Short-term desensitization therapy

Research has raised the possibility that behavior therapy procedures can benefit from even further departures from traditional psychotherapy formats. Although behavioral approaches such as desensitization therapy are distinctive departures from the verbal psychotherapies, there is still an implicit commitment to one traditional approach: the reliance upon one or two weekly appointments. Clients being treated for phobias, for example, are typically seen for desensitization sessions twice weekly. Yet, both theory and current research argue for more frequent meetings as being more effective. Robinson and Suinn (1969) saw clients with spider phobia daily for five consecutive days, meeting one hr per day. Clients were tested on a behavioral task prior to and following massed treatment. Results showed that prior to therapy, none of 20 clients were able to place their hands near the spider; following massed treatment, all clients improved, 13 clients placed their hands within 12 in. of the spider, 2 touched the spider and 1 client stroked the 4 in. spider twice as it moved across the cage. Suinn and Hall (1970) relied upon an even shorter treatment period: students with test-taking anxiety were desensitized completely within 24 hr. These clients were trained to relax and exposed to hierarchy items from 1–4 p.m. on Friday and 8–12 noon the next day. Results showed that the marathon treated clients showed recoveries to the same degree as that achieved in a group treated over a course of 4 weeks. Theoretically, massed treatment should be more effective than spaced treatment. This is based on the view that massed practice would lead to the extinction of fear or anxiety responses since this method capitalizes upon two factors: (1) counterconditioning, whereby the fear stimulus becomes conditioned to relaxation instead of anxiety, and (2) conditioned inhibition, whereby the anxiety responses become ‘fatigued’ and non-responding is reinforced. Implosive therapy (Stampfl and Levis, 1967) appears to be basically a type of massed practice in which the client is continuously exposed to extremely frightening scenes to extinguish the fear. In implosive therapy the client is kept anxious during the treatment; in massed or marathon desensitization, the client is relaxed throughout the sessions. The purpose of this report is to summarize some results achieved through massed desensitization.