Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T14:53:05.608Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Intrusive imagery and goals: a control theory perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2009

Stuart Reid
Stuart Reid*
Affiliation:
Five Boroughs Partnership NHS Trust, Enhanced Day Therapies, St Helens, UK
*
*Author for correspondence: Dr S. Reid, Five Boroughs Partnership NHS Trust – Enhanced Day Therapies, Knowsley House, Peasley Cross Hospital, Marshalls Cross Road, St Helens WA9 3DE, UK. (email: coldreid@googlemail.com)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recently, autobiographical memory theorists proposed that intrusive imagery contains important information about goals. This study examined thematic links between approach and avoidance goals in two groups: a clinical group (n = 22) and a non-clinical group (n = 24). Participants completed the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation – Outcome Measure (CORE-OM), Goals Task and an imagery interview. In the total sample, almost 90% of reported imagery matched at least one goal. Eighty-five percent of clinical participants reported imagery that matched avoidance goals, whereas only half of non-clinical participants' imagery matched an avoidance goal. The majority of imagery was found to be associated with a particular memory or a collection of memories for similar events. These findings support proposals that intrusive imagery contains important information about goals, and in particular states of the world to be avoided. Clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Keywords

Case formulationcontrolintrusive cognitionsmemoryqualitative methods
Type
Original Research
Information
the Cognitive Behaviour Therapist , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , September 2009 , pp. 134 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Recommended follow-up reading

Conway, MA, Meares, K, Standart, S (2004). ‘Images and goals’. Memory 12, 525–531.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Conway, MA, Singer, JA, Tagini, A (2004). The self and autobiographical memory: correspondence and coherence. Social Cognition 22, 491–529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hackmann, A (1998). Working with images in clinical psychology. In: Comprehensive Clinical Psychology, vol. 6 (ed. Bellack, A. S. and Hersen, M.), pp. 301–318. Oxford, UK: Penguin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hackmann, A, Holmes, EA (2004). Reflecting on imagery: a clinical perspective and overview of the special issue of Memory on mental imagery and memory in psychopathology. Memory 12, 389–402.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mansell, W (2005). Control theory and psychopathology: an integrative approach. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice 78, 1–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

References

Austin, JT, Vancouver, JB (1996). Goal constructs in psychology: structure, process and content. Psychological Bulletin 120, 338–375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, T (2006). Method of Levels: How to do Psychotherapy Without Getting in the Way. Hayward, CA: Living Control Systems Publishing.Google Scholar
Carey, TA (2008). Hold that Thought! A Short Introduction to the Method of Levels. Chapel Hill, NC: Newview Publications.Google Scholar
Carver, CS, Lawrence, JW, Scheier, MF (1999). Self-discrepancies and affect: incorporating the role of feared selves. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25, 783–792.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carver, CS, Scheier, MF (1982). Control theory: a useful conceptual framework for personality-social, clinical and health psychology. Psychological Bulletin 92, 111–135.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carver, CS, Scheier, MF (1998). On the Self-regulation of Behaviour. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, DM, Wells, A (1995). A cognitive model of social phobia. In: Social Phobia: Diagnosis, Assessment, and Treatment (ed. Heimburg, R. M., Liebowitz, M., Hope, D. and Schneier, F.), pp. 69–93. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Conway, MA, Meares, K, Standart, S (2004 a). ‘Images and Goals’. Memory 12, 525–531.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Conway, MA, Pleydell-Pearce, CW (2000). The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Psychological Review 107, 261–288.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Conway, MA, Singer, JA, Tagini, A (2004 b). The self and autobiographical memory: correspondence and coherence. Social Cognition 22, 491–529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Day, SJ, Holmes, EA, Hackmann, A (2004). Occurrence of imagery and its link with early memories in agoraphobia. Memory 12, 416–427.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dickson, JM, MacLeod, AK (2004). Approach and avoidance goals and plans: their relationship to anxiety and depression. Cognitive Therapy and Research 28, 415–432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emmons, RA (1996). Striving and feeling: personal goals and subjective well-being. In: The Psychology of Action: Linking Cognition and Motivation to Behaviour (ed. Gollwitzer, P. M. and Bargh, J. A.), pp. 313–337. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Evans, C, Connell, J, Barkham, M, Mellor-Clark, J, McGrath, G, Audin, K (2002). Towards a standardised brief outcome measure: psychometric properties and utility of the CORE-OM. British Journal of Psychiatry 180, 51–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Evans, C, Mellor-Clark, J, Margison, F, Barkham, M, Audin, K, Connell, J, McGrath, G (2000). CORE: Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation. Journal of Mental Health 9, 247–255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hackmann, A, Clark, DM, McManus, F (2000). Recurrent images and early memories in social phobia. Behaviour Research and Therapy 38, 601–610.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hackmann, A, Holmes, EA (2004). Reflecting on imagery: a clinical perspective and overview of the special issue of Memory on mental imagery and memory in psychopathology. Memory 12, 389–402.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harvey, AG, Watkins, E, Mansell, W, Shafran, R (2004). Cognitive Behavioural Processes Across Psychological Disorders: A Transdiagnostic Approach to Research and Treatment. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansell, W (2005). Control theory and psychopathology: an integrative approach. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice 78, 1–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mansell, W, Lam, D (2004). A preliminary study of autobiographical memory in remitted bipolar and unipolar depression and the role of imagery in the specificity of memory. Memory 12, 437–446.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Osman, S, Cooper, MJ, Hackmann, A, Veale, D (2004). Spontaneously occurring images and early memories in people with body dysmorphic disorder. Memory 12, 428–436.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Powers, WT (1973/2005). Behaviour: The Control of Perception. Chicago, IL: Aldine/Benchmark Publications.Google Scholar
Somerville, K, Cooper, M, Hackmann, A (2007). Spontaneous imagery in woman with bulimia nervosa: an investigation into content, characteristics and links to childhood memories. Journal of Behaviour Therapy 38, 435–446.Google ScholarPubMed
Stopa, L, Bryant, T (2004). Memory perspective and self-concept in social anxiety: an exploratory study. Memory 12, 489–495.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wells, A, Hackmann, A (1993). Imagery and core beliefs in healthy anxiety: content and origins. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy 21, 265–273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, A, Matthews, G (1994). Attention and Emotion. Hove, UK: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.