Worry, thoughts, and images: A new conceptualization

The present chapter addresses the relations between worry, thoughts, and images. It is organized into three parts. Part 1 outlines T. D. Borkovec’s avoidance theory of worry, namely that worry reduces aversive imagery. Part 2 considers two mechanisms by which worry may reduce imagery, namely limitation of processing resources and verbal abstraction. Moreover, as there is little evidence for the first, but some evidence for the latter, Part 2 presents a new conceptual model of the relations between worry, thoughts, and images. Part 3 presents a brief outline beyond anxiety research on how avoidance theory and the verbal abstraction hypothesis may relate to the phenomenon of ruminative coping with depression.