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 eight trials via a conveyor apparatus. During the first and eighth trials the subjects brought the snake toward themselves as closely as tolerable; records were kept of the end-of-trial distances remaining between the subject and the snake. For the six intervening trials the experimenter placed the snake a standard distance away; records were kept of the subjects' heart rates and skin-conductance levels before and during the exposures, and of their self-reported fear intensities after the exposures. Half of the subjects had received six sessions of progressive relaxation training before the exposures occurred. The results for subjects who had received relaxation training versus subjects who had not received relaxation training showed clearly that the training served to attenuate arousal and fear in the context of in vivo exposure. The results showed also that relaxation worked by lowering arousal throughout the course of exposure, not by hastening or facilitating arousal decrement during exposure. Some implications of the results are discussed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.