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The Impact Of Fading Restorative Safety Behaviors On Symptoms Of Contamination Fear During A Single Session Exposure Intervention: An Experimental Investigation, Amy Rachel Goetz

Theses and Dissertations

Safety behaviors are actions taken to prevent, escape from, or reduce the severity of a perceived threat. Cognitive-behavioral theorists posit that safety behaviors interfere with important exposure processes and should be removed from therapy. However, there is a growing accumulation of data suggesting that some safety behaviors may not be detrimental, and those that allow for full confrontation with a core threat, may not interfere with meaningful indicators of successful exposure. Therefore, it is important to examine parameters associated with restorative safety behaviors under conditions of use and then later removal. The current study examined the continuous (RSB) versus faded …