Emetophobia appears to be the most common specific phobia that requires treatment

A successful treatment for specific phobias should decrease the fear-driven avoidance behavior. Coupled with reducing the avoidance are two related problems. First, some phobics do not avoid feared situations, but endure them with distressingly high levels of anxiety. More recent etiological accounts have suggested that some specific phobics fear the anxiety (and its imagined consequences) as much as others fear the phobic object (and its imagined consequences). The second difficulty in decreasing avoidance is that specific phobics typically exhibit anticipatory anxiety;either worrying about an inevitable contact with the feared object or situation or worrying about the possibility of contact with what is feared. Therefore, a successful treatment will also reduce the amount of anxiety experienced during exposure and in anticipation thereof. In summary, an effective treatment will reduce (1) the level of anxiety triggered by exposure to feared objects, (2) the level of anticipatory anxiety, and (3) the extent of avoidance. Nondrug treatments Nondrug treatments of the specific phobias can be divided into two categories: behavioral and cognitive treatments. Before discussing these empirically-validated treatments, it is worth addressing a treatment that has appeared recently in the literature. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) was initially developed in the context of PTSD, but it has been applied to specific phobias. Muris and Merckelbach have conducted three controlled trials of EMDR (Muris and Merkelbach, 1997;Muris et al., 1997, 1998). Despite some methodological concerns (Cahill et al., 1999) the strongest conclusions that can be supported from these studies are that exposure is an effective method for reducing self-reported fear and avoidance behavior, EMDR shows no evidence of being able to reduce avoidance behavior and there is occasional support that EMDR reduces selfreported fear. Thus, outside a research context, it would seem negligent to attempt a trial of EMDR for specific phobias before a comprehensive attempt at in vivo exposure has been conducted. Returning to the behavioral and cognitive treatments, in clinical practice both components are combined to varying degrees. However, in order to evaluate the unique and combined contributions of each, it is useful to discuss the interventions separately. Behavioral treatments A learning-based etiological model suggests that treatment should involve extinction or exposure to the feared stimulus in the absence of the feared consequences. Such exposure has been widely demonstrated to be a rapid and effective treatment of specific phobias (Emmelkamp, 1979;O'Brien, 1981; Butler, 1989b).

Amygdala and insular responses to emotionally valenced human faces in small animal specific phobia

One session treatment for specific phobias in children: Comorbid anxiety disorders and treatment outcome

Fears and Phobias

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) has been shown to be a structured, noninvasive, time-limited, and evidence-based treatment for unprocessed memories and related conditions. This paper focuses on EMDR as a treatment for specific fears and phobias. For this purpose, the application of EMDR is conceptualized as the selection and the subsequent processing of a series of strategically important memories of earlier negative learning experiences concerning specific objects or situations. Firstly, the practical application and conceptualization of the treatment of phobias with EMDR is presented and compared with an exposure-based treatment approach. Next, specific attention is given to the assessment and selection of appropriate memories for processing. It is hypothesized that phobias with a non-traumatic background, or those in later stages of treatment after some reduction in anxiety has been achieved, would profit more from the application of a gradual in vivo exposure, whereas trauma-based specific phobias and those with high initial levels of anxiety would respond most favorably to EMDR.

Specific phobia is defined as a notable and continuous fear of a certain object or a situation that particularly impairs daily life and functioning. It is also one of the most common psychological disorders. Exposure-based interventions are commonly used in the treatment of specific phobias. However, some limitations of the standard methods require the need for alternative approaches. In light of this, the use of virtual reality technology in psychotherapy has become increasingly widespread in recent years and is now integrated with exposure therapy. Virtual reality provides real-time interaction using the computer-generated three-dimensional environment via variety oftechnological tools. Applications of virtual reality in exposure therapy have proven to be an important intervention method, especially in the psychopathologies such as specific phobias. In this study, virtual reality exposure therapy for the treatment of specific phobias is systematically reviewed. Inclusion criteria were taken into account in the scanning performed in APA (PsycINFO), EBSCO, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Science Direct, Ulakbim ve TRDizin databses following the PRISMA method. Following that, ten randomized controlled trials, which included adult participants meeting the diagnostic criteria for specific phobia, examined the efficacy of virtual reality and exposure therapy compared to the control group, and the ones with full text could be accessed, were included in this systematic review. The included studies were evaluated in terms of sample attributes, primary measurement tools, research design, characteristics of the intervention and its efficacy. In general, the findings indicate the efficacy of virtual reality exposure therapy in reducing specific phobia symptoms. Follow-up studies support the long-term maintenance of the results.

