How Children Experience Brief-Exposure Treatment of Specific Phobias

Abstract

Examined how 56 children who had received brief-exposure treatment for specific phobias experienced the treatment. It was also investigated whether there was a relation between the children's reported experiences before, during, and after the treatment and therapy outcome. Results indicated that the treatment was experienced as something positive, and the large majority of the children appreciated the pace and degree of control they had during treatment, as well as the therapist and the treatment outcome. The response patterns did not differ between sexes, diagnostic groups, mode of treatment, or age groups. The therapy outcome of the children was not found to differ according to the children's pretreatment expectations and feelings during the treatment, neither according to the children's evaluations of the pace of the treatment nor of the therapist's. However, children's reports about their feelings upon termination of the treatment and the satisfaction with the treatment differed significantly depending on the treatment outcome. Results and tentative explanations of these are discussed and implications for future lines of research are suggested.