Cognitive and behavioral interventions have been cautiously recommended as "best practice" in the treatment of pathological gambling. Behavioral interventions, using a range of techniques, have been the most commonly evaluated approach to the psychological treatment of pathological gambling. The recent literature evaluating behavioral treatments…

Sequential treatment involving systematic desensitization and relaxation, symbolic (film), live, and participant modeling were employed in the successful alleviation of a severe snake phobia. Implications are discussed regarding the utility of programs attuned to the needs of individual patients. (Author)

Expectancy instructions were introduced six times during the four-week treatment, and effectiveness of these instructions was demonstrated with independent nonreactive measures of subjects' expectancies. An analysis of self-report, behavioral, and unobtrusive measures of snake anxiety revealed significant main effects for instructions, with…

Flooding and systematic desensitization procedures were investigated for possible interactions with subject arousal level on reduction in phobic reactions. No such interaction was found. Behaviorally and on GSR response, both flooding and systematic desensitization were effective, but only the latter was effective on subjective reports. (NG)

The author describes a counseling technique which: (1) is based upon behavior theory and treats acts and thoughts as operants, and anxiety as a respondent controlled by classical conditioning; (2) entails in vivo desensitization, requiring the construction of a hierarchy of anxiety-producing situations which can be enacted; (3) uses peer- or…