effective at treating anxiety disorders and depression. CBT is usually a short-term, time-limited treatment that focuses on teaching clients specific coping skills to address the current problem. CBT differs from other therapy approaches in that it focuses on the ways that a person's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are connected and affect one another.
UCSF's Wavefront CBT Clinic currently offers a variety of services for kids, teens, and young adults in both individual and group formats. First visits are required to be in-person; the majority of our services are also in-person.
Our approach
- Collaborate
- Incorporate evidence-based assessment
- Individualized treatment plans
- Group first model if appropriate to help expand access
Individual services
Teens and young adults seeking treatment for depression or anxiety may be treated by one of our core staff members in an individual therapy setting. Patients will be thoroughly evaluated at the outset of treatment to ensure the appropriateness of CBT, and will also be evaluated periodically throughout treatment to systematically assess progress. Individual CBT typically consists of psychoeducation about diagnoses and treatment, collaborative goal setting, and both cognitive and behavioral strategies, to address symptoms and prevent future relapse. Depending on the age and presentation of the patient, parental involvement is often a key component of treatment. Patients are also expected to do homework as part of their treatment, to help generalize skills and strategies learned in session to their real lives.
Group services
We are currently offering four groups for teens and families:
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression (12 weeks) – This group is designed for teens ages 13-18 who either have a current diagnosis of major depression or dysthymia, or who have previously met criteria for either of these diagnoses. The group utilizes the BRIGHT curriculum which has been adapted specifically for teens. Topics addressed include psychoeducation on CBT and depression, identifying and changing thoughts, improving relationships to improve mood, and changing behavior to support mood. Patients are required to have an individual mental health provider (either at UCSF or in the community), and be willing to sign a release for communication between therapist and group leader. Currently enrolling new patients.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Social Anxiety (8 weeks) – This group is designed for teens ages 13-18 who meet criteria for social anxiety disorder, or have symptoms of anxiety that significantly impair their functioning in social and/or academic settings. This group utilizes evidence-based principles and practices for treating social anxiety, relying heavily on graduated exposure. Topics addressed in group include psychoeducation on CBT and social anxiety, principles of exposure therapy, weekly group exposure activities and instruction around various cognitive coping strategies. Currently enrolling new patients.
- Unified Protocol Group (12 weeks) – The Unified Protocol is a transdiagnostic CBT that teaches effective strategies for promoting change across a range of emotional disorders, including anxiety and depression. The goals of the group include reducing intense negative emotion states by extinguishing the distress and anxiety these emotions produce through emotion education, awareness techniques, cognitive strategies to improve flexibility, and an array of exposure and activation techniques.
- Worry Warriors Group (8 weeks) – This is a CBT skills group for kid ages 9-12 with anxiety, based on the “worry warriors” curriculum. This group has a child and parent/caregiver component, and both need to attend to join the group.
Parent psychoeducation workshops
We offer a number of one-session educational workshops for parents of teens and young adults. These workshops aim to help parents support their teens and young adults to cope with anxiety and depression. Workshops provide information on symptoms of depression and anxiety disorders, how parents can help, and treatment options. In order to attend, all parents must have a teen or young adult currently registered as a patient at UCSF.
