Past research into the psychological consequences of traumatic events has largely focused on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), although other anxiety disorders and depression are also common in the aftermath of trauma. Little is known about differential predictors of these conditions. The present study investigated the extent to which theoretically derived cognitive variables predict PTSD,...

Phobias are a type of anxiety disorder characterized by severe fear objects and situations. In recent years, virtual reality exposure therapy has emerged as safer more convenient method treating phobias, with the same rate success classical therapy, in vivo to stimuli. Following extensive research concerning available technologies after studying state art field, we developed PhoVR (Phobia throu...

To compare specific phobias with an assumed phylogenetic or ontogenetic origin in responses to fear-relevant (FR) stimuli, 17 spider- and 17 flight-phobic participants were exposed to pictures of spiders, flight accidents, or mushrooms randomly followed by either a startling noise or nothing else. While both groups showed a disorder-specific expectancy bias, only spider-phobic participants exhi...

This study evaluated the efficacy of behavioral and cognitive-behavioral one-session exposure treatment procedures with and without programmed generalization for participants with small animal phobias. Forty participants were randomly assigned to the treatment and generalization conditions. Both treatments produced significant improvements from pre-test to post-test and these results were maint...

This study determined the prevalence, age of onset, comorbidity, and impairment associated with specific phobia subtypes in the community. Data were drawn from the Dresden Mental Health Study (N=2064), a representative community-based sample of young women in Dresden, Germany. The lifetime prevalence of any specific phobia was 12.8%, with subtypes ranging in prevalence between 0.2% (vomiting, i...

Accounts of human fears and phobias based on current conditioning models using data from adults are examined and found wanting. Instead, the characteristics of human phobias resemble the kind of learning found during the amnesic period of infancy. As certain neural systems mature, conditioning begins to exhibit adult characteristics: context dependency, sharp generalization, and rapid extinctio...

This paper attempts to fill the partial theoretical vacuum surrounding the understanding of fear acquisition. A review of recent and contemporary theories of the etiology of fear is presented, serving as a justification for further theorizing and allowing for greater understanding of those aspects of fear that remain to be adequately explained. A new model of the etiology of specific fears is s...

Virtual reality (VR) driving simulators may be used as an aid to traditional cognitive-behavioral therapy in the treatment of a variety of drivingrelated disorders. In recent years there has been a heightened interest among researchers and clinicians in using VR technology to address a wide range of driving-related issues. Clinical applications include specific driving phobias, driving phobias ...

This article examines the most significant, contradictory evidence pertaining to autism. The first section of the article includes reports of recovery from autism, data obtained from studies involving oxytocin, early deprivation, autism in preterm children, late-onset autism, and symptom overlap among ASD, social phobias and personality disorders. In the second section of the article, we offer ...

OBJECTIVE The authors conducted meta-analyses of data from family and twin studies of panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, phobias, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) to explore the roles of genetic and environmental factors in their etiology. METHOD MEDLINE searches were performed to identify potential primary studies of these disorders. Data from studies that met inclusion cri...