Exposure and emotional processing

  the effectiveness of exposure treatment for different types of anxiety disorders has been well established.overall,effective techniques to reduce fear or anxiety involve exposing the patient to distressing situation until he/she adapts to situation.desensitization,flooding,implosion,modeling,cagnitive rehearsal,and even some traditional strategies can all be viewed as variations of the technique exposure.whereas variables which influence efficacy of exposure(e.g. duration of sessions)have been investigated extensively,less is known about the processes which take place during this therapy.three models have been discussed in this respect:1) Eysenck,s model which emphasizes the role of incubation/enhancement as a possible mechanism:2) bio-informational theory of lang which stresses that a fear is presented in long-term memory as a network of propositionally coded information:and 3) emotional processing of fear which emphasizes exposure to corrective information.these models have been analyzed and evaluated.in conclusion,some practical implications of constructive and planned exposure to feared situations in real life,have been discussed.