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Exposure to the context and removing the unpredictability of the US: Two methods to reduce contextual anxiety compared.
Biol Psychol. 2010 Aug 25;
Authors: Fonteyne R, Vervliet B, Hermans D, Baeyens F, Vansteenwegen D
Chronic anxiety may differ from cued fear and hence require other treatment strategies. In a human fear-conditioning paradigm, chronic anxiety to the experimental context was experimentally induced by presenting unpredictable shocks. Two methods to reduce chronic anxiety were tested and compared. First, in parallel with the standard extinction procedure, participants were exposed to the anxiety-eliciting context in the absence of shocks (context-exposure group). Second, an alternative procedure was tested in which the previously unpredictable shocks were now signaled by a specific cue (signaled group). A control group continued to receive unsignaled shocks. Results indicated that chronic contextual anxiety, as measured by fear-potentiated startle and US-expectancy ratings, was equally reduced in the context-exposure group as in the signaled group compared with the control group. When applied to the treatment of, for example, panic disorder, these findings support the idea that exposure to the context in which the unpredictable panic attacks occurred and making unpredictable panic attacks predictable, are both valuable methods in order to reduce chronic anxiety.
PMID: 20800643 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Hoarding among patients seeking treatment for anxiety disorders.
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Hoarding among patients seeking treatment for anxiety disorders.
J Anxiety Disord. 2010 Aug 10;
Authors: Tolin DF, Meunier SA, Frost RO, Steketee G
The aim of the present study was to examine the prevalence of hoarding symptoms among individuals presenting for treatment of anxiety symptoms. Participants included 130 adults who were seeking treatment at an outpatient anxiety disorders clinic between January 2004 and February 2006. During their initial assessment, participants (31 with panic disorder, 15 specific phobia, 27 social phobia, 36 obsessive-compulsive disorder, 21 generalized anxiety disorder, mean age 37 years, 57% female, 88% White) completed the Saving Inventory-Revised, a self-report measure of hoarding symptoms, and several measures of anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, and functional impairment. Approximately 12-25% of anxious patients reported significant hoarding symptoms. Patients diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder were more likely to report significant hoarding symptoms than were those with panic disorder or specific phobia. Hoarding symptoms were positively correlated with trait anxiety, depressive symptoms, and functional impairment. These findings suggest that hoarding symptoms may be associated with anxiety disorders other than obsessive-compulsive disorder. The findings further suggest that hoarding symptoms may be underreported by anxious populations since typical intake assessments do not include specific questions about hoarding and individuals with hoarding symptoms may be unlikely to spontaneously report them.
PMID: 20800427 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
