Flooding versus Desensitization in the Treatment of Phobic Patients: A Crossover Study

Abstract

Over the past five years several studies have suggested that flooding and its analogues reduce fear in animals and in man. The literature on analogues of flooding in animals was surveyed by Baum (1970), who himself demonstrated that prevention of a conditioned avoidance response in rats extinguishes the response (Baum, 1966). The longer the duration of response prevention, the quicker the extinction of the avoidance response (Baum, 1969a). The greater the shock trauma involved in the original learning of the response, the longer the response prevention had to be before the avoidance response was extinguished (Baum, 1969b, 1970). In phobic human volunteers controlled studies showed that flooding in imagination reduced avoidance responses to rats (Hogan and Kirchner, 1967, 1968; Kirchner and Hogan, 1966), and that the technique worked more quickly than desensitization (Barrett, 1969) in improving snake phobias. An analogue of flooding—exposure in real life with response prevention—was also shown to be more effective than desensitization for the reduction of snake phobias (Strahley, 1965). Two studies found, however, that desensitization was superior to flooding for the reduction of snake phobias (Mealiea, 1967) and mouse phobias (Willis and Edwards, 1969), while in a further two reports flooding was not significantly different in effectiveness from desensitization for the reduction of snake phobias (de Moor, 1970) or stage fright (Calef and Maclean, 1970).

The Pattern of Subjective Anxiety During In-Session Exposures Over the Course of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Clients With Social Anxiety Disorder

“…However, devices used to measure physiological arousal may impede the therapeutic process and/or reduce the reality of the exposure experience. In addition, Marks, Boulougouris, and Marset (1971) found that subjective reports of anxiety better discriminated between phobic and neutral stimuli than did physiological reports.Previous research has examined various patterns of anxiety during treatment and their relationship to outcome. In terms of fear activation, studies have shown that individuals who benefited most from treatment also reported higher levels of fear activation (Borkovec & Sides, 1979;Jansson, Öst, & Jerremalm, 1987;Kozak, Foa, & Steketee, 1988;Lang, Melamed, & Hart, 1970).…”

“…However, devices used to measure physiological arousal may impede the therapeutic process and/or reduce the reality of the exposure experience. In addition, Marks, Boulougouris, and Marset (1971) found that subjective reports of anxiety better discriminated between phobic and neutral stimuli than did physiological reports.…”

Paniekmanagement en exposure in vivo bij paniekstoornis met agorafobie

“…De steekproef was echter klein (Marks et al, 1971). In een meer uitgebreide studie werd de effectiviteit van flooding bevestigd (Gelder et al, 1973;Mathews et al, 1974).…”

Behavioral Treatments of Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia: Treatment Process and Determinants of Change

“…Flooding received preliminary support for agoraphobia in one study (Marks, Boulougouris & Marset, 1971), and seemed promising not only regarding the outcome, but also as being a far quicker approach than systematic desensitization. In a later trial this difference only emerged in behavioral measures, but not for other outcome measures (Gelder, Bancroft, Gath, Johnston, Mathews & Shaw, 1973).…”