Abstract
Summary: Cognitive defusion strategies are a set of techniques that are used in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to change the functions of verbal stimuli. The Word Repeating Technique (WRT) is a commonly used cognitive defusion technique. This study examined whether differences in verbal stimuli used in WRT have different effects on outcome measures. Further, we investigated whether the WRT have different effects on outcome measures from exposure to verbal stimuli. Forty-nine undergraduate and graduate students were randomly assigned to four groups: (a) the Neutral-Defusion condition, in which neutral verbal (e.g., lemon) stimuli were repeated; (b) the Negative-Defusion condition, in which uncomfortable verbal stimuli (e.g., failure) were repeated; (c) the Both-Defusion condition, in which both neutral and uncomfortable verbal stimuli were repeated; and (d) the Verbal-Exposure condition, in which participants were exposed to uncomfortable verbal stimuli. Results suggested that the WRT had different effects on outcome measures from the exposure to the verbal stimuli. Furthermore, the WRT using uncomfortable verbal stimuli did not have long-term effects on outcome measures, while the WRT using neutral verbal stimuli did, specifically in terms of avoidance of verbal stimuli and subjective measure results.
