Recognizing the enormous burden placed upon health care delivery services by fear of the dentist, the proposed research aims to identify a practicable method for elimination of dental fears. The procedure, called systematic desensitization (SD), has been used extensively for treatment of other fears, but only recently applied to dentistry. MANIPULATIONS: In a controlled experiment with high-fear dental patients, the classical SD procedure involving three steps (hierarchy development, relaxation training, and desensitization) will be evaluated against three control groups. There will be 15 patients in each group. MEASURES: Pretreatment, post-treatment and 12-month follow-up dental examinations will be performed on each patient in a highly standardized manner. Changes in dental appointments made and observed dental health will be key measures of the effectiveness of the psychological treatment. However, a wide range of psychological, behavorial and physiological measures will be recorded at each assessment period.