In CBT for generalized anxiety disorder, which approach best describes the applied strategy?

• A. Rely on medication management alone.
• B. Identify and challenge worry thoughts, reduce avoidance, and use exposure and coping strategies to manage uncertainty.
• C. Use only relaxation techniques.
• D. Employ dream interpretation.

Answer: (B)

In CBT for generalized anxiety disorder, the applied strategy combines working on thoughts about worry with active behavioral steps to engage with uncertainty. The best approach is to identify and challenge worry thoughts, reduce avoidance, and use exposure and coping strategies to manage uncertainty. This targets the core pattern of GAD: persistent, uncontrollable worry fueled by intolerance of uncertainty and avoidance. By explicitly examining and reframing worried cognitions, you decrease the perceived threat of uncertain events. At the same time, reducing avoidance and using gradual exposure to uncertain or feared situations helps break the cycle where worry escalates anxiety and avoidance reinforces it. Coping strategies—like problem-solving, planning, and stress management—give practical tools to handle outcomes, which strengthens confidence in handling ambiguity without constant brooding. In contrast, relying on medication alone doesn’t train these cognitive and behavioral processes; relying only on relaxation techniques misses the cognitive appraisal and exposure components that reduce worry over time; dream interpretation isn’t aligned with CBT’s focus on current thoughts and behaviors driving GAD.