Anxiety, from a cognitive psychological perspective

Among the schools of thought in psychology, cognitive psychology is relatively recent and explores a wide range of mental processes such as attention, memory, attitudes, etc. and how they guide our behavior. Cognitive psychology has also theorized the cause of anxiety. According to that theory, storing information on stimuli occur within or around a person in a biased manner (e.g. - threatening) produce anxiety (Beck 2005). This biased processing of information distorts the thought patterns and the construction of experiences of a person, and that results in what is known as cognitive errors/distortions (Yurica, and DiTomasso 2005). Dysfunctional beliefs and content in cognitive schemata are the basal components in cognitive errors. For example, danger oriented beliefs are stored in cognitive schemata and it makes a person susceptible to narrow his/her attention when threats are encountered. A danger oriented belief is a dysfunctional belief. Thus, when a threat is encountered, the person starts to engage in dysfunctional safety behaviors and interpret ambiguous stimuli catastrophic which results from narrowing down their attention (Beck 2005: 955). Basically, the cause for anxiety according to the cognitive model is due to the biased processing of information as threatening which is present in all anxiety disorders and all models of information processing (Beck 2005).

The cognitive model of anxiety has found four possible factors that has the potential to precipitate anxiety (Beck et al. 1985). Firstly, a physical disease can precipitate anxiety (Stein, Hollander, and Rothbaum 2009: 108). A person who is having a certain physical disease may interpret ordinary bodily reactions in a threatening manner and that has the potential to cause respiratory difficulties and anxiety kind of symptoms. Secondly, severe external stressors such as loss of a loved one can precipitate anxiety (Beck 2005). Thirdly, long term stressors can precipitate anxiety. A person’s coping systems could get exhausted due to the long-term accumulation of stressors that can make excessive demands from an individual (Stein, Hollander, and Rothbaum 2009 : 108). These excessive demands can precipitate anxiety. Fourthly, stressors affecting a specific emotional vulnerability can precipitate anxiety due to deficits in coping mechanisms. An individual could not handle life stressors effectively when there are deficits in coping mechanisms (Stein, Hollander, and Rothbaum 2009: 109). This will interrupt the ability to analyze possible thoughts, feeling, etc. and will make the person threatened. This usually occurs when an individual’s threshold for coping exceeds. Once it exceeds, previously handled circumstances will seem overwhelming (Stein, Hollander, and Rothbaum 2009: 109). The above mentioned four factors possess the potential to precipitate anxiety in a person according to cognitive psychology.

References

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