Cognitive theories of generalized anxiety disorder

The hallmark feature of generalized anxiety disorder, worry, has been hypot hesized to be a key factor in the production of threat-related information- processing biases in the domains of attention, memory, interpretation of am biguity, and problem solving; however, worry and cognitive biases are not u nique to generalized anxiety disorder. What may be unique to generalized an xiety disorder is the pervasive use of worry as a strategy to avoid intense negative effect and the broad domains in which these biases are exhibited, directly relating to the clinical observation that patients with generaliz ed anxiety disorder worry about numerous life stressors. Also, the authors conclude that information-processing biases contribute to worry but that th ey are insufficient for the development of generalized anxiety disorder. Di rections for future research and clinical implications are discussed.