Therapeutic impact in treatments for smoking and test-anxiety

The concept of therapeutic impact was implemented and tested in two treatment studies, the first of smoking and the second of test-anxiety. Two impact factors previously defined, special states and activism, were employed in the creation of impact-enhanced treatment conditions, which were then compared to a basic treatment in each study. The three treatment conditions, taken together, were superior to the wait-list condition. In the smoking study, the impact-enhanced conditions were significantly superior to the basic treatment condition. In the anxiety study, the impact-enhanced conditions did not demonstrate statistically significant superiority over the basic treatment. The overall results were interpreted as supporting the impact model and as indicating that the impact variables may be of importance in structuring more effective treatments.