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Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy For Stress Management Term Paper

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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These individuals have developed a belief system centered around the idea that uncertainty about any aspect of life is bad and should be avoided. Daily self-monitoring, an important component of CBT, shows a strong correlation between increased or decreased worry and increased or decreased IU. The development of IU is thought to be the result of information processing biases in these individuals; CBT is a promising treatment for people with information processing biases, since it attempts to target specific faulty thought patterns and replace them with more positive responses. (Dugas and Koerner)
In addition, individuals with GAD have a tendency to believe that worry is helpful and positive. As opposed to people who avoid worry or see it as destructive or a waste of energy, people with positive beliefs about worry view it as

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According to New York-Presbyterian's Mental Health Glossary (http://nyp.org/health/mentalhealth-glossary.html), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is "a mental disorder that causes its sufferers chronic and exaggerated worry and tension that seem to have no substantial cause. 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 individuals are highly susceptible to worry as a result of negative beliefs about uncertainty in life. These individuals have developed a belief system centered around the idea that uncertainty about any aspect of life is bad and should be avoided. Daily self-monitoring, an important component of CBT, shows a strong correlation between increased or decreased worry and increased or decreased IU. The development of IU is thought to be the result of information processing biases in these individuals; CBT is a promising treatment for people with information processing biases, since it attempts to target specific faulty thought patterns and replace them with more positive responses. (Dugas and Koerner)

In addition, individuals with GAD have a tendency to believe that worry is helpful and positive. As opposed to people who avoid worry or see it as destructive or a waste of energy, people with positive beliefs about worry view it as
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