Cognitive-behavioral theory suggests that anxiety-control strategies such as neutralization, distraction and various forms of safety behavior have the potential to diminish the effectiveness of and/or interfere with exposure treatment. Yet, it is common practice when treating individuals with anxiety disorders to employ various anxiety-control strategies as a means of assisting clients/patients with difficult exposure situations. Questions surrounding the issue of which anxiety-control strategies help vs. hinder exposure-based treatments (and under which circumstances) have been a topic of much investigation and continue to be a focus of theoretical debate. The present article reviews several key studies which collectively shed some light on this debate. The evidence suggests that clients' anxiety-control strategies may be less likely to become counter-productive when: (i) they promote increases in self-efficacy, (ii) they do not demand excessive attentional resources, (iii) they enable greater approach behavior and integration of corrective information (via 'disconfirmatory experiences'), and (iv) they do not promote misattributions of safety. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed, and future directions for research in this area are suggested.

中文翻译：

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焦虑控制策略：成功的暴露治疗是否有中和的余地？

认知行为理论表明，焦虑控制策略（例如中和，分散注意力和各种形式的安全行为）可能会降低暴露治疗的效果和/或对其干扰。然而，在治疗患有焦虑症的人时，通常的做法是采用各种焦虑控制策略，以协助有困难暴露情况的服务对象/患者。围绕哪些焦虑控制策略可帮助与阻碍基于暴露的治疗（以及在何种情况下）的问题一直是许多研究的主题，并且仍然是理论辩论的焦点。本文回顾了一些关键研究，这些研究共同阐明了这一辩论。有证据表明，客户的 在以下情况下，焦虑控制策略不太可能适得其反：（i）促进自我效能的提高；（ii）不需要过多的注意力资源；（iii）能够实现更大的进近行为和纠正信息的整合（通过“不一致的经验”），以及（iv）它们不会促进安全性的错误归因。讨论了这些发现的理论和临床意义，并提出了该领域研究的未来方向。