Clinical Approach to Worry in Generalized Anxiety Disorder by Psychoanalytic and Cognitive Therapists

JUAN, SANTIAGO; BALBI, PAULA; ETCHEBARNE, IGNACIO; ROUSSOS, ANDRES

Virginia Beach

Congreso; 43rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research,; 2012

Society for Psychotherapy Research

The understanding of how worry contributes to the development and maintenance of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is debated among researchers. Since the clinical view regarding this phenomenon is generally undermined or relatively inaccessible, the goal of the present study was to characterize the clinical approach to worry in GAD, based on how psychotherapists with differing theoretical orientations included it in their interventions. A secondary analysis was conducted with interviews of 10 cognitive therapists (CTs) and 10 psychoanalytic therapists (PTs), originally interviewed by Etchebarne, Juan, Gómez Penedo and Roussos (in evaluation). Participants were asked (a) to listen to a monologue of a fictitious patient meeting DSM-IV-TR’s GAD criteria, and (b) to intervene as if they were facing a real patient. For the data analysis in the present study, interviews were transcribed and segmented; interventions targeting worry were categorized using Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) methodology; and their prevalence was analyzed among participants. Various domains were found relevant, specially those in relation to the underlying meanings of worry (predominantly in PTs); the temporal course of worry (CTs focused on worry triggers, PTs focused on determining whether worry was an acute or chronic condition); and the experience of worry (all participants focused mainly on worry as being pervasive and generalized). The average proportion of interventions targeting worry rounded 50% in all participants. Results suggest that worry is a relevant phenomenon for both CTs and PTs; nevertheless, their approach to worry show common and specific foci, generating hypotheses for psychotherapy integration.