Exposure Therapy for Anxiety Disorders

Abstract

Over a quarter of the United States population will suffer from an anxiety disorder within their lifetime (Kessler et al., 2005). One common intervention across all of the anxiety disorders is 'exposure therapy', defined as any treatment that encourages the systematic confrontation of feared stimuli with the aim of decreasing fearful physiological, cognitive, and behavioral reactions. These feared stimuli can be external to the patient (e.g., feared objects, activities, or situations) or internal to the patient (e.g., feared thoughts or physical sensations).