Working with Anxiety Symptoms through Metacognitive Theory in Psychological Counseling: A Case Example

Date

2025-10-30

Author

Aydoğdu, Umut
Tagay , Özlem

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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This single-case study examined the effectiveness of Metacognitive Theory-Based Psychological Counseling (MT-PC) in addressing symptoms of generalized anxiety. The intervention was carried out through nine individual counseling sessions with a 22-year- old client who reported persistent worry, uncontrollable thoughts, and physiological manifestations of anxiety. The counseling process was structured according to Adrian Wells’ metacognitive model and aimed to facilitate the client’s recognition and reevaluation of dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs, as well as the development of more flexible attentional strategies. Throughout the sessions, techniques such as worry postponement, attention training, detached mindfulness, and Socratic dialogue were employed. To assess the intervention's effectiveness, the Worry Beliefs Scale and the Beck Anxiety Inventory were given before and after the intervention. The results revealed significant reductions in both anxiety levels and maladaptive metacognitive beliefs. By the end of the counseling process, the client began to perceive worry as a manageable cognitive process and developed a more detached and flexible approach to intrusive thoughts. These findings suggest that MT-PC may be a viable approach at the individual level in treating generalized anxiety symptoms. However, further research involving larger and more diverse samples is needed to evaluate the generalizability and long-term effectiveness of this approach.

Subject Keywords

metacognitive theory-based psychological counseling, generalized anxiety, case study in counseling, metakognitif teori tabanlı psikolojik danışmanlık, yaygın kaygı, danışmanlıkta vaka çalışması

URI

https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/ayna/issue/95002/1668409
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/116652

Collections

Department of Psychology, Article