Persons with generalized anxiety disorder often worry excessively about health, money, family, or work, and continually anticipate disaster." People with GAD are accustomed to approaching life as "worriers," and the disorder can be difficult to treat. They often become highly, negatively emotionally aroused when mentally imagining future events; effective treatment must deal with these stress-inducing mental images. While the idea of "generalized anxiety" may sound like a mild problem, experts have concluded that the social, emotional, and financial costs to a patient can be severe. Michael Dugas and Naomi Koerner have identified four root psychological contributors to GAD that can be effectively approached with cognitive-behavioral based therapies: intolerance of uncertainty, positive beliefs about worry, poor problem solving, and cognitive avoidance. (Dugas and Koerner) Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) refers to a condition in which...
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