ABSTRACT
The cognitive perspective views the behavior of people as products of thoughts, understandings, ideas, and interpretations concerning themselves and their environments. There are two general problems in a cognitive analysis of anxiety disorders: the diversity of phenomena subsumed under anxiety disorders and the multiplicity of components in most anxiety syndromes. In generalized anxiety disorders the major features are motor tension, autonomic hyperactivity, apprehensive expectation, and vigilance for danger signals. Cognitive assessment is needed to provide information about thoughts that precede, accompany, and follow maladaptive behavior. One type of study that might have valuable clinical implications would be comparisons of cognitive assessments made among various diagnostic groups. This type of research might provide clues to the types of thoughts most in need of or amenable to cognitive interventions. Cognitive modeling might have considerable potential in instructional and therapeutic programs as a means of demonstrating the differences between adaptive and maladaptive cognitions and the negative aspects of maladaptive attentional habits.
