Transdiagnostic Approaches to Social Emotional Learning and being RAD

Schools are Hubs of Diversity: MTSS helps

Walk into any classroom and you will immediately see diversity.

Not just in culture or personality, but in academic ability, learning needs, and mental and emotional well-being. In the same class, there may be students working well above grade level, students who need significant academic support, students managing anxiety or low mood, students with diagnosed mental disorders, and students who appear fine on the surface but are quietly struggling.

As teachers, we do not get to choose which students we teach. We teach all of them.

That reality raises an important question: How do we support well-being in a way that actually fits the complexity of real classrooms?

Education already has a framework for navigating complexity: MTSS (Multi-Tiered Systems of Support)

Education already has a framework for navigating complexity: MTSS (Multi-Tiered Systems of Support). MTSS acknowledges that students require different levels of support at different times. Universal supports provide a shared foundation, while more intensive interventions are layered on when needed. Mental health support in schools faces the same challenge—diverse needs, limited time, and the impracticality of delivering many different disorder-specific approaches simultaneously.

This is where transdiagnostic approaches become particularly valuable.

What are Transdiagnostic Approaches to Social Emotional Learning?

Rather than organizing support around specific diagnoses—such as anxiety, depression, or behaviour disorders—transdiagnostic approaches target shared psychological processes that underlie many different forms of distress.

Transdiagnostic is a term that comes primarily from healthcare and psychology. One of its core purposes is efficiency. Rather than organizing support around specific diagnoses—such as anxiety, depression, or behaviour disorders—transdiagnostic approaches to social emotional learning target shared psychological processes that underlie many different forms of distress. This allows a single framework to support students who are struggling in very different ways, without requiring diagnosis, categorization, or parallel interventions.

These common processes involve how students connect with challenging thoughts and handle uncomfortable emotions, as well as whether they avoid or confront challenges. While students may present very differently on the surface, these internal patterns often overlap across disorders.

Consider three students in the same classroom. A transdiagnostic lens notices something shared.

Consider three students in the same classroom. One has diagnosed anxiety and avoids speaking in front of others. Another becomes angry and disruptive when academic work feels overwhelming. A third has no diagnosis but quietly shuts down and disengages when tasks feel difficult. Under a diagnosis-based model, these students might be supported in entirely different ways. A transdiagnostic lens, however, notices something shared: all three are responding to discomfort by trying to avoid it.

As a transdiagnostic practice, RAD teaches students skills to recognize what is happening internally, accept the presence of discomfort when it arises, and do what aligns with what matters to them—rather than letting thoughts or feelings dictate their behavior. By grounding action in values instead of symptoms or diagnoses, one shared framework can support many students at once, making it far more feasible for real classrooms.

This approach is supported by research. In a 2024 systematic review, Wang and colleagues examined universal, school-based transdiagnostic interventions for children and adolescents, including interventions based on ACT. Across studies, these interventions demonstrated positive effects on emotional regulation, coping skills, internalizing difficulties such as anxiety and low mood, and overall well-being.

The authors highlight that transdiagnostic interventions are particularly well suited to school settings because they allow educators to respond efficiently to a wide range of student difficulties without requiring diagnostic expertise. When these approaches are delivered universally, they also carry a powerful secondary benefit: students who are not currently struggling still learn skills that may reduce the severity or impact of future difficulties. The preventive potential of transdiagnostic approaches at a universal level is substantial.

Mindfulness as an example

Mindfulness provides another clear example of a transdiagnostic approach that has gained traction in schools. Like other transdiagnostic models, mindfulness-based interventions are not organized around diagnoses. Instead, they focus on changing how individuals relate to their internal experiences—thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations—by cultivating awareness, attention, and non-reactivity.

Research across both clinical and educational settings suggests that mindfulness can support a wide range of difficulties, including anxiety, mood challenges, stress, and behavioral dysregulation. Its transdiagnostic strength lies in the fact that the same core skills—paying attention, noticing experience as it unfolds, and responding rather than reacting—can help students who are struggling in very different ways.

These findings align closely with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which RAD is based on. ACT is widely recognized as a successful transdiagnostic approach. Both ACT and RAD incorporate mindfulness as a core process, but both extend beyond mindfulness alone. ACT and RAD focus on building psychological flexibility—the ability to notice thoughts and feelings without being dominated by them, make room for discomfort rather than avoiding it, and take action guided by values rather than short-term relief.

RAD as a transdiagnostic approach

RAD (Recognize–Accept–Do) was intentionally designed with this evidence base in mind. It is a simple, developmentally appropriate, transdiagnostic framework that translates ACT-informed principles into language educators and students can easily understand and use.

Rather than offering different strategies for different problems, RAD provides one flexible process that can support students experiencing anxiety, mood difficulties, behavioral challenges, or academic stress. This efficiency is its strength.

Diverse classroom require approaches that match their reality. Transdiagnostic frameworks offer an efficient way to help students who are struggling in different ways, and when implemented universally, they can also deliver meaningful preventive benefits.

RAD fills this need by offering a framework that is grounded in evidence, realistic for educators, and responsive to the complexity of student experience.

Reference

Wang, P., Wang, Z., & Qiu, S. (2024). Universal, school-based transdiagnostic interventions to promote mental health and emotional well-being: a systematic review. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 18(1), 47. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-024-00735-x