ABSTRACT
Thirty patients with phobia for blood, wounds and injuries were treated individually with applied tension (AT), exposure in vivo (E), or tension-only (T) for 5 sessions. They were assessed on self-report, behavioral and physiological measures before and after treatment, and at a 1 yr follow-up. All groups improved significantly, and the improvements were maintained at follow-up. Applying stringent criteria, 90% of the AT-, 80% of the T-, and 40% of the E-patients were clinically improved at the end of treatment. The corresponding figures at follow-up were 100, 90 and 50%, respectively. AT differed significantly, and T marginally from E at both assessments. Applied tension, or tension-only should, from a clinical point of view, be considered the treatment of choice for blood phobia.
Subject(s)
Arousal , Blood , Desensitization, Psychologic/methods , Phobic Disorders/therapy , Wounds and Injuries/psychology , Adult , Blood Pressure , Female , Heart Rate , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Phobic Disorders/psychologyABSTRACT
Thirty patients with phobia for blood, wounds and injuries were treated individually with applied tension, applied relaxation, or the combination of these two methods for 5, 9 and 10 sessions, respectively. They were assessed on self-report, behavioral and physiological measures before and after treatment, and at a 6-month follow-up. All groups improved significantly on 11/12 measures, and the improvements were maintained at follow-up. Applying stringent criteria, 73% of the patients were clinically improved at the end of treatment and 77% were so at follow-up. Despite a failure to find between-group differences, on many measures there was a trend favoring applied tension. Since this method is as effective as the other treatments in only half the time, applied tension should clinically be the treatment of choice for blood phobia.
Subject(s)
Behavior Therapy/methods , Desensitization, Psychologic/methods , Phobic Disorders/therapy , Relaxation Therapy , Adolescent , Adult , Arousal , Blood , Combined Modality Therapy , Female , Humans , Male , Middle AgedSubject(s)
Behavior Therapy/methods , Blood , Phobic Disorders/therapy , Humans , Muscle Contraction , Phobic Disorders/psychologySubject(s)
Behavior Therapy/methods , Phobic Disorders/therapy , Relaxation Therapy , Adult , Blood , Female , Humans , Male , Wounds and InjuriesSubject(s)
Arousal , Phobic Disorders/psychology , Adult , Blood , Blood Pressure , Female , Heart Rate , Humans , MaleABSTRACT
Two experiments are described showing that a pentobarbital versus saline discrimination can be differentially conditioned to different external contexts. In experiment 1, rats differentiated two T-shaped mazes (one water maze and one electrified maze). In experiment 2, the external stimuli were the presence and absence of light during training in the electrified T-maze. These experiments constitute the first examples where a single drug versus nondrug discrimination has been conditioned to different external contexts requiring an opposite response pattern by the same animal. The data are in accordance with a stimulus interpretation of drug discrimination learning.
