According to the principle of extinction, the fear response decreases or weakens when the patient is exposed to the feared situation and does not undergo a fear experience or arousal (Porter et al.).
The therapist first determines and ranks the patient's feared situations according to severity (Porter et al., 2006). Distress is measured by the Subjective Units of Distress
Scale at a range of 0 to 100 from minimal to severe. The person should remain in the situation until his distress level decreases to at least half. Exposure should not terminate when he is at the peak anxiety level or experiencing a panic attack. Terminating exposure at this point will reinforce the phobia. It can also develop aversive arousal that can lead to escape behaviors. These behaviors can lessen the probability of overcoming the feared situation, increase the timetable of therapy or end too early (Porter et al.).
Issues
The five variations are therapist-directed vs. self-directed, massed vs. spaced, graduated vs. intense, endurance vs. controlled escape, and attention vs. distraction (Porter et al., 2006). The therapist-directed type has proved more effective on less motivated or educated patients. The self-directed type, on the other hand, appears more suitable to independent more educated patients. Most therapists begin with the self-directed type before moving to the self-directed type (Porter et al.).
In vivo exposure often involves long and continuous sessions or short and interrupted ones (Porter et al., 2006). Its overall effectiveness, dropout and relapse rates have, however, not been evaluated. A study conducted on two groups of patients with agoraphobia, who underwent 10 weekly and 10 daily sessions, respectively, found the massed or long and continuous-sessions type more effective. A similar study of 36 patients, however, found this type effective when used immediately as well as at follow-up six months later. A further study tested the responses of a distraction group and a focused group. Post-test showed that 54% of the distraction group had higher end-state functioning against the 25% of the focused group. The focused group response, however, went up to 63% against that of the distraction group, which lowered to 42% at follow-up six months later....
CT/ERP for OCD: Case Study OCD & Cognitive Therapy (CT)/Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a type of anxiety disorder that is often comorbid with other anxiety disorders such as agoraphobia, panic disorders, other specific phobias (heights, water, germs, etc.), social phobias (crowds, strangers, etc.), and overall generalized anxiety disorder (Oltmanns, & Emery, 2010). The "obsessions" in OCD have to do with intrusive thoughts that sufferers cannot simply ignore
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Apparent health can be generally positive or negative; in spite of how it links with the real health; it may be significant to comprehend its function in certain kinds of psychopathology. Negatively apparent health has been anticipated to symbolize a cognitive risk factor for panic disorder (PD), detached from elevated anxiety feeling. As a result, PD may be more likely to take place on a background of negative perceptions
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Likewise, anxiety and depression represent the most prevalent problems facing young adults attending college, with these two conditions being ranked first and third, respectively, among college students seeking counseling services (Mccarthy, Fouladi, Juncker & Matheny, 2006). According to Armstrong and her associates (2003), adolescence and young adulthood is a period in life when most people engage in explorative behaviors and test their limits in ways that may contribute to their
Abstract Phobias are a kind of anxiety disorder that can make an individual to experience extreme irrational fear regarding a situation, object, or living creature. Phobias should not be confused with normal fears since phobias are linked to a particular situation or object and they are persistent for 6 or more months. In this paper, we will describe what a phobia is and offer the differentiation of phobias from normal fear.
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