What is Exposure?
Exposure is a key element in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders, where individuals are exposed to situations that cause fear and anxiety. This exposure can be done in imagination, virtually, or in real life. The inhibitory learning model suggests that when expected catastrophes don’t occur, clients learn to reduce their anxiety.
A recent study by Pittig et al. (2023) examined the effectiveness of exposure treatment for anxiety disorders. They found that exposure led to a significant reduction in symptoms, with clients experiencing a mismatch between their catastrophic expectancies and the actual outcomes of exposure exercises.
Methods and Results
In the study, 726 individuals with anxiety disorders participated in a CBT protocol with therapist-guided and self-guided exposure exercises. The researchers found that exposure treatment successfully violated 71% of a client’s expectancies on average, leading to a large reduction in symptoms.
Interestingly, the study also found that clients who adapted their expectancies after exposure exercises had better treatment outcomes. Expectancy change, rather than expectancy violation, was found to predict symptom reduction.
Implications for Practice
These findings suggest that simply proving to clients that catastrophic outcomes don’t occur is not enough for exposure treatment to succeed. Clients need to actively change their catastrophic expectancies to see lasting improvements. Therapists should consider the importance of expectancy change in exposure treatment for anxiety disorders.
Overall, this study adds to the growing body of research supporting the effectiveness of exposure treatment for anxiety disorders. By understanding the mechanisms of exposure and the role of expectancies, therapists can enhance the success of treatment for their clients.
