The question of why verbal-based worry elevates intrusive thoughts remains unanswered. This suggests that verbal thinking style plays a causal role in maintaining intrusions, perhaps serving to trigger subsequent worry episodes.
Similarly, high worriers given instructions to worry verbally reported increased negative thought intrusions from pre- to post-worry, but those instructed to worry in images actually showed a decrease ( Stokes & Hirsch, 2010). Thus, even if verbal worry leads to temporary reductions in anxiety, it can maintain negative thought intrusions in the longer term. However, verbal worry led to more intrusive images in the days following than did thinking in images. In partial support of this idea, Butler, Wells, and Dewick (1995) found that instructions to worry (verbally) about a distressing film led to less anxiety immediately afterwards than did instructions to think about it in images. The latter authors suggested that verbal worry may be a strategy to avoid more distressing emotional representations, such as images ( Borkovec, Alcaine, & Behar, 2004). In contrast, when instructed to relax, non-worriers report primarily images whereas those with GAD report similar amounts of verbal thought and imagery ( Borkovec & Inz, 1990). Worry is predominantly verbal, as if talking to oneself about possible negative outcomes, whereas imagery is relatively infrequent, and tends to be brief ( Freeston et al., 1996, Hirsch et al., 2012). The aim of the study reported here was to investigate the effects of different methods designed to modify this last process in pathological worriers with GAD. In Hirsch and Mathews' (2012) model of pathological worry three processes combine to maintain uncontrollable worry: emotional processing biases, impaired attentional control and the tendency to represent possible negative outcomes in over-general verbal form. The replacement of worry with different forms of positive ideation, even when unrelated to the content of worry itself, seems to have similar beneficial effects, suggesting that any form of positive ideation can be used to effectively counter worry.Įxcessive worry is a common symptom in anxiety disorders and is the central feature of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). All groups benefited from training, with decreases in anxiety and worry, and no significant differences between groups.
Participants received training in the designated method and then practiced it for one week, before attending for reassessment, and completing follow-up questionnaires four weeks later. A comparison control condition involved generating positive images not related to worries. The current study examined alternative approaches to reducing worry by allocating volunteers with GAD to conditions in which they either practiced replacing the usual form of worry with images of possible positive outcomes, or with the same positive outcomes represented verbally.
Worry in Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), takes a predominantly verbal form, as if talking to oneself about possible negative outcomes.
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