Arousal Levels and Attribution Effects in Diazepam-Assisted Flooding

Abstract

The therapeutic effect of flooding was thought originally to depend on the induction of high levels of anxiety by the presentation of intensely frightening situations in imagination or practice (Stampfl and Levis, 1967; Marks et al., 1971). More recent evidence indicates that high arousal may not be essential in flooding and may even be disadvantageous. Hussain (1971) reported that patients with agoraphobia and social phobias responded better to imaginai flooding when it was accompanied by the intravenous infusion of thiopental. Marks et al. (1972), treating patients with specific phobias, found that flooding carried out by exposure to the phobic situations was more effective if combined with an anxiolytic drug, oral diazepam. There was some evidence that flooding was most effective if it took place several hours after administration of the drug.