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Ingrid Solano, PhD

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Anxiety & Depression: Deeper Dive

 

How Therapy Helps with Anxiety & Depression: Treating the Overlap, Not Just the Label


 

    Anxiety and depression often go hand-in-hand. In fact, modern research shows that they co-occur more often than they appear on their own—which is why many clinicians now view them as different expressions of a shared emotional struggle, rather than two entirely separate conditions.  


    What this means is that instead of trying to “diagnose” one over the other, effective therapy focuses on the underlying symptoms: how you're feeling, how you're thinking, and how you're responding to stress and discomfort in daily life.  


    This is where Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)—and especially the Unified Protocol—shines. The Unified Protocol is a transdiagnostic treatment, meaning it doesn't just treat “anxiety” or “depression” as categories. Instead, it helps you notice and work with specific symptoms as they show up in your day-to-day life.  


Some of the most common overlapping symptoms of anxiety and depression include:

 
  • Difficulty concentrating or feeling mentally foggy
  • Avoiding social situations or activities you once enjoyed
  • Restlessness, irritability, or a constant sense of unease
  • Fatigue and low energy that makes even small tasks feel overwhelming
  • Persistent worry combined with a sense of hopelessness or despair
  • Sleep disruption—either difficulty falling asleep or oversleeping

 

    Therapy helps by teaching you practical tools to interrupt these cycles, understand where they come from, and respond more flexibly. Whether your symptoms feel more anxious, more depressive, or a mix of both, a symptom-focused approach like the Unified Protocol allows treatment to meet you where you are—without needing to force you into a single diagnostic category.  


The Unified Protocol: A Gold-Standard, Symptom-Focused Approach to Depression, Anxiety, and Mood Disorders


    The Unified Protocol (UP) is a modern, evidence-based form of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) designed to treat a wide range of emotional disorders—including depression, anxiety, panic, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and mood instability. Unlike traditional models that focus on a single diagnosis, the Unified Protocol is transdiagnostic, meaning it targets the common emotional processes that underlie many different conditions.   


    What makes the UP a gold-standard treatment is its strong research backing, clinical flexibility, and practical structure. It’s been shown in clinical trials to be as effective—or more effective—than disorder-specific CBT in reducing distress and improving functioning.  


    At the heart of the Unified Protocol is a focus on emotional symptoms—not just diagnoses. It works by helping clients:   


  • Identify and understand how emotions function and why they feel overwhelming or out of control.
  • Increase awareness of emotion-driven thoughts, behaviors, and avoidance patterns.
  • Learn new skills to tolerate distress, shift cognitive distortions, and respond more effectively to uncomfortable emotions.

 

    By focusing on emotional regulation, cognitive flexibility, and behavioral change, the UP helps clients reduce symptoms across multiple domains—whether they’re struggling with chronic worry, low mood, irritability, panic attacks, or emotional reactivity.  


    It’s especially helpful for clients with multiple diagnoses, or those who don’t fit neatly into one category. Rather than treating “anxiety” or “depression” as isolated problems, the Unified Protocol recognizes the shared emotional challenges beneath them—and offers a unified, skills-based path forward.  



Why the Unified Protocol May Be a More Inclusive Option for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ Clients


    One of the most powerful aspects of the Unified Protocol (UP) is its focus on symptoms and emotional processes, rather than rigid diagnostic labels. This distinction is especially important for clients from marginalized communities, including BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals, who are often misdiagnosed or pathologized due to systemic bias in mental health care.  


    Historically, many psychological diagnoses have been developed and validated on narrow, non-diverse populations—often centering whiteness, cisnormativity, and heteronormativity. This has led to patterns of underdiagnosis, overdiagnosis, or misinterpretation of emotional responses that are actually understandable reactions to chronic stress, discrimination, microaggressions, or trauma.  


    The Unified Protocol helps bypass some of these systemic issues by:  


  • Centering emotional experience rather than fitting individuals into a fixed diagnostic box.
  • Validating adaptive responses to oppression and trauma, rather than labeling them as disordered.
  • Offering culturally flexible tools that support distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and value-aligned action—without needing to explain away the impact of racism, homophobia, transphobia, or other structural forces.
  • Encouraging collaborative case conceptualization, so therapy adapts to the client’s lived reality—not a checklist of symptoms built for someone else’s experience.

    By focusing on what you're feeling and how it's impacting your life, the Unified Protocol creates space for healing without reinforcing stigma. It's a compassionate and empowering model that can be especially helpful for clients navigating complex identities and systemic challenges—while still providing the structure, skills, and science-backed support to make meaningful change.  


Transdiagnostic Mood Processes Impacting BIPOC & LGBTQ+ Clients


    Many emotional struggles experienced by BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals are not always captured by diagnostic labels like anxiety or depression. Instead, they often stem from deeper, transdiagnostic processes—patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that cut across multiple diagnoses. These are shaped by lived experiences of marginalization, trauma, and systemic oppression, and are essential to recognize in therapy.  


    Below are some common transdiagnostic processes that may underlie symptoms of anxiety, depression, and mood-related distress for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ clients:   


  • Rejection Sensitivity – Heightened awareness of and emotional reaction to perceived rejection, often shaped by past discrimination or exclusion.
  • Internalized Oppression – Absorbing societal stigma (e.g., racism, homophobia, transphobia) into one’s self-concept, contributing to shame and self-doubt.
  • Emotion Suppression – The habit of hiding or minimizing emotional expression in order to feel safe or accepted; linked to chronic stress and dysregulation.
  • Chronic Hypervigilance – Persistent scanning for potential threats, especially in unsafe or invalidating environments; often experienced as anxiety or exhaustion.
  • Shame and Identity Conflict – Internal conflict or shame related to one's racial, cultural, gender, or sexual identity in unsupportive or oppressive contexts.
  • Rumination & Overthinking – Repetitive, distressing thoughts focused on identity, safety, or past experiences of harm; a shared feature of anxiety and depression.
  • Perceived Burden or Responsibility – Feeling obligated to represent or educate others about one’s identity group, leading to burnout and emotional fatigue.
  • Avoidance-Based Coping – Withdrawing from situations or people to prevent pain or rejection, which can reinforce loneliness and depression.
  • Invalidation and Gaslighting – Frequent experiences of having emotions, identity, or trauma minimized or questioned, undermining emotional safety and self-trust.
 

    Therapies like the Unified Protocol are uniquely equipped to target these processes by focusing on emotional experiences, regulation skills, and flexible coping—without relying on pathologizing or culturally biased diagnoses.