Application of Transdiagnostic Behavior Therapy (TBT) for Diagnostic Comorbidity

Comorbidity is common in the emotional disorders. Despite this, most evidence-based psychotherapies are designed to target a primary diagnosis, with the expectation that secondary benefits will be realized for comorbid diagnoses. In contrast, newer transdiagnostic psychotherapies target common underlying symptoms to address multiple diagnoses at once, with growing empirical support for this notion. The authors provide a description of Transdiagnostic Behavior Therapy (TBT) and its supporting evidence for comorbidity as well as a case example of how to provide TBT to a patient with comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder, social anxiety disorder, and major depressive disorder. The case example highlights the process of applying transdiagnostic treatment approaches across multiple diagnoses in the same patient. Given the initial findings for TBT for patients with comorbidity, future clinical trials should compare TBT and disorder-specific psychotherapies in patients with diagnostic comorbidity.