Individual response patterns and treatment matching in the phobic disorders: a review

Studies using response profile treatment matching in the phobic disorders are reviewed. It is argued that the research effort to date is plagued by a multitude of methodological problems which bring into question the validity of the major findings. While there have clearly been some encouraging data, too many inconsistent results exist to offer unqualified endorsement of the procedure. At this point, the optimum strategy for clinicians would appear to involve the inclusion of a treatment component consistent with the dominant response system of the individual patient, but not at the expense of well-established procedures (e.g. graduated in vivo exposure).