Over the past several decades, T. D. Borkovec, a researcher at Pennsylvania State University, wrote a number of scientific papers showing that anxiety can trigger worry. Back in 1983, Borkovec and his colleagues described worry as “a chain of thoughts and images, negatively affect-laden, and relatively uncontrollable,” representing an attempt to engage in mental problem-solving on an issue with an uncertain outcome. When worry gets triggered by a negative emotion (e.g., fear), it can also become reinforced as a way to avoid the unpleasantness of that emotion: Trigger: Negative emotion (or
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