Automated group desensitization—A follow-up report

Effectiveness of study counseling and desensitization in alleviating test anxiety: A two-year follow-up.

“…However, participation in treatment did not result in greater reductions in self-reported anxiety or correspondingly larger increases in grades. While these results are discrepant from those reported by both Donner (1970) and Paul (1967Paul ( , 1968, they appear attributable to three factors.…”

“…Paul (1968) also reported that a significantly higher proportion of desensitized students successfully completed their academic careers than did untreated subjects. Donner (1970) conducted a one-semester follow-up evaluation of an automated group desensitization procedure (Donner & Guerney, 1969). Subjects exposed to active therapist participation manifested the greatest im-1 Data analysis was facilitated by National Science Foundation Grant GJ-9 to the University of Connecticut computer center.…”

Symptom substitution, generalization, and response covariation: Implications for psychotherapy outcome.

“…The absence of symptom substitution in many reports was considered to refute psychodynamic conceptions of clinical disorders and their treatment (Jones, 1924;Mowrer & Mowrer, 1938;Yates, 1958a). Moreover, several studies indicated that treatment of a particular problem-such as obsessions, phobias, enuresis, and others-was often followed by improvements in other specific areas of functioning (e.g., Baker, 1969;Boersma, Den Hengst, Dekker, & Emmelkamp, 1976;Donner, 1970;Paul, 1967Paul, , 1968Solyom, Heseltine, McClure, Ledwidge, & Kenny, 1971). These beneficial effects were frequently considered as evidence for "generalization," although the mechanisms responsible for broad changes have not been examined or clarified by the findings themselves.…”

Research in neurosis: a selective review: 2. Treatment

“…This accords with other evidence from studies of volunteers. Desensitization still has a significant effect when the role of the therapist/ client relationship is minimized by using an automated procedure by tape recorder (Donner, 1970). Though desensitization in fantasy is useful for phobics with specific phobias, it is quite time-consuming and boring for often limited gains.…”