48 COGNITIVE THEORY AND RESEARCH ON ANXIETY
them because they tend to be nonvolitional and intrude into the stream of conscious-
ness. They are characterized as (1) transient or state- dependent, (2) highly specific and
discrete, (3) spontaneous and involuntary, (4) plausible, (5) consistent with one’s cur-
rent emotional state, and (6) biased representation of reality (Beck, 1967, 1970, 1976).
Because automatic thoughts reflect the person’s current concerns, in anxiety disorders
they reflect themes of threat, danger, and personal vulnerability and so are hypothesized
to be content- specific to each of the anxiety disorders. In anxiety states the occurrence
of threat- relevant automatic thoughts and images will capture attention and in that way
reinforce activation of the primal threat mode.
Clinician Guideline 2.12
The adverse cognitive, behavioral, and physiological effects of threat mode activation are a
primary focus of intervention in cognitive therapy of anxiety disorders. Teach patients alter-
native strategies to reduce the negative impact of the threat mode.Secondary Elaboration and Reappraisal
The quick automatic production of an immediate fear response via activation of the
primal threat mode triggers a secondary, compensatory process involving much slower,
more elaborative, and more effortful information processing. This secondary reap-
praisal phase always occurs with threat activation. Whether this secondary elaborative
processing leads to an increase or reduction in anxiety depends on a number of fac-
tors. The information processing that occurs at this more conscious, controlled level
will feed back into the threat mode to enhance or reduce its activation strength. In
the anxiety disorders this more constructive, reflective, and balanced thinking rarely
attains sufficient plausibility to present an alternative to primal threat mode activa-
tion. Below we discuss five cognitive phenomena associated with secondary elaborative
processing.
Evaluation of Coping Resources
A key aspect of secondary reappraisal involves the effortful evaluation of one’s abil-
ity to cope with the perceived threat. This is a strategic mode of thinking that is pre-
dominantly under voluntary and intentional control. However, in anxiety disorders the
primal threat mode activation so skews one’s elaborative thought processes that any
consideration of coping resources leads to an enhanced sense of vulnerability.
Beck et al. (1985, 2005) discussed a number of aspects of coping evaluation relevant
to anxiety. The first is a more global self- appraisal that produces self- confidence or an
increased sense of personal vulnerability. Self- confidence is “an individual’s positive
appraisal of his assets and resources in order to master problems and deal with threat”
(Beck et al., 1985, p. 68). Self- confidence will be associated with high self- efficacy and
an expectation of success (Bandura, 1977). In anxiety states, however, individuals per-
ceive their coping resources as insufficient. A vulnerability cognitive set is reinforced,
which causes individuals to interpret incoming information in terms of their weaknesses