Long-term outcome of Internet-delivered cognitive-behavioural therapy for social phobia: A 30-month follow-up

Internet-delivered guided cognitive behaviour therapy for social anxiety disorder has been found to generate promising short-term results, up to one year posttreatment. No study has however documented longer follow-up periods. In this 30-month follow-up we contacted 57 participants from the original study of which 77.2% (44/57) responded to the Internet-administered outcome measures and 66.7% (38/57) completed a telephone interview. Results showed large pretreatment to follow-up within-group effect sizes for the primary outcome measures (Cohen's d 1.10-1.71), and a majority (68.4%; 26/38) reported improvements in the interview. The findings suggest that the long-term effects seen in previous live treatment CBT trials can occur in Internet-delivered treatment as well.     

Fear and disgust processing during repeated exposure to threat-relevant stimuli in spider phobia

Although disgust plays a significant role in the etiology of spider phobia, there remains a paucity of research examining the role of disgust in the treatment of spider phobia. Spider fearful participants (N = 46) were randomly assigned to a disgust (view vomit images) or neutral activation (view inanimate objects) condition. They were then repeatedly exposed to a videotaped tarantula, during which time their fear, disgust, and physiological levels were assessed repeatedly. Growth curve analyses indicated that repeated exposure led to significant declines in fear and disgust with no statistically significant differences between the two conditions. However, there was marginal evidence for decreased physiological arousal during repeated exposure among spider fearful participants in the disgust activation condition compared to those in the neutral condition. Reduction in disgust during exposure in the disgust activation condition remained significant after controlling for change in fear, whereas change in fear was no longer significant after controlling for change in disgust. However, the opposite pattern of relations between change in fear and disgust was observed in the neutral activation condition. Higher fear and disgust activation during exposure was also associated with higher fear and disgust responding on a subsequent behavioral task and higher spider fear and disgust at 3-month follow-up. Baseline trait disgust propensity also predicted fear and disgust parameters during repeated exposure. The implications of these findings for the role of disgust in the treatment of spider phobia are discussed.     

Human‐Animal Bonds I: The Relational Significance of Companion Animals

The importance of human‐animal bonds has been documented throughout history, across cultures, and in recent research. However, attachments with companion animals have been undervalued and even pathologized in the field of mental health. This article briefly surveys the evolution of human‐animal bonds, reviews research on their health and mental health benefits, and examines their profound relational significance across the life course. Finally, the emerging field of animal‐assisted interventions is described, noting applications in hospital and eldercare settings, and in innovative school, prison, farm, and community programs. The aim of this overview paper is to stimulate more attention to these vital bonds in systems‐oriented theory, practice, and research. A companion paper in this issue focuses on the role of pets and relational dynamics in family systems and family therapy ( Walsh, 2009a ).     

Treatment of urethral catheter dependence: A case study of intervention in the interdisciplinary geriatric setting

This case report describes the assessment and treatment of a 69-year-old male medical patient with urethral catheter dependence. Assessment revealed an anxiety/phobic component to the dependence and hypothesized detrusor muscle deconditioning. Retraining of the bladder and desensitization to the anxiety-provoking situation were achieved by exposure to decatheterization in the context of a supportive adult day health care setting. Interdisciplinary collaboration between nursing and psychology were associated with successful functional, social, and psychological outcomes.A psychology intern at the Portland VA Medical Center at the time the study was conducted.     

The social phobia and social interaction anxiety scales: An exploration of the dimensions of social anxiety and sex differences in structure and relations with pathology

This study sought to provide information on the Social Phobia Scale (SPS) and Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) of Mattick and Clarke (1989) with respect to factor structure, relations with psychopathology, and sex differences. A sample of 200 university students completed the SPS and SIAS and various measures of anxiety symptoms and depression. The results from the factor analyses for the sample as a whole suggest the presence of three factors corresponding to scrutiny fears, social interaction anxiety, and a general level of discomfort in social interactions. The results for men replicated this structure. For women, the three-factor solution demonstrated a blurring between the types of anxiety-provoking situations, and a general discomfort in situations involving differences in social power. In general, the discomfort factor was not correlated with measures of pathology, raising the possibility that uneasiness in these situations represents a process that is not part of social anxiety. The distinction between scrutiny fears and social interaction anxiety was also supported by the pattern of partial correlations that suggests that the presence of scrutiny fears is a stronger predictor of psychopathology than is social interaction anxiety, especially for men.     

