The use of safety signals may prove especially useful for those who have found therapy unhelpful. According to the study's authors, these calming cues soothe the mind through a completely different can be centered on having the patient face their fears, so to speak, and confront the topic or activity that is causing them anxiety. For example, people with an irrational fear of insects are often instructed to hold a bug in their hands during behavioral therapy.
"Exposure-based therapy relies on fear extinction, and although a safety memory is formed during therapy, it is always competing with the previous threat memory," said senior coauthor Dylan Gee, assistant professor of psychology at Yale, in the press release. "This competition makes current therapies subject to the relapse of fear — but there is never a threat memory associated with safety signals.
Next, only the threatening stimulus was presented to participants, followed by a combination of both the scary and neutral shapes or sounds. Interestingly, in both humans and mice, adding the nonthreatening stimulus to the situation helped the participants calm down and exhibit less fear in comparison to when they were only shown the threatening "symbol."
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