Putting It Into Practice—Emotion Exposures

Chapter 11 of Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders: Workbook explains what emotion exposures are and why they are so important. Facing strong emotions give us the opportunity to learn that (a) any uncomfortable emotions we feel are temporary—even without engaging in any avoidance, our negative emotions will eventually subside; (b) we can cope with negative emotions better than we thought; and (c) we can perform tasks and activities that are important to us even when experiencing strong emotions. The chapter teaches how to design effective emotion exposure exercises as well as to develop an emotion exposure hierarchy. We then repeatedly practice confronting strong emotions through emotion exposure exercises.