Implosive therapy as a treatment for insomnia

✍ Scribed by Richard N. Carrera; Jeffrey J. Elenewski

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1980
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 390 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9762
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-4679(198007)36:3<729::aid-jclp2270360321>3.0.co;2-f

✦ Synopsis

Previous research hss suggested that insomnia is related ositively to preoccupation with death. Introductory psychology students (8 = ZOO) of both sexes who quslified as insomniacs were administered Implosive Therapy speci6cdy targeted to fear of death, nonspecific Implosive Therapy, a relaxation procedure, or were assigned to a wtut-control group. All three experimental treatments resulted in significant decreases in anxiet as measured by the Fear Surve Schedule I1 administered immediately der the experiment. The oups z d not differ however, before or after treatment on reported fear of deag as measured by the Colletbhter scale. On self-report measures collected 1 month after the experimental treatment, all groups, including the wait-control, showed a significant decrease in latency of sleep onset. Pairwise com arisona indicated that only the death im losion condition was sign%cant ! , more effective than the wait-control. Tge finding was interpreted to mean that the death implosion produced a decrease in insomnia beyond the stron expectancy effect9 that resulted from all experimental treatments. The f d u r e to observe changes in reported fear of death was attributed to Ss' anxiety-based reluctance to acknowledge openly such fear.

A review of recent literature reveals that some form of verbally induced muscular relaxation is virtually the only psychologically based technique successfully used for treatment of insomnia (Borkovec