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Benzodiazepines and Behavioural Treatment of Phobic Anxiety

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2009

Gudrun Sartory
Gudrun Sartory
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park
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Extract

The use of benzodiazepines during behavioural treatment is frequently encouraged. However, this review of clinical studies failed to find any beneficial effect of the drugs on therapy outcome. An examination of drug effects on different response variables revealed conflicting results concerning behaviour, i.e. approach. Whilst the anxiolytic nature of the drugs is well established in results on autonomic measures in the absence of the phobic object, they had no effect during its presence. Verbal report data again favour administration of benzodiazepines but studies on cognitive effects of long-term use are still to come. It is recommended that the use of this group of drugs as an adjunct to behaviour therapy should be discouraged.

Type
Research Article
Information
Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , July 1983 , pp. 204 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 1983

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