Regulating affective responses to acute stress has the potential to improve health, performance, and well-being outcomes. Using the biopsychosocial (BPS) model of challenge and threat as an organizing framework, we review how appraisals inform affective responses and highlight research that demonstrates how appraisals can be used as regulatory…

Regulating affective responses to acute stress has the potential to improve health, performance, and well-being outcomes. Using the biopsychosocial (BPS) model of challenge and threat as an organizing framework, we review how appraisals inform affective responses and highlight research that demonstrates how appraisals can be used as regulatory…

Examined relative and combined effectiveness of behavior therapy and pharmacotherapy in 62 severe, chronic agoraphobics. Identified differential temporal response and treatment patterns across psychophysiological domains. Synchrony/desynchrony phenomena yielded significant findings with regard to process and clinical outcome status. Exploratory…

Many tinnitus sufferers believe that their tinnitus has an organic basis and thus seek medical rather than psychological treatments. Tinnitus has been found to be associated with negative appraisal, dysfunctional attention shift, and heightened psychophysiological arousal, so cognitive-behavioral interventions and biofeedback are commonly…

The multimodal model uses the acronym BASIC ID to identify areas of client functioning that frequently need to be treated. The D mode includes drugs, diet, and other physiological factors. This article describes the evolution of the D mode and shows the importance of a physiological dimension to multimodal counseling. (Author)

Presence or absence of tension release significantly influenced the number of relaxation cycles necessary to produce reports of deep relaxation, frequency of practice, and successfulness of eliminating daily tension at follow-up. Subject's ability to reduce physiological activity by a procedure contributed to reductions in subjective tension.…

Subjects responded to questionnaires and rated events in the Social Readjustment Rating Scale. Some were given psychophysical training before rating events. Training did not have significant effect on ratings. Stressfulness ratings were consistently higher than those of social readjustment. Data suggest this effect interacted with the events…

Notes that of the treatments attempted for nocturnal enuresis, pharmacotherapy, individual psychotherapy, and behavioral conditioning, the most effective is behavioral conditioning with a urine alarm. Reviews the enuresis literature and provides recommendations for use of the urine alarm approach. (Author/ABB)

The influence of personal control on reactions to shock differed as a function of the type of control and of the combination of control conditions. Behavioral control in the presence of information (cognitive control) reduced stress, whereas behavioral control in the absence of information augmented stress. (Author)

Although smoking cessation techniques have been effective, few programs have long term results. To investigate the effectiveness of a tobacco dependence relapse prevention program, 123 adult smokers (51 male, 72 female) voluntarily participated in one of four small group treatment conditions (6 or 30 second aversive smoking plus skill training, or…

A within-subjects, three condition design was employed to examine the effects of three relaxation techniques on blood pressures, pulse rates, and self-report measures of relaxation for 12 college students. Respiratory Manipulation Training incorporated instructions to exhale and not to inhale for as long as possible. When breathing could no longer…

The present Beat the Blues Program is based in a cognitive-behavioral model. It has been developed as an 8-module group treatment program for 8-10 participants and is usually run over 8 weeks. Each module focuses on aspects of the model and provides exercises, strategies, and techniques for understanding and dealing with depression and anxiety.…

Traditional medical interventions for the management of pain have consisted largely of either pharmacological treatments or surgery to interrupt the involved neural pathways. The results of these procedures have been largely unsatisfactory because of debilitating side effects and recurrence of pain. Investigations of a host of psychological…

The previous article in this series introduced the triune brain, the three components of which handle specialized life tasks. The survival brain, or brain stem, directs automatic physiological functions, such as heartbeat and breathing, and mobilizes fight/flight behaviour in times of threat. The emotional (or limbic) brain activates positive or…

This literature review discusses enuresis from various etiological formulations: pyschoanalytic and psychodynamic; medical and physiological; and behavioral. Both historical and current perspectives on a definition of enuresis are offered. Treatment methodologies are reviewed. An emphasis is placed on the ruling out of medical causes before any…