Advances in Behaviour Research and Therapy最新文献

Before treatment, immediately after treatment and at one week follow up, acoustic probes eliciting eyeblink startles were presented to 37 female spider phobics during a behavioral approach test (BAT). To obtain control startles, the subjects also carried out a BAT with a block of wood (neutral foreground) and a BAT with tasty food items (positive foreground). During the pretreatment assessment eyeblink startle magnitudes did not significantly differ among the three BAT conditions. For all conditions, startle responses were larger during the pre- than during the post-treatment and follow-up assessments. This possibly reflects a general fear-induced startle potentiation during the pretreatment session, due to subjects' anticipating exposure to spiders. At one week follow up, the expected linear trend between affective valence (BAT conditions) and startle magnitude emerged, despite the fact that at this time spider startles were significantly smaller than those before treatment. The self-reported startles closely mimicked the pattern of eyeblink startle responses. The present study indicates that the startle response might be a fruitful outcome variable, indexing aspects of phobia not covered by the more commonly used outcome measures. Yet, its prognostic properties remain to be established.

The role of disgust and contamination sensitivity in the development and treatment of spider phobia was examined. It was predicted that spider phobia high in disgust and contamination sensitivity have been more susceptible to evaluative conditioning processes and, as a result, less often report traumatic conditioning events and benefit less from exposure treatment than phobics low in disgust sensitivity (Baeyens, Eelen, Crombez, & van den Bergh, 1992). As a group, spider phobics (N = 46) were characterized by higher disgust sensitivity than nonphobic control subjects (N = 28). However, phobics high in disgust sensitivity reported, if anything, more conditioning events than low digust sensitivity phobics. Treatment effects of exposure were evident in both self-report measures and the behavioral modality. These effects were comparable for high and low disgust sensitivity phobics. Remarkably, high and low disgust sensitivity phobics did not differ with regard to the perceived dirtiness of spiders. Even when the perceived dirtiness of spiders was used as a classifying variable, no differences in acquisition history or treatment outcome emerged between high and low groups. Thus, the findings lend no support to the views that traumatic conditioning events are rare and that exposure treatment is less successful in phobics who presumably have an evaluative learning background. The methodological limitations of the present study are discussed.

Results of various experimental studies prove that fearful Ss show an attentional bias to threatening information. It is hypothesized that such attentional bias promotes facilitation of escape from potential danger. In this study, a paradigm is described in which both selective allocation of attention and facilitated escape can be studied in one pictorial task. Selective allocation of attention is assessed by measuring performance deterioration due to distraction with a threatening distracter. Facilitation is measured by improved reaction time performance to threat-relevant cues. An experiment was conducted with 46 spider phobics. The results confirmed that phobic Ss show facilitated responses to threat-congruent cues. The potency of the pictorial task and possible relationships between attentional bias and avoidance are discussed.

The inclusion of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III, 1980) has been associated with an exponential increase in the number of stress-related publications (Saigh, 1992a). Despite the increased literature base, it is of interest to note that the majority of these studies have involved traumatized adults (e.g., combat veterans or rape victims). Nevertheless, it is also of interest to note that child-clinical investigators have made conceptual and practical advances that are of considerable relevance to the study of child and adolescent PTSD. This review will primarily focus on interventions that have evinced efficacy over time with a wide range of traumatized patients. In so doing, historical, theoretical, and practical information relative to the use of flooding regiments is provided.

Since psychological theories are mostly only vaguely formulated, theoretically revealing emperical studies are often difficult. Tests of central theoretical postulates usually require systematization and possibly reconstruction of the theoretical framework. The present article provides such a systematization and possibly reconstruction of the theoretical framework. The present article provides such a systematization for the influential Activation Theory of Personality, developed by H. J. Eysenck during the last four decades. The article (1) gives an overview of the historical development of the theory, (2) presents a systematization and partial reconstruction of the latest version of the theoretical framework in the form of 23 postulates, (3) analyzes the conceptual structure of the theory, and (4) briefly reviews the relevant empirical evidence in various fields of application. Based on this analysis, the current logico-systematical and empirical status of the theory, as well as its potential for further development is evaluated.

This paper is an attempt to consider classical conditioning models of human fears and phobias in a contemporary context, and to consider how conditioning models might be of some theoretical help in this area. The paper covers (i) a contemporary review of the basic phenomena of human conditioning, (ii) a comparison of conditioning processes in humans and animals, (iii) a description of a contemporary model of human conditioning designed to accommodate recent research findings, (iv) a re-examination of the traditional criticisms of conditioning accounts of phobias in the light of this contemporary model, (v) a discussion of some of the features of fears and phobias that this model can address, and (vi) a brief discussion of the scope of this model and some implications for the treatment of clinical fears and phobias.

Contemporary theories of drug urges assume that these states are central to the maintenance of drug administration in addicts and are responsible for the high rate of relapse frequently encountered when addicts attempt abstinence. Most urge theories share the assumption that urges and cravings are subjective states that are manifest behaviorally as concordant changes in overt behavior (e.g., drug pursuit and consumption), verbal reports of urges, and particular constellations of somatovisceral responses. Urge research has been impeded by inadequate development of questionnaires for assessing verbal report of urges, limitations of laboratory-based urge-induction procedures, selection and interpretation of relevant psychophysiological measures, and reluctance to critically examine the assumption that urges are necessary for drug use. Examples of research from the author's laboratory illustrating how these issues might be addressed are presented. In addition, a recent cognitive model (Tiffany, 1990) is described that assumes that the processes that control drug use in the addict operate independently of those supporting drug urges. This approach, which draws on the strong parallels between various descriptions of automatic and nonautomatic cognitive processing and some key characteristics of drug-use behavior and drug urges, offers a distinct alternative to current models of drug urges.

In an effort to establish the comorbidity rates of various mental health problems and juvenile delinquency and to determine the most efficacious treatments for such dually diagnosed youths, over 75 publications were reviewed. Despite a dearth of methodologically sound findings, some tentative conclusions were possible. First, in addition to conduct disorder, several other diagnosable mental disorders appear to occur frequently in the population of juvenile delinquents. These problems include personality, affective, attention deficit hyperactivity, and substance abuse disorders, and mental retardation. Most reported treatment studies were for conduct problems, although there were a few reports of interventions for sexual disorders, substance abuse prevention, and mental retardation, most of which were somewhat successful on a short-term basis. Reasons for the lack of high quality empirical studies of the mental health problems of juvenile delinquents were proposed, and the importance of increasing our knowledge base and improving service delivery for such comorbid disorders was stressed.

The Bochum anxiety-therapy study examined the question as to whether adaptation of treatment to an individual case, typical for clinical practice but untypical for research projects, will lead to better treatment outcome. 120 phobic patients were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: an experimental group with individual treatment planned by the therapist, a control group with standardized therapy (exposure in vivo), and a yoked control group. Contrary to expectations, the standardized group proved to be most successful. This holds true for experienced and inexperienced therapists and for patients with different phobias and panic disorders of various severities. The superiority of the standardized group proved to be the result of the method “exposure in vivo”. The factor “adaptation” was of no relevance. The results support the assumption that too much flexibility and too much adaptation can be disadvantageous, at least for the treatment of phobic patients.