Relaxation training inhibits fear and arousal during in vivo exposure to phobia-cue stimuli

Twenty carefully selected snake phobics were exposed to a caged snake for e ight trials via a conveyor apparatus. During the first and eighth trials th e subjects brought the snake toward themselves as closely as tolerable; rec ords were kept of the end-of-trial distances remaining between the subject and the snake. For the six intervening trials the experimenter placed the s nake a standard distance away; records were kept of the subjects' heart rat es and skin-conductance levels before and during the exposures, and of thei r self-reported fear intensities after the exposures. Half of the subjects had received six sessions of progressive relaxation training before the exp osures occurred. The results for subjects who had received relaxation train ing versus subjects who had not received relaxation training showed clearly that the training served to attenuate arousal and fear in the context of i n vivo exposure. The results showed also that relaxation worked by lowering arousal throughout the course of exposure, not by hastening or facilitatin g arousal decrement during exposure. Some implications of the results are d iscussed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.