The Effectiveness of Emotive Imagery in the Treatment of Darkness Phobia in Children

This study examined the effectiveness of emotive imagery as a treatment for clinically significant darkness phobia in 7- to 10-year-old children. Twenty-four clinically diagnosed children were randomly assigned to either emotive imagery treatment or a waiting-list control condition. Emotive imagery was conducted over six sessions, one per week. The results demonstrated that the emotive imagery group showed significantly greater reductions in darkness fears and anxiety according to child and parent reports and a behavioural darkness probe task, in comparison to the waiting-list group. The waiting-list children showed minimal reductions in fearfulness over the 20-week waiting-list period. The improvements of the emotive imagery group were maintained at the 3-month follow-up.

[1]  Randy Hodson,et al.  Reliability and Validity , 2019, Fast Facts to Loving your Research Project.

[2]  S. Spence.  Cognitive therapy with children and adolescents: from theory to practice. , 1994, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[3]  C. G. Last,et al.  Symptoms of anxiety disorders in normal children. , 1990, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

[4]  N. King,et al.  Emotive imagery and children's night-time fears: a multiple baseline design evaluation. , 1989, Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry.

[5]  B. E. Fisher,et al.  Children's Sleep Behavior Scale: Normative Data on 870 Children in Grades 1 to 6 , 1989, Perceptual and motor skills.

[6]  W. Silverman,et al.  The Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children. , 1988, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

[7]  A. Klingman.  Biblioguidance With Kindergartners: Evaluation of a Primary Prevention Program to Reduce Fear of the Dark , 1988 .

[8]  S. Hayes,et al.  Social standard setting: The achilles heel of informational accounts of therapeutic change , 1984 .

[9]  S. O'Dell,et al.  Evaluation of a parent-training manual for reducing children's fear of the dark. , 1984, Journal of applied behavior analysis.

[10]  A. Dickson,et al.  Modified desensitization approach for the treatment of phobic behavior in children: A quasi‐experimental case study , 1983 .

[11]  A. Bondy,et al.  A Comparison of Graduated Exposure, Verbal Coping Skills, and Their Combination in the Treatment of Children's Fear of the Dark , 1983 .

[12]  N. King,et al.  The Therapeutic Management of an Autistic Child's Phobia Using Laughter as the Anxiety Inhibitor , 1982, Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy.

[13]  A. Graziano,et al.  Behavioral treatment of "nightfears" in children: maintenance of improvement at 2 1/2- to 3-year follow-up. , 1982, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[14]  N. King,et al.  The emotive imagery treatment of a child's trauma-induced phobia. , 1981, Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry.

[15]  A. Graziano,et al.  Family self-control instruction for children's nighttime fear reduction. , 1980, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[16]  J. Kellerman.  Rapid treatment of nocturnal anxiety in children , 1980 .

[17]  P. Lang.  Imagery in therapy: an information processing analysis of fear , 1977 .

[18]  D. S. Scott,et al.  Four considerations in using imagery techniques with children , 1977 .

[19]  N. Cavior,et al.  Systematic desensitization to reduce dream-induced anxiety. , 1975, The Journal of nervous and mental disease.

[20]  F. H. Kanfer,et al.  Reduction of children's fear of the dark by competence-related and situational threat-related verbal cues. , 1975, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[21]  H. Leitenberg,et al.  Reinforced practice and reduction of different kinds of fears in adults and children. , 1973, Behaviour research and therapy.

[22]  A. Lazarus,et al.  The use of "emotive imagery" in the treatment of children's phobias. , 1962, The Journal of mental science.

[23]  S. Spence,et al.  What is the revised Fear Survey Schedule for Children measuring? , 1991, Behaviour research and therapy.

[24]  T H Ollendick,et al.  Fears in children and adolescents: reliability and generalizability across gender, age and nationality. , 1989, Behaviour research and therapy.

[25]  R. Digiuseppe.  Cognitive Therapy with Children , 1989 .

[26]  T. Ollendick.  Reliability and validity of the Revised Fear Surgery Schedule for Children (FSSC-R). , 1983, Behaviour research and therapy.