Psychosocial treatment prescriptions for generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and social phobia, 1991-1996.

Abstract

Pharmacologic prescriptions for anxiety disorders have changed significantly in the last decade. This article investigates whether psychosocial treatments, as reported by 362 subjects in the Harvard/Brown Anxiety Disorders Research Program from 1991 to 1996, changed as well. Subjects were interviewed in 1991 and 1995-1996 to determine which psychosocial treatments (behavioral, cognitive, dynamic, or relaxation or meditation) they had received. The percentage of subjects who received each type of psychosocial treatment either declined or remained the same from 1991 to 1995-1996. Dynamic psychotherapy remained the most frequently used method of these four. The percentage of subjects receiving any such method declined. Behavioral and cognitive treatment, two empirically validated forms of psychotherapy, were less frequently used than dynamic psychotherapy, which lacks such validation. All use of verbal treatment methods declined from 1991 to 1995-1996.