Conquering a fear of heights or spiders might be as easy as some strategic body drumming.
Psychologist Keryn Stirling, a postgraduate researcher at The University of Queensland, is investigating the technique called rhythmic tapping therapy where patients tap on strategic acupuncture pressure points.
Mrs Stirling said she had used the tapping method at her private practice in Brisbane’s Mater Hospital for a range of anxiety disorders and it had been more effective than traditional treatments of deep breathing or relaxation.
She said her UQ study would compare the tapping method with conventional treatments and hopefully provide the scientific data to prove it worked.
So she needs about 50 willing volunteers – aged between 18 and 60 years who have had a spider phobia for more than a year and can spare an hour for a consultation.
Volunteers will be split randomly into three groups, each receiving varying treatments and monitoring of their heart rates and levels of fear.
All participants will be offered whichever treatment proves superior.
The sessions will be held in the Psychology Department at UQ St Lucia this month.
“We train them up then we expose them to the spider,” Mrs Stirling.
She said the study had UQ ethics clearance and that volunteers would have control over their exposure.
While her research is specifically on spider phobia, Mrs Stirling said rhythmic tapping could potentially be applied to a range of other phobias.
Volunteers or media: contact Mrs Stirling (phone: 0412 333 269, email: keryn@jimstirling.com) or Miguel Holland at UQ Communications (phone: 3365 2619, email: m.holland@uq.edu.au)
