Attentional Strategies and Agoraphobic Anxiety

Abstract

It is argued that the attentional strategies of phobic patients have important consequences for how they cope with anxiety. The literature indicates that focused attention to anxiety cues is important for long-term emotional habituation but that it is made difficult by anxiety. Questionnaire studies of agoraphobics reliably identified factors concerned with attentional strategies of coping with anxiety, and showed that they were distinct from self-talk strategies. The effect of anxiety levels on the use and perceived helpfulness of these strategies was also explored. Finally, the implications of an attentional framework for exposure treatments of phobic anxiety are discussed. It is suggested that the questionnaire may be a useful way of measuring patients' attentional strategies in clinical work.