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Intrusive imagery in anxiety disorders in adolescents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 December 2020

Ana Ghita ,
Emma Tooley  and
Peter J. Lawrence Open the ORCID record for Peter J. Lawrence [Opens in a new window]
Ana Ghita
Affiliation:
School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AL, UK
Emma Tooley
Affiliation:
School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AL, UK
Peter J. Lawrence*
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Southampton, SouthamptonSO17 1BJ, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: p.j.lawrence@soton.ac.uk
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Abstract

Background:

Mental imagery plays an important role in models of anxiety disorders in adults. This understanding rests on qualitative and quantitative studies. Qualitative studies of imagery in anxious adolescents have not been reported in the literature.

Aims:

To address this gap, we aimed to explore adolescents’ experiences of spontaneous imagery in the context of anxiety disorders.

Method:

We conducted one-to-one semi-structured interviews, with 13 adolescents aged 13–17 years with a DSM-5 anxiety disorder, regarding their experiences of spontaneous imagery. We analysed participants’ responses using thematic analysis.

Results:

We identified five superordinate themes relating to adolescents’ influences on images, distractions from images, controllability of images, emotional responses to imagery and contextual influences on imagery.

Conclusions:

Our findings suggest that spontaneous images are an important phenomenon in anxiety disorders in adolescents, associated with negative emotions during and after their occurrence. Contextual factors and adolescents’ own cognitive styles appear to influence adolescents’ experiences of images in anxiety disorders.

Keywords

adolescentsanxiety disordersimagery
Type
Main
Information
Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy , Volume 49 , Issue 5 , September 2021 , pp. 556 - 568
Copyright
© British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 2020

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Footnotes

‡

Joint first authors.

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