Comorbidity in youth with specific phobias: Impact of comorbidity on treatment outcome and the impact of treatment on comorbid disorders

Specific phobias

Specific phobias are among the most frequently diagnosed disorders in community with a twelve-month prevalence of 8.7% and a lifetime prevalence of 12.5%. Exposure-based therapies constitute the most effective treatment for this type of anxiety disorders. However, pharmacotherapies can still be considered for patients suffering from specific phobias in case they were non-adherent or resistant to exposure-based therapies or in case this kind of therapies was not accessible for them. Few data support the use of antidepressant in the treatment of specific phobias. A literature search via MedLine has been done in order to review all available studies in the domain of nonantidepressant pharmacotherapy of specific phobias. The importance of benzodiazepines such as diazepam, alprazolam and midazolam resides in the short-term reduction of subjective selfreported fear during the exposure to the feared object or situation. General anesthesia for the treatment of dental phobia does not seem to be efficient unless conducted with the inhalation anesthetic nitrous oxide which seems to be efficient on the short and on the long-term. Beta-adrenergic antagonists have been essayed with conflicting results. Cognitive enhancers such as D-cycloserine, glucocorticoids and yohimbine hydrochloride, seem to be more effective than placebo after a short term period of follow-up in treating specific phobia sympotms. In conclusion, promising efficient pharmacotherapies for specific phobias consists of drugs that enhance the efficacy of exposure-based therapies sessions by reducing anticipating phobia-related fear and/or by enhancing cognition during these sessions.

Specific phobias are the most prevalent anxiety disorder. Over the past 20 years, exposure‐based treatments have been identified as highly effective treatments for specific phobias. The present chapter provides a brief overview of the phenomenology, etiology, and maintenance of specific phobias, followed by a more thorough discussion of the assessment and treatment of specific phobias. The chapter emphasizes exposure‐based treatments for specific phobias, highlighting the process of developing an exposure hierarchy, the characteristics of successful exposure practices, and strategies for maximizing homework compliance. Other treatment approaches are also reviewed. The chapter concludes with a case example illustrating the assessment and treatment of a patient with a specific phobia of elevators.

Specific Fears and Phobias

Perceived helpfulness of treatment for specific phobia: Findings from the World Mental Health Surveys

We review issues associated with the phenomenology, etiology, assessment, and treatment of specific phobias in children and adolescents and provide suggestions for future research and clinical practice. In doing so, we highlight the early case studies of Little Hans and Little Albert and the advances that have been made following the publication of these seminal cases. In recent years, we have witnessed a deeper understanding of the etiology of specific phobias and developed a rich array of evidence-based assessments and treatments with which to address specific phobias in youth. Although much has been accomplished in this area of inquiry, we also note that much remains to be done before we can advance more fully our understanding, assessment, and treatment of specific phobias in youth. It will be important for future work to build more firmly on these developments and to better determine the moderators and mediators of change with our evidence-based treatments and to more vigorously pursue their dissemination in real-word settings.

This chapter discusses specific fears and phobias, and provides an informational and theoretical base from which will be expanded into more complex anxiety disorders in later chapters. Specific phobias will be considered within a three-systems perspective, including behavioral, physiological, and cognitive components of the fear response. Unique features of some of the specific phobias will be discussed, and empirically supported treatment procedures will be described.

This is a report of recent developments in behaviour therapy in the treatment of phobias, observed while studying at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, England from July 1971 to May 1972. The modified flooding technique as practised by Marks and his team is less extreme than that employed by Stampfl. Furthermore it is more rapid and practical than Wolpe's systematic desensitization, while it is as efficient as this method in the treatment of specific phobias and surpasses it in the treatment of agoraphobia. In specific phobias flooding in practice gives better results than flooding in imagination. In agoraphobia the superiority of one part of the treatment over the other has not yet been demonstrated. The importance of prolonged exposure to the phobic situation is now obvious. This technique is not time consuming, the treatment is active, generally well accepted by the patients and improvement, both subjective and objective, is remarkable.