“A Comparison of Alternative Treatments of Spider Phobia: Placebo vs Very Brief Exposure”

Abstract

The universal treatment for treating phobias is exposure, the repeated and direct confrontation of feared stimuli or the feared situation. An alternative treatment based on this idea has been created, called very brief exposure (VBE). VBE is a technique that very briefly exposes images of the feared object so that phobic people can’t them. The purpose of this study was to directly compare the effects of alternative treatments of spider phobia: VBE and a placebo. The hypothesis was that the placebo would reduce avoidance of the spider as much as VBE. Participants were identified as spider-phobic with the Fear of Spider (FSQ) and the Behavioral Avoidance Test (BAT) with a live tarantula. One week later, 59 participants returned for a follow-up BAT and were assigned to one of three conditions: VBE, Placebo with Deception and Placebo without Deception (i.e full knowledge of the placebo). The results showed that Placebo with deception reduced avoidance of the spider more than a placebo without deception (the control). Placebo with deception and VBE did not significantly differ in terms of reduction of avoidance of the spider; they were similarly effective. The results indicate that fear can be reduced in two different ways, through a conscious process (placebo) or an unconscious habituation mechanism (VBE).