Anxiety and the Dynamic Self as Defined by the Prospection and Mental Simulation of Looming Future Threats.

A more dynamic perspective of threats to the self may contribute to an enhanced understanding of the processes that develop and maintain anxiety and thus, potentially inform psychological interventions. This article presents the looming vulnerability of anxiety, which stresses the threat or risk prospection and dynamic mental simulation of the course of threat. Individuals do not become anxious simply because they picture distant or static possible threats that represent threats to the self. Rather, their anxiety results from interpreting potential threats as dynamic, growing and approaching. Following a review of a wide range of literature from clinical, personality, and social psychology, we present the looming vulnerability and its underpinnings in evolution and examine its applications to cognitive vulnerability to anxiety and its therapeutic alleviation. We also address the associations of the model to other self-related concepts that are involved in anxiety. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.