"Runaway imagery" in systematic desensitization therapy and implosive therapy.

Psychotherapy ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 233-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Curtis L. Barrett
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Desensitization ◽  
Desensitization Therapy ◽  
Implosive Therapy

Hypnosis and the Desensitization Behavior Therapies

1970 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 787-794 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart B. Litvak
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Desensitization ◽  
Desensitization Therapy ◽  
Mental Operations

A distinction is made between desensitization techniques carried out in vivo and other modes of desensitization therapy (flooding, implosion, and systematic desensitization) which rely upon mental operations or processes. Research is reviewed and points are discussed which support a position supporting a relationship between variables and phenomena found in the desensitization therapies and those found in hypnosis. This relationship appears to be greatest in those desensitization therapies basing treatment upon the utilization of mental operations. Some new lines of research are then proposed.

Systematic Desensitization Therapy: An Analysis of Results in Twenty-seven Patients

1966 ◽  
Vol 112 (484) ◽  
pp. 295-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. Hain ◽  
R. H. G. Butcher ◽  
I. Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
Symptomatic Treatment ◽  
Controlled Study ◽  
Systematic Desensitization ◽  
Behaviour Therapy ◽  
General Applicability ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Desensitization Therapy ◽  
Analysis Of Results ◽  
Principles Of Learning ◽  
Careful Investigation

The need for the development of shorter and more effective techniques of psychotherapy justifies a careful investigation of any methods which offer this possibility. A number of therapeutic techniques (7, 15, 18, 20) now often subsumed under the heading of Behaviour Therapy (4) and based on various principles of learning theory call for examination, since their exponents claim that these methods can make therapy both shorter and more effective than can other methods, e.g., those based on psychoanalytic theory. Published reports of results with behaviour therapy to date consist largely of the assessment of results made by a therapist on his own patients, e.g., Wolpe (20, 21), Lazarus (9), Rachman (12). Cooper (2) studied results achieved by other therapists on thirty patients treated with various techniques of behaviour therapy. His survey included a comparison, using “blind” independent assessors, of a group of patients treated with behaviour therapy and a matched group of patients treated by other techniques. Cooper concluded that this comparison showed a definite advantage for behaviour therapy in the symptomatic treatment of phobias, but he could find no evidence supporting the claim of a superiority of the methods of behaviour therapy over conventional techniques in producing general changes. Unfortunately Cooper does not report the experience level of the therapists in his study except to say that they were a “variety of student and staff psychologists”. Evidence for a superiority of behaviour therapy must derive from a controlled comparison of matched groups of patients treated with techniques of behaviour therapy and with other techniques by therapists of comparable competence. But, pending judgment from such a controlled study, we believe ample evidence exists that techniques of behaviour therapy do bring comparable improvements more rapidly than do other treatments in some patients. The greater precision and shortening of therapy for these patients would alone constitute a very notable advance in psychotherapy, apart from claims of a wider or general applicability of these techniques. For this reason we believe it important to investigate these various techniques in as much detail as possible. Wolpe describes the most important of them as systematic desensitization (20, 21).

Group Systematic Desensitization and Implosive Therapy for Death Anxiety

1981 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 376-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Testa
Keyword(s):  
Death Anxiety ◽  
Systematic Desensitization ◽  
Implosive Therapy

Neither group desensitization nor group implosion was successful in reducing death anxiety of 48 nurses. Implications for future attempts to reduce death anxiety were discussed.

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