Talking with a mental health professional can help you manage your specific phobia. Exposure therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy are the most effective treatments. Exposure therapy focuses on changing your response to the object or situation that you fear.
What is the most effective therapy for specific phobias?
CEH clinicians specialize in providing exposure-based Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which is considered to be the evidence-based treatment of choice for specific phobias. In treatment, clinicians assist individuals in gradually facing what is feared, repeatedly, until the situation/object/animal no longer triggers a fear response and distress tolerance skills are …
How can cognitive behavioral therapy help with social phobias?
Exposure therapy, a form of CBT, is considered the "gold standard" for treatment of specific phobias, PTSD, and other anxiety disorders (Hamblen, Schnurr, Rosenberg, & …
How effective is CBT for anxiety disorders?
Feb 10, 2022 · Evidence-Based Therapy Therapy at VA. Evidence-based therapies (EBTs) have been shown to improve a variety of mental health conditions and overall well-being. These treatments are tailored to each Veteran’s needs, priorities, values, preferences, and …
What is the best treatment for social phobia and agoraphobia?
Applied muscle tension is a special variant of in vivo exposure for the treatment of blood-injection-injury phobia. This treatment uses standard exposure techniques but also incorporates muscle tension exercises to respond to decreases in blood pressure that can lead to fainting.
What is behavioral therapy?
Since its introduction, behavioral therapy has evolved to include cognitive psychotherapy, pioneered by the early work of psychologists such as Albert Eilis and Aaron T. Beck. Cognitive therapy focuses on changing cognitions, which is proposed to change emotions and behaviors.
Who invented CBT?
The origins of CBT can be traced back in part to the theories of early researchers such as B. F. Skinner and Joseph Wolpe, who pioneered the behavioral therapy movement in the 1950s. Behavioral therapy supposes that changing behaviors leads to change in emotions and cognitions such as appraisals.
What is the purpose of the current article?
The purpose of the current article is to provide an overview of two of the most commonly used CBT methods used to treat anxiety disorders (exposure and cognitive therapy) and to summarize and discuss the current empirical research regarding the usefulness of these techniques for each anxiety disorder.
How many sessions of cognitive therapy are there?
Cognitive therapy is typically time-limited to about 20 sessions or less, and is problem-focused on the issues the patient identifies as of primary concern. Efficacy/effectiveness of cognitive therapy for anxiety disorders. The use of cognitive techniques in treating anxiety disorders is widely implemented.
Is exposure therapy effective for anxiety?
The efficacy and effectiveness of exposure therapy has been well documented for anxiety disorders, and exposure therapy is considered the treatment of choice for many forms of pathological anxiety. Post-traumatic stress disorder.
Is relaxation effective in GAD?
Conversely, other research suggests that relaxation is equally effective as cognitive therapy in terms of symptom improvement in patients with GAD at post-treatment and at follow-up. 53,54. Social anxiety disorder.
Does CBT help with anxiety?
In summary, the research on CBT in anxiety disorders supports the efficacy and effectiveness of these methods, with most of the current research demonstrating the usefulness of providing exposure therapy in the treatment of anxiety disorders. However, these results may change as additional research is conducted on cognitive therapy alone ...
What is specific phobia?
Specific phobias are among the most prevalent psychological problems, and are often associated with serious life impairment and complex symptom profiles, including physiological symptoms, impairing coping and avoidance behaviors, and unhelpful or distorted cognitions. Therefore, a thorough assessment using multiple methods is important to evaluate the idiosyncrasies of each client’s presentation. The purpose of this chapter is to review the elements of a comprehensive, evidence-based assessment and treatment plan for specific phobia. The chapter provides an overview of diagnostic and clinical features of specific phobia, reviews the empirical status of commonly used assessment and treatment methods, and concludes with recommendations for assessment and intervention.
What is a behavioral avoidance task?
Behavioral avoidance tasks (BATs) have been used for decades in the assessment of specific phobias, but they also involve a number of prohibitive difficulties. This study investigated a new imaginal/self-report instrument, the Behavioral Avoidance Task Using Imaginal Exposure (BATIE), and evaluated whether it was an efficient paper-and-pencil alternative. Forty-nine adults diagnosed with specific phobias were matched to 49 participants without those particular phobias who served as control participants. The participants were 89.8% female and 79.6% Caucasian and had a mean age of 20.81 years (SD = 3.62). Diagnosis was determined using the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule (Brown, DiNardo, & Barlow, 1994). Participants completed a BAT following a BATIE. Results indicated BATIE ratings significantly correlated with BAT performance and ratings. Significant differences were also found between the phobic and control groups on all BATIE ratings (all differences indicated poorer performance or more fear in those with specific phobias). Also, the BATIE scores demonstrated good evidence of convergent and discriminant validity compared to other self-reports, significantly predicted BAT performance even when controlling for those measures of fear and anxiety, and significantly predicted diagnostic severity ratings. Overall, results indicated that the BATIE may be a reasonable alternative to in vivo BATs in certain situations (e.g., clinical practice, unavailability of BAT stimuli). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
How does workspace affect mental health?
Workspace design affects occupational health and performance as well as overall mental health. Using standardized and customized questionnaires (N = 195), this paper examines the relatively unexplored relationship between mental health, fatigue at work and factors relating to satisfaction within the workspace. Such factors include the subjective assessment of architectural properties of transitional spaces leading to the office and underground vs above-ground locations. Lower perceived confinement in transitional spaces was associated with better mental health, lower levels of perceived workload, and lower work-related physical and emotional fatigue. These associations were stronger than those with the perceived confinement in the workspace itself. Underground workers reported lower levels of physical and emotional fatigue. Among the participants working in above-ground offices, effects were stronger for those with higher levels of (non-clinical) claustrophobia. The present study highlights the effects, so far less acknowledged, of transitional spaces on the mental and psychological health of employees in underground and above-ground offices and suggests specific design interventions to enhance employee well-being.
