Two types of psychosocial intervention are effective in reducing conduct problems. One targets diverse behaviors with the use of multiple treatment components, including components that rely on principles from cognitive behavioral therapy to address anxiety and related emotional problems. Such problems can be viewed as clinical manifestations of threat-circuit hypersensitivity that occur in conduct disorder accompanied by anxiety and a hostile attributional bias. For example, Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care66 and Multisystemic Therapy67 treat diverse aspects of conduct problems by applying social and emotional learning techniques. In the treatment of anxiety, this involves the use of techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy. The therapist begins by having the child hierarchically rank the scenarios that elicit fear and by teaching the child strategies to minimize such fear. Next, the child works with the therapist to confront these scenarios and extinguish the associated fear, working gradually over time to confront increasingly frightening scenarios in each therapy session. These techniques may reduce reactive aggression by decreasing clinical anxiety, threat hypersensitivity, and associated cognitive perturbations, such as a hostile attributional bias.
