ABSTRACT
Anxiety is ubiquitous. We quickly and easily remember past situations and imagine future situations involving intense fear or anxiety, whether prior to giving a speech, hearing a car horn honk as we cross a busy street, realizing that a loved one is an hour late and hasn’t called, or being called into a supervisor’s office. Fear and anxiety are adaptive. Feeling terror at the sight of a bear allows us to fight or flee; feeling anxiety about failing a test motivates us to study. However, the threshold at which adaptive anxiety becomes maladaptive is less clear. A large segment of the population-estimated to be at least 20 percent in a given year (Smetanin et al., 2011)—experiences anxiety-related distress and impairment.
