A psychoanalytic reinterpretation of the effectiveness of systematic desenitization: experimental data bearing on the role of merging fantasies.

Ten women with insect phobias were subjected to a variant of systematic desensitization in which a procedure aimed at stimulating a fantasy of "merging with mother" was substituted for muscle relaxation. The procedure, which had been used effectively in earlier experiments, consisted of the tachistoscopic subliminal exposure of the verbal stimulus MOMMY AND i ARE ONE during the visualization part of desensitization, whenever the subject's anxiety rose above a specified level. A control group of 10 other women with insect phobias underwent the same procedure except for them the subliminally exposed message was the neutral stimulus PEOPLE WALKING. On measures of both phobic behavior and anxiety, the experimental group manifested significantly more improvement than the controls. This was seen as lending support to the proposition that (part of) the effectiveness of systematic desensitization resides in its activating unconscious merging fantasies.