Control, avoidance and emotion regulation cognitive strategies: the differential role in negative and intrusive repetitive thoughts

In this research, we present the relationships of a broad range of cognitive and emotional avoidance strategies, such as reappraisal, punishment, and social control with some repetitive negative thoughts such as trait worry, brooding, reflection, and other intrusive thoughts such as those associated with obsessions and compulsions and post-traumatic stress. The participants were 267 individuals from the general population, of whom 62.6% were women and 37.4% men. The results indicate that the most transdiagnostic strategies for repetitive negative and intrusive thoughts are worrying, avoidance of threatening stimuli, rumination, and catastrophism. Reappraisal and focusing on planning are predictors of reflection, while focusing on planning is also common to intrusive thoughts. Results are discussed from the theories of cognitive avoidance and emotion regulation and their possible integration into the experiential avoidance disorder of the relational frame theory.