What is the purpose of the SPQ?
An exploratory factor analysis revealed five factors with internal consistency (Cronbach’s α) ranging from .64–.92. The SPQ also demonstrated good convergent and discriminant validity with measures of worry, depression, and other specific phobias, and good test-retest reliability. Results also suggest that SPQ scores are useful for discriminating individuals with specific phobias from those without specific phobias, and for identifying specific phobia types. Overall, preliminary results suggest that the SPQ can serve as a useful tool in both research and clinical settings, and inform intervention and prevention efforts.
How does VRET work?
However, to do this efficiently the patient's anxiety level should be tracked throughout the VRET session. Therefore, in order to fully use all advantages provided by the VRET system, a mental stress detection system is needed. The patient's physiological signals can be collected with wearable biofeedback sensors. Signals like blood volume pressure (BVP), galvanic skin response (GSR), and skin temperature can be processed and used to train the anxiety level classification models. In this paper, we combine VRET with mental stress detection and highlight potential uses of this kind of VRET system. We discuss and present a framework for anxiety level recognition, which is a part of our developed cloud-based VRET system. Physiological signals of 30 participants were collected during VRET-based public speaking anxiety treatment sessions. The acquired data were used to train a four-level anxiety recognition model (where each level of 'low', 'mild', 'moderate', and 'high' refer to the levels of anxiety rather than to separate classes of the anxiety disorder). We achieved an 80.1% cross-subject accuracy (using leave-one-subject-out cross-validation) and 86.3% accuracy (using 10 × 10 fold cross-validation) with the signal fusion-based support vector machine (SVM) classifier.
What is critical thinking?
Critical thinking is often taught with some emphasis on categories and operations of cognitive biases. The underlying thought is that knowledge of biases equips students to reduce them. The empirical evidence, however, doesn’t provide much support for this thought. We have previously argued that the emphasis on debiasing in critical thinking education is worth preserving, but in light of a more explicit and broader conception of debiasing. We now argue that this broader conception of debiasing strategies obliges critical thinking instructors and curriculum designers to reflect on the teaching approaches that might facilitate the use of those strategies. We propose some teaching techniques to expand the scope of debiasing in the classroom—some untested, some only rarely and recently characterized as critical thinking strategies, rather than as pragmatic considerations in, e.g., design, engineering, marketing. These methods and others like them, we suggest, broaden the prospects for teaching a range of effective critical thinking techniques for debiasing.
What is needle fear?
Needle fear typically begins in childhood and represents an important health-related issue across the lifespan. Individuals who are highly fearful of needles frequently avoid health care. Although guidance exists for managing needle pain and fear during procedures, the most highly fearful may refuse or abstain from such procedures. The purpose of a clinical practice guideline (CPG) is to provide actionable instruction on the management of a particular health concern; this guidance emerges from a systematic process. Using evidence from a rigorous systematic review interpreted by an expert panel, this CPG provides recommendations on exposure-based interventions for high levels of needle fear in children and adults. The AGREE-II, GRADE, and Cochrane methodologies were used. Exposure-based interventions were included. The included evidence was very low quality on average. Strong recommendations include the following. In vivo (live/in person) exposure-based therapy is recommended (vs. no treatment) for children seven years and older and adults with high levels of needle fear. Non-in vivo (imaginal, computer-based) exposure (vs. no treatment) is recommended for individuals (over seven years of age) who are unwilling to undergo in vivo exposure. Although there were no included trials which examined children < 7 years, exposure-based interventions are discussed as good clinical practice. Implementation considerations are discussed and clinical tools are provided. Utilization of these recommended practices may lead to improved health outcomes due to better health care compliance. Research on the understanding and treatment of high levels of needle fear is urgently needed; specific recommendations are provided.
Evidence-Based Therapy
Evidence-based therapies (EBTs) have been shown to improve a variety of mental health conditions and overall well-being. These treatments are tailored to each Veteran’s needs, priorities, values, preferences, and goals for therapy.
Therapy at VA
Evidence-based therapies (EBTs) have been shown to improve a variety of mental health conditions and overall well-being. These treatments are tailored to each Veteran’s needs, priorities, values, preferences, and goals for therapy.
Description
Exposure-based therapies reflect a variety of behavioral approaches that are all based on exposing the phobic individuals to the stimuli that frighten them.
Key References (in reverse chronological order)
Gotestam, K. G., & Hokstad, A. (2002). One session treatment of spider phobia in a group setting with rotating active exposure. European Journal of Psychiatry, 16, 129?134.
Clinical Resources
McLean, P.D., & Woody, S.R. (2001). Specific fears and phobias, pp. 48-83. In P.D. McLean and S.R. Woody, Anxiety disorders in adults: An evidence-based approach to psychological treatment. New York: Oxford University Press.
Training Opportunities
Center for Cognitive Therapy#N#Cory Newman, PhD, Director#N#Mary Anne Layden, Ph.D., Director of Education#N#University of Pennsylvania Medical School#N#3535 Market Street, 2nd Floor#N#Philadelphia, PA 19104-3309#N#Phone: 215-898-4100#N#[email protected]