Collaborative Case Formulation Is Key in Cognitive- Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety and Panic

Cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) is highly efficacious and has been established as the first-line psychosocial treatment of choice for anxiety disorders (Norton & Price, 2007; Tolin, 2010). On the basis of Aaron T. Beck’s pioneering cognitive model of anxiety disorders (Beck, Emery, & Greenberg, 1985) with recent updates (Clark & Beck, 2010), anxiety problems are proposed to arise from faulty learning such that individuals misinterpret benign triggers or situations as dangerous or threatening and underestimate their ability to cope with the consequences. This maladaptive thinking pattern may affect individuals at the physiological level in which autonomic hyperarousal (e.g., panic attacks) develop to prepare the individual for the fight, flight, or freeze response.