[Dental fear--relevant clinical methods of treatment]

The treatment of odontophobia is often relegated to treatment under general anesthesia as a quick solution, but this has proven to be ineffective in the long run. Other more cognitive approaches include flooding, where the patient learns through courageous participation to endure the fear through several routine dental treatments. Since this can often backfire on the patient, systematic desensitization is preferred, in combination with psychotherapy that is aided by progressive muscle relaxation or fading, biofeedback training or stress inoculation training. Hypnosis can also help the patient to restructure negative thinking towards more positive expectations from treatment. These are all meant to build up the patient's psychic coping resources. Assertiveness training in psychotherapy is used to build up the patient's social skills so that he/she can deal with dental personal in a diplomatic yet self determined way. Finally, modelling good patient behaviors to dental fear patients has been shown to be effective and is especially used by childrens' dentists. Use of sedatives the night before a dental appointment is often helpful and enables some patients with insomnia to be fresh and rested in order to deal with the often strenuous learning processes described above.