Affect labeling enhances exposure effectiveness for public speaking anxiety

Exposure is an effective treatment for anxiety but many patients do not respond fully. Affect labeling (labeling emotional experience) attenuates emotional responding. The current project examined whether affect labeling enhances exposure effectiveness in participants with public speaking anxiety. P...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behaviour research and therapy 2015-05, Vol.68, p.27-36
Main Authors: Niles, Andrea N., Craske, Michelle G., Lieberman, Matthew D., Hur, Christopher
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Affect - classification
Affect labeling
Anxiety
Anxiety - psychology
Anxiety - therapy
Anxiety Disorders
Arousal - physiology
Emotions
Exposure
Fear & phobias
Fear - psychology
Female
Humans
Implosive Therapy - methods
Male
Medical treatment
Phobic Disorders - psychology
Phobic Disorders - therapy
Physiological psychology
Psychophysiology
Public speaking
Self control
Social phobia
Speech
Young Adult
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Summary:Exposure is an effective treatment for anxiety but many patients do not respond fully. Affect labeling (labeling emotional experience) attenuates emotional responding. The current project examined whether affect labeling enhances exposure effectiveness in participants with public speaking anxiety. Participants were randomized to exposure with or without affect labeling. Physiological arousal and self-reported fear were assessed before and after exposure and compared between groups. Consistent with hypotheses, participants assigned to Affect Labeling, especially those who used more labels during exposure, showed greater reduction in physiological activation than Control participants. No effect was found for self-report measures. Also, greater emotion regulation deficits at baseline predicted more benefit in physiological arousal from exposure combined with affect labeling than exposure alone. The current research provides evidence that behavioral strategies that target prefrontal-amygdala circuitry can improve treatment effectiveness for anxiety and these effects are particularly pronounced for patients with the greatest deficits in emotion regulation. •Labeling emotions improves exposure effectiveness for public speaking anxiety.•The more emotion labels participants used, the more fear reduction they had.•Emotion regulation deficits predicted greater benefit from affect labeling.•Effects were found only for physiological arousal and not self-reported fear.
ISSN:0005-7967
1873-622X
DOI:10.1016/j.brat.2015.03.004