Anxiety Symptoms Influence the Effect of Post-Trauma Interventions after Analogue Trauma

The present study aimed to replicate the beneficial effect of imagery rescripting (IRS) over imagery reexperiencing (IRE) in a trauma analogue experiment. The impact of anxiety on the manipulations was also examined. Anxious (n = 33) and non-anxious (n = 40) participants were randomly assigned to IRE or IRS, taking place 30 minutes after watching an aversive film. Intrusive memories were recorded in the subsequent week. Results showed that IRE resulted in more intrusive thoughts and intrusive images than IRS. Frequency of intrusive thoughts or images did not differ for anxious and non-anxious participants. However, anxiety influenced the effect of the manipulation: IRE resulted in higher levels of intrusive images than IRS in anxious but not in non-anxious participants. Such anxiety × condition interaction was not present for intrusive thoughts. The results suggest that anxious individuals may be particularly sensitive to interventions in the memory consolidation phase.