Sara is a sprinter and she is not usually an anxious person. However, she gets very worried before her races and starts to think that she will perform poorly and make a fool of herself in front of the audience. She looks at the other competitors and feels that she is not good enough. Many times she thinks that this is just not “her day” or she starts to question her strategies. However, she does not feel much tension in her body; it is just hard to focus with all these thoughts. What type of anxiety does Sara have (cognitive or somatic)? Write two symptoms that support this assessment. Hint: stating that she does not present one type of anxiety symptom does not support the existence of the other. Considering the Matching Hypothesis, which of the techniques that we learned in class could you use to help Sara control her anxiety and why? Focus on only one.
