Assessing therapist reservations about exposure therapy for anxiety disorders: The Therapist Beliefs about Exposure Scale

•The 21-item Therapist Beliefs about Exposure Scale was constructed for this study.•The TBES demonstrated excellent psychometric properties in 3 therapist samples.•Higher TBES scores predicted negative reactions to 4 exposure therapy vignettes.•Higher TBES scores predicted cautious delivery style in an OCD case vignette.•TBES scores decreased by 50% following a day-long didactic workshop.

Exposure therapy is underutilized in the treatment of pathological anxiety and is often delivered in a suboptimal manner. Negative beliefs about exposure appear common among therapists and may pose a barrier to its dissemination. To permit reliable and valid assessment of such beliefs, we constructed the 21-item Therapist Beliefs about Exposure Scale (TBES) and examined its reliability and validity in three samples of practicing clinicians. The TBES demonstrated a clear single-factor structure, excellent internal consistency (αs = .90–.96), and exceptionally high six-month test–retest reliability (r = .89). Negative beliefs about exposure therapy were associated with therapist demographic characteristics, negative reactions to a series of exposure therapy case vignettes, and the cautious delivery of exposure therapy in the treatment of a hypothetical client with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Lastly, TBES scores decreased markedly following a didactic workshop on exposure therapy. The present findings support the reliability and validity of the TBES.