Description of the Strategy

Arousal training in adults may be used for a range of clinical disorders and may involve interventions to reduce or enhance levels of arousal. Patients need to be trained to detect their levels of arousal and then implement strategies to either increase or decrease these levels. Most particularly, arousal training may be effective for a range of anxiety disorders, where arousal levels need to be reduced, or for sexual dysfunction, where arousal levels may need to be increased. The two disorders that are considered in this entry are panic disorder and male erectile disorder. These two disorders have been chosen because (a) there is a clear association between levels of arousal and the disorder; (b) treatments have been developed ...