Thomas Borkovec
Thomas Borkovec is an American clinical psychologist, emeritus at Pennsylvania State University, and the central figure in the research literature on worry. He developed the standard questionnaire the field uses to measure it, and introduced worry postponement, the practice of putting worry off to a scheduled time of day. He is on this site for a 1982 experiment with Richard Gross showing that giving an ordinary good sleeper something to chew on at lights out lengthens the time it takes them to fall asleep.
Who they are
Worry postponement borrows a principle from the treatment of insomnia: if a place or a time becomes associated with a behaviour, the association can be deliberately rebuilt. The idea is to give worry an appointment somewhere other than the pillow.
This page describes research. It prescribes nothing and diagnoses nobody.
Key papers
Gross, R. T., & Borkovec, T. D. (1982). "Effects of a cognitive intrusion manipulation on the sleep-onset latency of good sleepers", Behavior Therapy. Good sleepers given something to think about before bed took roughly five to twelve minutes longer to fall asleep than those who were not.
Borkovec, T. D., et al. (1983). Stimulus control treatment for worry. The founding paper for worry postponement.
Dippel, N., et al. (2023). A pooled analysis of worry postponement, finding small reductions in how long and how often people worry compared with simply writing worries down. Read from meta-analysis summaries rather than the published record; the journal and year should be confirmed before this is cited.
Key ideas
Plain English on the postponement evidence: setting a worry appointment shortens worry a little in ordinary people, and has not shown itself clearly in the clinic, where the picture in diagnosed generalised anxiety is weaker and mixed. Both halves belong in the same sentence.
It is not the same thing as naming a feeling. Postponement is scheduling. Affect labelling is putting the feeling into words. They are separate techniques with separate evidence, and this site mentions his work alongside that one only in order to draw the line.
The 1982 result is the useful one for anybody lying awake: what reaches into the night is arousal, not the content of the thought. Later work using movement monitors and overnight recording points the same way.
Concepts on this site
Find them elsewhere
Nothing confirmed. A search was run and no website or account could be tied to this person with enough certainty to publish. A name match on its own is not evidence, and a wrong link here would be worse than none.
Checked 2026-09-11. Handles and affiliations go out of date, so treat this block as a snapshot rather than a standing fact.
Sources
- Gross, R. T., & Borkovec, T. D. (1982). Behavior Therapy.
- Borkovec, T. D., et al. (1983). Stimulus control treatment for worry.
- Dippel, N., et al. (2023). Journal and year flagged as unconfirmed.
- Vault verification record, 2026-09-11. Affiliation confirmed.