[Is there an approach of psychoanalytical inspiration specifically adapted to anxiety disorders?]

Psychoanalytic treatments have been relegated to a secondary status in the current recommendations concerning the treatment of anxiety disorders. This is due to the lack of controlled studies pertaining to these psychotherapies, as well as to the late adaptation of psychoanalysis to the contemporary trends of psychopathology and psychotherapy focusing on symptoms. The recent development of a manualized psychotherapy for the treatment of panic disorder, the Panic-Focused Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (PFPP), is a good example of such an adaptation (Milrod et al., 1997). PFPP appears to be effective (Milrod, 2001). This type of psychotherapy is probably neither more nor less effective than other forms of psychotherapy if one considers the results of empirical research on the comparative effectiveness of psychotherapies. The question formulated by the title of this paper is perhaps less central as is that of the nature of the active factors of the psychotherapeutic process.