KEYNOTE ABSTRACTS

The Nature, Functions, and Consequences of Worry: A Thirty Year Odyssey

Experimental research on worry traces its origins to a college bar in Pennsylvania in 1980. From over a year of weekly meetings, shared introspective accounts of personal worry experience from a (sometimes slightly inebriated) research team laid the foundation for three decades of investigation on worry and Generalized Anxiety Disorder at Penn State University. My presentation will summarize the historical progression of the thinking and the empirical results that occurred over this period, concentrating on what they had to say about the nature, functions, and consequences of worry and ending with a description of several of the insightful discoveries that began to emerge from the laboratories of other clinical scientists.