Grant: Operating Grant

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is characterized by excessive and uncontrollable worry and anxiety, as well as irritability, physical tension, and difficulties concentrating and sleeping. GAD can make it challenging to function well at work, at school and in relationships. GAD is one of the most common anxiety disorders and is also one of the most challenging to treat. There is a pressing need to develop innovative interventions that better target factors that underpin problematic worry. Our research shows that people who experience difficulty managing their worry tend to think about problems in an abstract manner. When asked to describe how they would go about solving a hypothetical conflict involving a close other or a boss, the solutions tend to be vague, undefined and ineffective. Thinking about problems or feared situations in vague terms can interfere with problem-solving, can make it difficult to pay attention and reason, and can trigger worry and negative emotions. We will examine the effects of training a more concrete thinking style on worry, problem-solving quality, mental flexibility and negative emotions in people with GAD. We expect that with repeated practice, concreteness training can be of benefit. Adults with GAD will be allocated at random to 7 days of concreteness training, or to one of two other conditions that will help us determine that positive effects we observe with concreteness training can in fact be attributed to this training. Participants will complete assessments at Ryerson on 5 occasions, which will allow us to test the durability of training. Using an electronic diary, participants will also be asked to keep track of their thoughts, worry, and negative emotions for 7 days, which will provide us with another way to check that we have designed our concreteness training to effectively target factors in problematic worry. Our longer-range plan is to develop and test a full-scale, cost-effective concreteness treatment for GAD.