Couples treatment of agoraphobia: A two-year follow-up

Abstract

Agoraphobics treated in a self-paced exposure-based program either with their spouse directly involved in all aspects of treatment (n=28) or without their spouses (n=14) were followed up for two years. The results indicate that agoraphobics treated with their spouse maintain an improving trend over the two-year period, and do significantly better on most measures than agoraphobics treated without their spouse. Nonspouse group members do not show continued improvement at one-year follow-up and even deteriorate slightly, although their improving trend resumes at the two-year follow-up. Involvement of the spouse also seems to produce less disruption in work and leisure activities during the year following treatment. No differences were evident on more general measures of psychopathology between groups. Marital satisfaction generally improved in both groups and was correlated with improvements in phobic behavior. These data would seem to confirm the importance of attending to the interpersonal context of behavior change, in this case, by including the spouse directly in the behavior change process.