Behavior therapy
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
Shaking that icky feeling: effects of extinction and counterconditioning on disgust-related evaluative learning.
Learned disgust appears to play an important role in certain anxiety disorders, and can be explained by the process of evaluative conditioning, in which an affective evaluative reaction evoked by an unconditional stimulus (US) is transferred to a conditional stimulus (CS). Much remains unknown about how disgust-related evaluative learning can be effectively eliminated. Study 1 of the present investigation examined the effects of extinction on reducing the negative evaluation of a CS that was acquired during disgust conditioning. ⋯ After disgust acquisition trials, counterconditioning trials followed in which the CS+ was paired with a pleasant US (experimental condition) or a filler task (control condition). Counterconditioning trials reduced acquired US expectancy to the CS+ and reduced evaluative conditioned disgust. Implications of the potential differential effects of extinction and counterconditioning on evaluative learning for exposure-based treatment of specific anxiety disorders are discussed.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
Cognitive mediators of treatment for social anxiety disorder: comparing acceptance and commitment therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy.
To assess the relationship between session-by-session mediators and treatment outcomes in traditional cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for social anxiety disorder. ⋯ Rate of change in negative cognitions at the beginning of treatment is an important predictor of change across both ACT and CBT, whereas rate of change in experiential avoidance at the beginning of treatment is a mechanism specific to ACT.