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Preface
The intricacies of anxiety have continued to capture the attention of some of the world’s
greatest scientists, scholars, and critical thinkers. In 1953 Rollo May stated in Man’s
Search for Himself that the “middle of the twentieth century is more anxiety- ridden
than any period since the breakdown of the Middle Ages” (p. 30). If this statement char-
acterized the last century, is it not even more applicable to the dawn of the 21st century
with all the social, political, and economic threats that besiege us? Despite an end to
the cold war, an era of relative global stability and cooperation, and an unprecedented
rise in economic prosperity and technological advances, many in the Western world live
in a state of perpetual threat and uncertainty. According to the National Institute of
Mental Health (2003) approximately 40 million American adults (18%) suffer from an
anxiety disorder, with serious mental illness, including the anxiety disorders, costing
an estimated $193 billion in lost personal earnings (Kessler et al., 2008). No wonder
the search for highly effective and accessible treatments for the anxiety disorders has
become a major health initiative for most developed countries.
Twenty-five years ago, coauthor Aaron T. Beck published Anxiety Disorders and
Phobias: A Cognitive Perspective with Gary Emery and Ruth Greenberg. In the first
part of that book, Beck introduced a cognitive model of anxiety disorders and phobias
that represented a significant reconceptualization of the etiology, nature, and treatment
of anxiety (Beck, Emery, & Greenberg, 1985). At that time, research on the cognitive
features of anxiety was scant, and so much of the theoretical scaffolding was, by neces-
sity, based on clinical observation and experience. Since key aspects of the cognitive
model of anxiety had not yet been investigated, some of the treatment recommendations
described in the second half of the book have not stood the test of time. However, the
last 20 years has witnessed a virtual explosion in basic information- processing research
on the cognitive model of anxiety, the development of disorder- specific cognitive mod-
els and treatment protocols for the major anxiety disorders, and dozens of treatment
outcome studies demonstrating the efficacy of cognitive therapy of anxiety. In light of
the unprecedented advances in our understanding and treatment of the cognitive basis
of anxiety, a comprehensive, updated, and reformulated presentation of the cognitive