TOW (& Answer)....

This week’s question was what is implosive therapy?  To quote from the source:

A form of behavior therapy developed by Thomas Stampfl in the late 1950s, implosive therapy is based on the hypothesis that neurotic behavior – notably intense anxiety – develops as an avoidance mechanism for coping with a repressed traumatic experience, and that the relative success of avoidance enables the anxiety to persist. In treatment the patient’s anxiety is increased and maintained at an almost intolerable level by imagining a series of provoking cues, described either by the therapist or by the patient with the therapist’s assistance, until the anxiety dissipates.  Proponents believe the technique reinforces anxiety control and extinguishes related public responses by depriving the anxiety of its avoidance function.

The question, and answer, were taken from p. 189 of Volume 2 of the Encyclopedia of Psychology, edited by Raymond J. Corsini and published by John Wiley & Sons in 1984.