Autobiographical Memory and Emotional Disorders

Autobiographical memory overgenerality has been found to influence depression and parasuicidal patients fairly consistently, and for quite some years now. However, anxiety disorder individuals have been found to be quite specific in reporting their autobiograpbical memories. Using the Clark and Wells (1995) model of social anxiety, with its focus on the self at the centre of the disorder, this work has established a direct link with overgenerality for socially anxious sufferers. In an experimental paradigm, participants were primed to self-focus prior to completing Williams (2002) autobiographical memory task, to establish whether the same effect was present as is typically the case for depressed patients. The priming manipulation drew out the overgenerality effect in the case of socially anxious individuals. The consequence of this is strong recommendations that the overgenerality dysfunction of memory should be considered in terms of therapy for social anxiety.