226 ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTION STRATEGIES
therapy, can be especially difficult given the heightened emotional state and situational
specificity of anxiety. However, once an awareness of exaggerated threat appraisals has
been established, cognitive restructuring strategies such as evidence gathering, cost–
benefit analysis, and decatastrophizing can be utilized to challenge anxious schemas.
Teaching the anxious individual to become much more aware of cognitive errors
and faulty inductive reasoning during periods of intense anxiety helps foster a more
critical attitude toward one’s anxious thinking style. Formulating alternative perspec-
tives on anxious situations and concerns that bear a closer approximation to reality
offers a counterpoint to the exaggerated threat and vulnerability that characterizes
anxiety. However, the most powerful tool in the cognitive therapist’s armamentarium is
the behavioral experiment or empirical hypothesis- testing exercise. Behavioral exercises
provide clients with experiential data that refute threat and vulnerability schemas and
support an alternative, adaptive perspective. A Quick Reference Summary is provided
in Appendix 6.6 to remind the clinician of various cognitive strategies available for
therapeutic intervention.