Cognitive Aspect of Psychosemantic Reconstruction of Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Abstract

The basic aspects of the importance of personal and semantic factors in the formation of generalized anxiety disorder are highlighted in the article. The model of understanding and psychotherapy of excessive worries, based on the reconstruction of the value system is proposed. Such reconstruction is possible due to the "rewriting" of the personal narrative, which in external manifestation functions as the equivalent of a speech act. It is through the psychosemantic aspect that the way to the field of meanings and understanding of "excessive worries" is opened and the access to the subjective world of a person in his/her own system of semantic and linguistic coordinates is provided. The cognitivebehavioral methodology of recognition of generalized anxiety disorder, Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), WWS-II (worry scale), author's questionnaire and psychotherapeutic interventions were used, which stand for the main tool for reconstruction of semantic spaces and individual value system. The study involved 150 people aged 19-24. The results show that significant aspects of personal and semantic factors in the formation of generalized anxiety disorder can be considered as follows: client perception of worries as those that help to solve problems, motivate to action and can prevent negative results. Such positive beliefs about the worries can significantly affect the dynamics of psychotherapeutic work. The article presents a clinical case and demonstrates the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic interventions. An algorithm for dealing with clients is suggested, which is grounded on a current technique for the cure of generalized anxiety disorder and includes: qualified examination; reevaluation of the effectiveness of the worries; assistance in a realistic perception of ambiguous situations that are not necessarily threatening; reconsidering of attitudes to situations of uncertainty; use of exposures technique aimed at profound coping with the stimulus in a nonverbal way; skills of overcoming negative emotions without escaping from them. Such psychotherapy is also based on the provisions of psychosemantic analysis on the possibility of reconstructing the semantic space of algorithms of emotional-cognitive response. The article attempts to combine the clinical paradigm and the scientific position, the cognitive-behavioral model of psychotherapy and the position of psycholinguistics on cognitive processing of information on the basis of mental representations formed by the individual. The applied psycholinguistics has meaningful prospects for applied cognitive research.