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Articles about systematic desensitization that appeared in mainstream behavior therapy journals between the years 1970 and 2002 were counted. Graphic displays of the data point to a sudden and lasting decline of interest in systematic desensitization among academics and researchers. A questionnaire concerning clinical use of orthodox systematic desensitization was mailed to 310 selected providers. Returns from 171 of those providers show that use of systematic desensitization has declined but continues to be fairly widespread. The decline of interest in systematic desensitization is explained; arguments are offered that revitalized interest would be beneficial but is not likely to occur.

Relationships between sleep-related bruxing, electroencephalographic phenomena, and other physiologic variables are reviewed. Bruxing occurs during all sleep stages but occurs disproportionately during stage 2 and REM. Bruxing during deeper sleep stages frequently is followed by a transition to lighter sleep. Bruxing occurs in conjunction with K-complexes in the EEG, tachycardia and peripheral blood volume changes, and gross body movements; however, the exact nature of the relationship between bruxing and "arousal" is unknown. Methodological problems are pervasive. On-line computer-based event recording is called for along with time series analyses of moment-to-moment psychophysiologic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This experiment attempted to study the separate and combined effects of occlusal interference and transient stress on masseteric activity among eight nonclinical human subjects. Before each of t!t'o sessions, subjects were fitted with an occlusal interference or an occlusally inert (control) molar clasp. During each session they viewed horrific and idyllic videotapes while masseter EMG was recorded bilaterally. Electrodermal measures validated that the horrific videotapes were stressful. Studies showed that the occlusal variable worked less well. The EMG was elevated contralateral to both clasps and during videotape viewing. The EMG effects from videotape viewing were relatively pronounced without the occlusal interference. Research implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two hundred randomly selected student participants (139 females, 61 males) responded initially to questionnaires that quantified variables such as state and trait anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, claustrophobia, and panic/agoraphobia. Later they were informed that a mock magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) procedure was upcoming, and were prompted to provide self-efficacy ratings vis-a`-vis completing the procedure. Finally, the participants’ behavioral reactions to a mock MRI procedure were characterized; their heart beats were recorded and ratings of fearfulness were acquired. One purpose of the research was simply to tally numbers of participants who responded fearfully in various ways: 7 failed the procedure behaviorally, 7 others completed the procedure but did so fearfully, 17 others completed the procedure but manifested excessive heart-rate responsivity. A second purpose of the research was to “predict” subjects’ fear-response categorization psychometrically and/or with self-efficacy ratings: psychometric data related to claustrophobia predicted subjects’ fear-response categorization as did self-efficacy ratings. According to these results mock MRI assessment among college students provides a promising context for research on claustrophobia. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article reports on the effects of aversive imagery gradation and muscular relaxation as procedural variables within desensitization by using peripherally cued electrodermal responsivity as the dependent-variable measure of fear. There was no evidence that experimental desensitization or any of its procedural components yielded attenuated electrodermal responsivity to the peripheral fear cue. Because this result derives from a relatively well-done study, it poses a challenge to widespread notions about the vehicle of therapeutic effects from desensitization.

This article presents an experiment that arguably met the assumption of a completely inert placebo procedure and demonstrably met the assumption of demand equivalence across the treatment and placebo conditions. An experiment is described in which a presumptively behavioral anxiety-management technique known as cues-controlled relaxation was compared with a deactivated version of T.D. Borkovec's Avoidance Response Placebo treatment and with no intervention as means of reducing self-reported test anxiety among college students. The subjects were 9 male and 19 female introductory psychology students at Mississippi State University.

This article presents an evaluation of three short forms extracted from the group from Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) responses of incarcerated offenders. Of the various possible procedures for short-form test administration the "extraction" method was chosen for this study. This common procedure involved simply rescoring each S's 566 MMPI responses with templates and conversion tables or linear transformations appropriate to each of the three short forms.

This article focuses on skin conductance and heart-rate responsivity to public speaking imagery among students with high and low self-reported fear. This experiment was designed to determine in part whether any analogue desensitization study should display psychophysiological resonsivity on being instructed to visualize scenes that pertained to the fear can be followed simultaneously. This study was also designed to facilitate examination of the interpretive consequences of differing data transformations applied to skin-conductance and heart-rate measures.

The article evaluates the relative credibility of desensitization and pseudotherapy. Since that procedure clearly violated standard analogue research practice, which exposes S to one treatment or the other, Ss in this experiment heard only desensitization or pseudotherapy. Twenty moderately avoidant and 20 mildly avoidant Ss were chosen as though they were to participate in a snake!avoidance desensitization experiment. The implication of this finding is that a great many experimental studies of systematic desensitization have failed to control satisfactorily for the operation of expectancy effects and nonspecific forms of behavioral influence.

The article presents a study conducted to measure heart-rate reaction of college students. The goal of most investigators is to develop experimentally supported substantive generalizations of relevance to the practices of clinical behavior therapy. The present experiment addressed this issue by selecting snake fearful Ss with widely used procedures, confronting them with a live snake, and measuring their heart-rate reactions. In coLntrolled studies of behavior therapy measurements of physiological responses to snakes among snake-phobic Ss sometimes are recorded. The study assessed the extent to which heart-rate responsivity in the presence of a snake is correlated with behavioral avoidance of a snake. Those who were behaviorally avoidant showed less heart-rate responsivity to the neutral stimulus than the snake.

Thirty-three test-anxious college students were exposed either to cue-con-trolled relaxation (based on progressive relaxation), to pseudotherapy, or to no treatment. The effects of cue-controlled relaxation failed to exceed those of the placebo treatment or those of no treatment. This was true for both self-report measures of test anxiety and psychophysiological indices of arousal during test taking. These results show, unambiguously, that procedural and measurement boundaries do exist within which cue-controlled relaxation is ineffective as a treatment for test anxiety among college students. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on experimental desensitization of snake-avoidance after an instructional manipulation. Two groups of 9 subjects were desensitized individually along a snake-approach hierarchy, after they had received different instructions about the purpose of the experiment. One group was told that the experiments were studying a form of therapy, while the other was told that the experiments were studying the physiological responses that accompany fear. Changes in snake-avoidance for the two groups were compared with each other, and with changes generated by two control treatments. The instructional manipulation had no impact on the outcome of semi-automated desensitization.