ABSTRACT
The models As previously stated anxiety sufferers tend to overestimate the threat of given situations and underestimate their own ability to cope with those situations (Beck and Clark, 1988). In generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) this hypervigilance to threat occurs throughout the day rather than only at times when the sufferer is faced with a specific feared object, as is the case for phobias. This view of the world as threatening and of themselves as vulnerable (schemas or core beliefs) may be related to insecure attachment patterns in childhood (Riskind et al, 2004). The way that panic or phobic patients cope with the perception of threat is to avoid the specific feared object - be that spiders, crowded places, etc. GAD sufferers commonly avoid a much wider range of situations that they view as threatening.
