You may be getting impatient at the testimonials from patients. “That’s all very well,” you might think, and not without justice, “but we all know about miracle cures that can’t be repeated. Will it work for me? What’s the scientific evidence that exposure treatments work reliably for most people with my kind of trouble?”
In many controlled studies, behavioral exposure treatments were found to be significantly more effective than other anxiety treatments in improving phobias, rituals, and sexual problems. They worked better than contrasting methods, such as relaxation or analytic types of insight psychotherapy. Moreover, the improvement doesn’t disappear after a few weeks. Patients who improved tended to stay that way over the two to nine years they were followed up after discharge. Improvement in their anxiety freed them and their family from the restrictions that formerly hemmed them in.
One thing may not change with exposure treatments. Before treatment many sufferers from phobias, panic and obsessions have a tendency to get depressive spells. Even after they lose their specific anxieties, this tendency to depressive spells may not change. If and when it happens to you, it can usually be dealt with adequately by antidepressant medication from your doctor.
Self-Help Clubs
Sufferers of many different kinds find it helpful to join lay groups of people who have problems similar to their own, so that they can share common experiences, learn helpful tips about how to cope, and have an additional social outlet. People with anxiety are no exception. In Britain a national correspondence club called The Open Door at one time had about 3,000 members.
Similar organizations exist in the United States, Canada (Vancouver), Australia, and Holland. Agoraphobics can club together for outings, help run children to and from school, arrange programs to retrain themselves out of their phobias, and organize many other activities. A few people are reluctant to join because they are afraid that listening to other people’s troubles will make their own worse. In general this does not happen.
The important point is not to make the club a complaint or grouse group just out to swap complaints, but a mutual aid society devoted to overcoming problems. This has been done in many ways. People with phobias about eating in restaurants went to lunch together, supporting and encouraging one another as they ventured out together. Others with flying phobias banded together in an organization called Air Fraidy Cats, chartered an airplane, and after preliminary instruction went for a group flight together. Club members can help one another even if their phobias are not the same.
A driving phobic and a walking phobic worked closely together, together driving on various highways and walking in several stores, thus helping both themselves and each other.
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