Effects of four treatment methods on agoraphobic women not suitable for insight-oriented psychotherapy

Seventy-three agoraphobic women rated unsuitable for insight-oriented psychotherapy, entered one of four randomly assigned types of treatment for 3 months. All patients received basal therapy in the form of standardized information, self-exposure instructions and anxiolytic medication. One group received this treatment only at monthly appointments (B). The others, in addition, received either therapist-directed prolonged exposure in vivo (PE), dynamically oriented supportive therapy (ST) or relaxation therapy (R). There was a 9-month follow-up period. All groups were about equally improved at the termination of treatment, with some advantage for PE and ST. At follow-up the ST group was more improved than the other groups, R was least improved, and PE showed some deterioration between the termination of treatment and the follow-up. ST, which took into account the overall adjustment as well as the symptoms, was thus the most successful treatment, but the superiority of the treatment did not manifest itself until at the end of the follow-up period.