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A test of core assumptions of the catastrophic misinterpretation model of panic disorder

journal contribution
posted on 2006-01-01, 00:00 authored by David AustinDavid Austin, J Richards
The catastrophic misinterpretation model of panic disorder proposes that spontaneous panic attacks are the result of misinterpretation of harmless autonomic arousal as precursors to physical (e.g. heart attack) or psychological (e.g. insanity) emergency. Mixed research findings to date have provided equivocal support. A modified form of the Body Sensations Interpretation Questionnaire was used to investigate core assumptions of the model amongst 38 people with panic disorder (PD), 20 with non-clinical panic, 21 with social anxiety disorder, and 34 non-anxious controls. The PD group gave more harm-related interpretations of ambiguous internal stimuli than all other groups only when anxiety-related responses (e.g. “I'm going to panic”) were scored as harm, however there was no evidence that anxiety-related interpretations were masking perceived catastrophic physical or psychological outcomes. Despite this, people with PD rated harm and anxiety outcomes as more negative than non-anxious controls. Results failed to unequivocally support core assumptions of the model.

History

Journal

Cognitive therapy and research

Volume

30

Issue

1

Pagination

53 - 68

Publisher

Springer

Location

Berlin, Germany

ISSN

0147-5916

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2006, Taylor & Francis

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