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A Pilot Open Trial of Cognitive Bias Modification for Panic Disorder

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Abstract

Although cognitive biases are involved in the maintenance of panic disorder (PD), cognitive bias modification (CBM) has not been tested in PD. The current study developed and piloted a combined CBM-attention/CBM-interpretation PD treatment to determine initial acceptability and efficacy. Ten individuals diagnosed with PD (nine with Agoraphobia) were asked to complete 8, 20-min sessions of a CBM-A (Dot Probe task with fearful faces) and CBM-I (Word-Sentence Association Paradigm) intervention. Cognitive bias, panic symptom severity, and anxiety during interoceptive exercises were assessed at pre- and post-assessments. At post-treatment, participants showed increased benign interpretations, reduced threat interpretations of ambiguous panic situations, and reported significantly less severe panic symptoms with six individuals meeting criteria for remission. Anticipatory anxiety for interoceptive exercises decreased following treatment, but duration of exercises and anxiety following the exercises did not. Results suggest that further testing of the treatment and putative mechanisms of action is warranted.

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Fig. 1
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Notes

  1. The following NIMSTIM model numbers were used (fearful and neutral expressions for each): 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 14, 18, 19, 28, 30, 34, 37, 38, 41, 42, 43.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Claire Walker for her assistance in data collection and entry.

Funding

This study was supported by funds from the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior of Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School, 115 Mill St, Mailstop 113, Belmont, MA, 02478, USA

    Courtney Beard

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Courtney Beard, Cara Fuchs, Molly Schulson & Risa B. Weisberg

  3. Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Cara Fuchs

  4. Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Anu Asnaani

  5. Department of Psychology, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, USA

    Casey A. Schofield

  6. Department of Psychology, Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA

    Elise M. Clerkin

  7. VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA

    Risa B. Weisberg

  8. Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA

    Risa B. Weisberg

Authors
  1. Courtney Beard
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  2. Cara Fuchs
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  4. Molly Schulson
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  7. Risa B. Weisberg
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Courtney Beard.

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Conflict of Interest

Courtney Beard, Cara Fuchs, Anu Asnaani, Molly Schulson, Casey A. Schofield, Elise M. Clerkin and Risa B. Weisberg declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (national and institutional). Informed consent was obtained from all individual subjects participating in the study.

Animal Rights

No animal studies were carried out by the authors for this article.

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Beard, C., Fuchs, C., Asnaani, A. et al. A Pilot Open Trial of Cognitive Bias Modification for Panic Disorder. Cogn Ther Res 40, 792–798 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-016-9790-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-016-9790-0

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