A Preliminary Investigation of Continuous and Intermittent Exposures in the Treatment of Public Speaking Anxiety

It is often argued that exposure-based treatments for anxiety disorders are only effective if the exposures are presented continuously until a marked decrement in anxiety is achieved (e.g. Foa & Kozak, 1986). However, the data supporting this conclusion is limited. This study compared two treatments for public speaking anxiety: one requiring participants to give one long speech on 3-5 topics (i.e. prolonged exposure) and another treatment which required participants to give a series of 30 s speeches divided by 30 s breaks (i.e. dosed exposures). Results indicated that the series of brief exposures was equally efficacious to the prolonged exposure in reducing subjective feelings of anxiety, and it produced greater reductions in public speaking anxiety, physiological arousal (i.e. heart rate), and behavioral avoidance. In addition, fewer behavioral indices of distress, on average, were incurred by this treatment. If shown to be effective across a larger sample and a wider range of anxiety disorders, this method of exposure therapy may provide a less aversive alternative to traditional exposure-based interventions.