Conceptual models of generalized anxiety disorder

Since the beginning of the 1990s, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) has increasingly come under the theorists’ spotlight, leading to the development of several models. These approaches have aimed to account for the persistence of worry — the cardinal feature of GAD. In this paper, we outline four recent leading models of GAD and worry, each of which underpin distinct psychological treatments; cognitive avoidance theory,1 the metacognitive model,2 intolerance of uncertainty theory,3 and the emotional dysregulation model.4 The core features of each model are described with a brief overview of the empirical evidence supporting their central components.