Thought Field Therapy and Cognitive Therapy for Agoraphobia

Sorlandet Hospital HF

Status: Completed

Conditions: Agoraphobia

Treatments: Behavioral: Thought field therapy; Behavioral: Cognitive therapy; Behavioral: Wait list

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00932919

SSHF-70343-AUIR-2

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose for this study is to find out if Thought field therapy has the same effect as, or better effect than, Cognitive therapy for Agoraphobia.

Full description

Thought field therapy is an alternative treatment method that has shown, by casuistic reports, to give good results when applied for anxiety disorders. In this study 72 patients will be randomized to three groups. 24 patients will receive cognitive therapy as a control method, 24 patients will receive thought field therapy. The remaining 24 patients will wait three months, and then be randomized to either of the two therapies.

Before inclusion all patients will be diagnosed with M.I.N.I. and SCID II. They will fill out self evaluation forms for symptoms and quality of life, before and after treatment, and one year after treatment.

All patients will undergo an interview with ADIS on panic and agoraphobic diagnosis and symptoms before starting treatment, and on panic and agoraphobic symptoms immediately after and one year after treatment. These interviews will be done by psychologists who are blinded for which type of treatment the patients have got.

Enrollment: 72 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients ages 18 years or older,
• Patients with agoraphobia,
• Patients with a score on Mobility Inventory "Alone" of 2.5 or more,
• Patients who give a written consent to participate.

Exclusion criteria

• Psychosis (past or present),
• Drug abuse or dependency,
• Moderate or high score on suicidal behaviour on the M.I.N.I.,
• Patients who have another illness (other than panic disorder or agoraphobia) and are in need of immediate treatment.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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72 participants in 3 patient groups

Thought field therapy

Experimental group

Description:

24 randomly selected patients will be treated with 5 sessions of standard Thought field therapy.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Thought field therapy

Cognitive therapy

Active Comparator group

Description:

Treatment with Cognitive therapy, 12 sessions with manualized therapy according to David Clark's model.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Cognitive therapy

Wait list

Other group

Description:

24 patients will be randomly selected to 3 months on a wait list, thereafter randomly selected to either Cognitive therapy or Thought field therapy.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Wait list