Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Participants with a diagnosis of severe Generalized Anxiety Disorder will be randomly assigned to receive either 4 weekly sessions of MI followed by 11 weekly sessions of CBT (MI-CBT arm) or 15 weekly sessions of CBT (CBT alone arm). Both groups will also receive 2 follow-up CBT treatment sessions at 1 and 3 months post-treatment. In order to increase generalizability to clinical practice, in the CBT phase for the MI-CBT arm, therapists will shift to MI in the presence of empirically derived markers of resistance and shift back to CBT when resistance has diminished. In the CBT alone arm therapists will respond to resistance using manualized recommendations derived from leading CBT theorists for the management of resistance.