Thorndike's Legacy: Learning, Selection, And The Law Of Effect

This introduction to a symposium on the centennial of Edward L. Thorndike's 1898 monograph on animal intelligence briefly considers the origins of his law of effect and the influence of Darwin's selectionism. It also provides the background for an unfinished book review by William W. Cumming of a biography of Thorndike. The review places in historical context Thorndike's position both on psychology as a science of behavior and on the vocabulary of that science.     

Inferences by exclusion in the great apes: the effect of age and species

This study investigated the ability of chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and bonobos to make inferences by exclusion using the procedure pioneered by Premack and Premack (Cognition 50:347–362, 1994) with chimpanzees. Thirty apes were presented with two different food items (banana vs. grape) on a platform and covered with identical containers. One of the items was removed from the container and placed between the two containers so that subjects could see it. After discarding this item, subjects could select between the two containers. In Experiment 1, apes preferentially selected the container that held the item that the experimenter had not discarded, especially if subjects saw the experimenter remove the item from the container (but without seeing the container empty). Experiment 3 in which the food was removed from one of the containers behind a barrier confirmed these results. In contrast, subjects performed at chance levels when a stimulus (colored plastic chip: Exp. 1; food item: Exp. 2 and Exp. 3) designated the item that had been removed. These results indicated that apes made inferences, not just learned to use a discriminative cue to avoid the empty container. Apes perceived and treated the item discarded by the experimenter as if it were the very one that had been hidden under the container. Results suggested a positive relationship between age and inferential ability independent of memory ability but no species differences.This contribution is part of the special issue “Animal Logics” (Watanabe and Huber 2006).     

Response of female cuttlefish Sepia officinalis (Cephalopoda) to mirrors and conspecifics: evidence for signaling in female cuttlefish

Cuttlefish have a large repertoire of body patterns that are used for camouflage and interspecific signaling. Intraspecific signaling by male cuttlefish has been well documented but studies on signaling by females are lacking. We found that females displayed a newly described body pattern termed Splotch toward their mirror image and female conspecifics, but not to males, prey or inanimate objects. Female cuttlefish may use the Splotch body pattern as an intraspecific signal, possibly to reduce agonistic interactions. The ability of females to produce a consistent body pattern in response to conspecifics and mirrors suggests that they can recognize same-sex conspecifics using visual cues, despite the lack of sexual dimorphism visible to human observers. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available for this article at and is accesible for authorized users.     

The structure of disgust: domain specificity in relation to contamination ideation and excessive washing

The primary goal of the present study was to employ confirmatory factor analysis to compare two theoretical models regarding the factor structure of disgust (N=307). The two-factor model of Animal Reminder and Core disgust proposed by Rozin et al. (2000) demonstrated superior model fit over a one-factor model that has been implicated in prior research. However, contrary to theoretical predictions, categorizing Hygiene disgust as Core disgust rather than Animal Reminder disgust provided an overall better fit for the two-factor model. The second aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between the empirically derived two-factor model and contamination ideation and excessive washing using structural equation modeling. Findings indicated that the Contamination Ideation and Excessive Washing latent factor was specifically related to Core disgust (domain specific) and negatively related to Animal Reminder disgust. The relevance of these findings in the context of future research investigating the role of disgust in specific anxiety disorders is discussed.     

Perception of control over anxiety mediates the relation between catastrophic thinking and social anxiety in social phobia

Cognitive models of social phobia (social anxiety disorder) assume that individuals with social phobia experience anxiety in social situations in part because they overestimate the social cost associated with a potentially negative outcome of a social interaction. Some emotion theorists, on the other hand, point to the perception of control over anxiety-related symptoms as a determinant of social anxiety. In order to examine the relationship between perceived emotional control (PEC), estimated social cost (ESC), and subjective anxiety, we compared three alternative structural equation models: Model 1 assumes that PEC and ESC independently predict social anxiety; Model 2 assumes that ESC partially mediates the relationship between PEC and anxiety, and Model 3 assumes that PEC partially mediates the relationship between ESC and anxiety. We recruited 144 participants with social phobia and administered self-report measures of estimated social cost, perceived anxiety control, and social anxiety. The results support Model 3 and suggest that "costly" social situations are anxiety provoking in part because social phobic individuals perceive their anxiety symptoms as being out of control.