Superiority of flooding (implosion) to desensitisation for reducing pathological fear

Flooding was compared to desensitisation as a fear-reducer in 16 phobic patients who were treated in a crossover design with 6 sessions of each procedure. Flooding was significantly superior to desensitisation on clinical and physiological measures and improvement has been maintained over twelve months followup. Flooding is a promising technique for the reduction of fear in anxious phobic patients. The essential therapeutic components of flooding still have to be determined before it can be used routinely.