Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a difficult-to-treat condition characterized by chronic worry, and is associated with high healthcare burden and significant economic costs from decreased work productivity. Research shows that the main driver of chronic worry is the tendency to avoid thinking clearly and vividly about feared future events. Although the leading treatment of GAD, cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), is effective at reducing avoidance, CBT is expensive, difficult to access, and burdensome for individuals. Therefore, research should identify effective interventions that are less demanding and more accessible for Canadians with GAD. One promising candidate is imagery rescripting (ImRs), which targets avoidance by asking individuals to think and write about feared future events (e.g., losing a job) coming true, focusing on how they would cope with and improve the situation (e.g., finding another job). While ImRs is effective at reducing worry, there is room to explore how to maximize the effectiveness of this intervention. For instance, research shows that individuals with GAD struggle with picturing positive outcomes, which may interfere with their ability to visualize confronting and coping with feared events. Therefore, the present study will investigate whether training individuals to better imagine positive scenarios (positive mental imagery training; PMIT) before undergoing ImRs will yield better outcomes on worry and GAD symptoms compared to ImRs alone or a neutral writing condition. This study will be the first to investigate the effectiveness of combined PMIT and ImRs in reducing worry and GAD symptoms. It is predicted that individuals who receive PMIT before ImRs will have greater reductions in worry and GAD symptoms. Findings from this study will demonstrate the potential of combined PMIT and ImRs as a brief, inexpensive, and easily accessible treatment for GAD that can better address the needs of Canadians with GAD.