the fear of driving can be severe enough to be considered a phobia. it is often great enough that people will avoid driving at all costs and instead find someone to drive them or use public transportation, regardless of how inconvenient or expensive. this fear will cause many to avoid driving, create excuses to not drive, or even refuse to get a driver's license for years. the aim of this ...

An AB case design was used to examine the efficacy of virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) in treating driving phobia. After a one week baseline, the patient received three treatment sessions over a ten day period. Treatment included practice of four VR driving scenarios. Peak anxiety decreased within and across sessions. Ratings of anxiety and avoidance declined from pre-treatment and post-...

Fear of driving has been recognized as a complex diagnostic entity. Studies on flying phobia have drawn similar conclusions, although increasing clarity has been gained through research that indicates that there may be subtypes of flying phobia based on the focus of fear. However, it is unclear if similar subtypes exist for fear of driving. The aim of the present study was to conduct a prelimin...

Recently, it has been suggested that situational specific phobias (e.g., phobias of driving, flying, enclosed places) are more closely related to agoraphobia than are other specific phobia types. The present study investigated this hypothesis by examining heterogeneity among the four main DSM-IV specific phobia types, particularly with respect to variables believed to be associated with agoraph...

George, a 23-year-old Greek student, was referred by a psychiatrist for treatment to a University Counseling Centre in Athens. He was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and specific phobia situational type. He was complaining of panic attacks and severe symptoms of anxiety. These symptoms were triggered when in certain social situations and also when travelling by plane, driving a car and v...

A multiple baseline across-subjects design was used to examine the efficacy of virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) to treat driving phobia. The treatment consisted of 8 weekly graded VRET sessions. Using self-monitoring and interview measures, treatment efficacy was examined across 5 participants. Three participants had reductions in driving phobia symptoms, while there was little change in...

The authors used a modified Stroop task to study how people with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) process threatening information. Participants were motor vehicle accident (MVA) survivors with either PTSD (n = 15), simple phobia of driving (n = 15), or low anxiety (n = 15). Participants named colors of 4 types of words: strong threat words (MVA related), mild threat words (MVA related), pos...

Recent research has suggested that fear of driving is common in the general population. People may have various concerns when driving, and instruments for the assessment of these concerns are lacking. The present paper describes the development and preliminary evaluation of the Driving Cognitions Questionnaire (DCQ). The DCQ is a 20-item scale that measures three areas of driving-related concer...