Reduction of anxiety symptoms during systemic family therapy results in a concurrent improvement of cognitive performance: a study on people with high anxiety

ABSTRACT

Difficulties in various cognitive functions are common observations in people experiencing anxiety. However, limited research has investigated the effects of psychotherapy on abnormal cognitive functioning. This study assessed whether psychotherapy-related reductions of anxiety result in improvements of cognitive functioning as well. Fifty-four participants with high self-reported anxiety, divided into two experimental groups (N = 28 and N = 26), and 27 non-anxious control participants (N = 27) completed a battery of memory tasks and anxiety questionnaires in three consecutive time points. In experimental group 1, participants started systemic family therapy immediately after the first time point, while, in experimental group 2, participants begun the same type of therapy three months later at the second time point. The results showed that, compared to control participants, at the beginning of the experiment, participants in the experimental groups had significantly lower memory performance, along with higher anxiety. Psychotherapy had a beneficial effect on anxiety symptoms and cognitive performance, with significant changes occurring only after intervals of treatments. These results show that psychotherapy is effective not only in reducing anxiety symptoms but on cognitive functioning as well. This improvement might be linked to the release of cognitive resources previously absorbed by worrisome thoughts, facilitated by a heightened protection from interference.

KEYWORDS:

• Working memory
• anxiety
• systemic family therapy
• symptoms reductions
• performance improvement

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. Ratko Đokić for helping with the methodology part and for comments that greatly improved the study. We would also thank the psychotherapists in this study Medina Muhamedagić, Fatima Šahinović, Fikreta Huskić, Jelena Krezić, Šejla Deljanin, Nađa Firdus Kreso, and Elma Avdić.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry for Science, Higher Education and Youth Canton Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina [grant number 27-02-11-4375-18/21].