ABSTRACT
Our study of emotion began with clinical experiments on fear and phobia (e.g., Lang & Lazovik, 1963; Lang, Lazovik, & Reynolds, 1965). The focus was on explaining the mechanism of the then new behavioral therapies: desensitization, flooding, exposure, implosive therapy, and the like. The common factor in all these treatments, as in earlier cathartic methods, is the therapist’s insistence that during treatment sessions clients repeatedly reexperience their primary fear.
