Although fear plays an important role in human development, adaptation, and, ultimately, survival, fear can be disabling when it manifests itself as a phobia or an anxiety disorder. Effective treatment for fear-based disorders depends upon the basic science that informs theories about the origins of fear and about how fear is learned.
This book brings together the most recent empirical developments in learning theory for understanding the etiology and treatment of fears and phobias. The editors have assembled contributions from leading scientists whose work represents the cutting edge in such areas as measurement methodology, neurobiology, cognitive processing, behavioral models, emotion regulation, and pharmacological and other clinical treatments. After a review of the history of fear learning and basic concepts and methods in fear measurement, subsequent chapters elucidate processes of acquisition and maintenance of fear, finally moving to the extinction, renewal, and reinstatement of fear.
The research synthesized in this book has applicability to the entire spectrum of anxiety disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, social anxiety disorder, and specific phobias.
Contributors
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Etiological Factors of Fears and Phobias
—Michelle G. Craske, Debora Vansteenwegen, and Dirk Hermans
I. Fear and Learning: Basic Issues
- Fear Conditioning and Clinical Implications:What Can We Learn From the Past?
—Paul Eelen and Bram Vervliet - Human Fear Learning: Contemporary Procedures and Measurement
—Ottmar V. Lipp
II. Acquisition and Maintenance of Fear
- Defenses and Memories: Functional Neural Circuitry of Fear and Conditional Responding
—Jennifer J. Quinn and Michael S. Fanselow - Contemporary Learning Theory Perspectives on the Etiology of Fears and Phobias
—Susan Mineka and Jon Sutton - Cognitive Mechanisms in Fear Acquisition and Maintenance
—Graham C. L. Davey - Fear and Avoidance: An Integrated Expectancy Model
—Peter Lovibond - Fear Conditioning in an Emotion Regulation Context: A Fresh Perspective on the Origins of Anxiety Disorders
—John P. Forsyth, Georg H. Eifert, and Velma Barrios
III. Extinction, Renewal, and Reinstatement of Fear
- Anatomical, Molecular, and Cellular Substrates of Fear Extinction
—Mark Barad - Counteracting the Context-Dependence of Extinction: Relapse and Tests of Some Relapse Prevention Methods
—Mark E. Bouton, Amanda M. Woods, Erik W. Moody, Ceyhun Sunsay, and Ana García-Gutiérrez - Renewal and Reinstatement of Fear: Evidence From Human Conditioning Research
—Debora Vansteenwegen, Trinette Dirikx, Dirk Hermans, Bram Vervliet, and Paul Eelen - Exposure Therapy and Extinction: Clinical Studies
—Michelle G. Craske and Jayson L. Mystkowski
IV: Final Thoughts
Fear and Learning: Debates, Future Research and Clinical Implications
—Dirk Hermans, Deborah Vansteenwegen, and Michelle G. Craske
References
Author Index
Subject Index
About the Editors
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