Martijn van Teffelen

Imagery-enhanced cognitive restructuring: Efficacy 77 4 Materials Interventions Traditional Cognitive Restructuring. In this condition therapists followed parts of the CR protocol developed by Beck (2011). See Appendix A for a flow-chart. After psycho-education, participants were asked to describe an autobiographical memory of a (preferably) recent anger-evoking event (e.g., “On the street a person bumped into me and made me drop the stuff that I was holding in my hand”). Using Socratic questioning, hostile cognitions (e.g., “He bumped into me on purpose”) and accompanying affects (e.g., “Annoyed, frustrated, angry”) were identified and filled out in a thought diary on a whiteboard. Then, participants were asked to engage in evidence gathering for (e.g., “He kept looking at me and didn’t immediately help to pick up my stuff”) and against (e.g., “It looked like he was rushing, he was sweating, he mumbled something that sounded like ‘sorry”) their hostile cognition. Finally, they were asked what they would conclude about their original hostile cognition given the available gathered evidence and if they could summarize this in a more helpful, realistic or alternative thought (e.g., “He didn’t see me because he was in a hurry”). Table 1 Sample characteristics Condition Statistical dif. Total sample ( N = 87) I-CR ( n = 34) CR ( n = 32) AC ( n = 21) Χ 2 / F (p) Age in years, M ( SD ) 31.90 (14.80) 33.82 (15.25) 29.88 (14.04) 31.86 (15.47) .58 (.561) Gender, n (%) Male 24 (28) 10 (12) 8 (9) 6 (7) .17 (.917) Female 63 (72) 24 (28) 24 (28) 15 (17) Nationality, n (%) Dutch 83 (95) 31 (36) 31 (36) 21 (24) 2.55 (.279) Belgian 3 (3) 2 (2) 1 (1) 0 (0) German 1 (1) 1 (1) 0 (0) 0 (0) Education, n (%) 9.36 (.053) Low 2 0 1 1 Middle 53 16 25 12 High 32 18 6 8 Work situation, n (%) 8.25 (.083) Employed 29 17 6 6 Unemployed 15 4 8 3 Student 43 18 12 43 Note . I-CR = imagery enhanced cognitive restricting; CR = traditional cognitive restructuring; AC = active control condition.