Dissertation Defenses

Doctoral Dissertation Announcement

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Candidate: Sophie Rubin

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Psychology

Title: The Comparative Efficacy of Dosed, Enhanced Dosed, Prolonged Exposure, and Mindfulness in the Reduction of Anxiety

Committee:
Dr. Richard Spates, Chair
Dr. Wayne Fuqua
Dr. Galen Alessi
Dr. Ellen Koch

Date: Thursday, May 14, 2009 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
3715 Wood Hall

Abstract:
Exposure-based treatments have proven effective in treating a range of fears and phobias and can be accounted for by mechanisms described in behavioral theory. Enhanced dosed and dosed-only exposures are promising new behavioral approaches for treating fears and phobias. Fifty participants with speech anxiety are randomly assigned to a prolonged exposure condition (PE), a positively enhanced dosed exposure condition (PDE), a dosed-only exposure condition (DE), a negatively-supplemented dosed exposure condition (NDE), or a mindfulness condition (ME). Results indicate that the ME condition produces less measured aversive arousal and significantly more rapid arousal reduction than the tested alternatives. These techniques may represent an important advancement, in that the treatment gains of traditional exposure therapies might be achieved without the degree of aversive arousal (and possibly high dropout rates) typically seen in exposure therapies.