Autobiographical Memory and Emotional Disorders

Autobiographical memory overgenerality has been foundto influence depression and parasuicidal patientsfairly consistently and for quite some years now.However anxiety disorder individuals have been foundto be quite specific in reporting theirautobiograpbical memories. Using the Clark and Wells'(1995) model of social anxiety with its focus on theself at the centre of the disorder this work hasestablished a direct link with overgenerality forsocially anxious sufferers. In an experimentalparadigm participants were primed to self-focusprior to completing Williams' (2002) autobiographicalmemory task to establish whether the same effect waspresent as is typically the case for depressedpatients. The priming manipulation drew out theovergenerality effect in the case of socially anxiousindividuals. The consequence of this is strongrecommendations that the overgenerality dysfunctionof memory should be considered in terms of therapyfor social anxiety.