Cognitive biases in anxiety disorders and their effect on cognitive-behavioral treatment

Cognitive theorists hypothesize that cognitive biases are a major component in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. These include att entional biases toward threat-related information, distorted judgments of r isk, and selective memory processing. The empirical evidence for these cogn itive biases in anxiety disorder populations is reviewed. Potential deleter ious effects of these biases on the process of cognitive-behavioral therapy are also discussed, as are possible ways of overriding those effects and m aximizing treatment efficacy.