The Cognitive Model of Anxiety 49
rather than their strengths. A second aspect of coping evaluation concerns whether indi-
viduals believe they lack important skills to deal with the situation. The person in our
running example would experience an immediate reduction in anxiety if she recalled
previous training in dealing with dog attacks. In addition the presence of self-doubt,
uncertainty, and novel or ambiguous contexts can intensify a sense of vulnerability.
Presence of these contextual factors can mean that a cognitive set of “self- confidence”
is replaced by a “vulnerability” set (Beck et al., 1985, 2005).
One consequence of a negative evaluation of one’s coping ability is that perceived
lack of competence may cause a person to act tentatively or to withdraw from a threaten-
ing situation (Beck et al., 1985, 2005). Such tentativeness can impair one’s performance
in the situation, which only exacerbates its threatening nature (e.g., the socially anx-
ious person trying to initiate a conversation). The anticipation of possible incompetence
and subsequent injury may inhibit approach behaviors and trigger withdrawal. This
automatic inhibition reflects a continual alteration between “confident mobility and
fearful immobility” (Beck et al., 1985, p. 73). The resulting dilemma can be described
in the following manner: “Anxiety in this instance is an unpleasant signal to stop for-
ward progress. If the person stops or retreats, his anxiety decreases. If he advances, it
increases. If he makes a conscious decision to proceed, he may be able to override the
primal inhibitory reaction” (Beck et al., 1985, p. 72).
Clinician Guideline 2.13
Correcting maladaptive evaluations and beliefs about personal vulnerability, risk, and cop-
ing resources associated with anxious concerns is an important focus in cognitive therapy
of anxiety.Search for Safety Cues
Beck and Clark (1997) argued that the search for safety cues is another important pro-
cess that takes place at the secondary elaborative reappraisal phase. Rachman (1984a,
1984b) introduced the concept of “safety signals” to explain the discordance that can
be found between fear and avoidance (i.e., fear without avoidance and avoidance behav-
ior in the absence of fear). Rachman proposed that in agoraphobia, for example, the
intensity of threat is primarily a function of perceived access to and speed of return to
safety. Thus the absence of reliable safety signals can leave the person in a chronic state
of anxiety, with the presence of anxiety eliciting a more vigorous search for safety cues.
The end result, however, is that the anxious person’s attempts are often ineffective,
especially in the long term. This is because safety is defined narrowly as an immediate
reduction in anxiety rather than as a long-term coping strategy. Thus the person with
panic disorder and agoraphobic avoidance might sit next to the exit in a theater, seek the
company of close friends on an outing, or carry tranquilizers as a means of procuring an
immediate sense of safety. However, all of these strategies are based on a dysfunctional
belief that “there is great danger out there and I can’t deal with it alone.” In the end
anxiety is characterized by a preoccupation with immediate safety but an unfortunate
reliance on inappropriate safety- seeking strategies.