Phobic Fear Clinical Trial
Official title:
Treating Phobias Using Emotional Regulation Developed by the Tipi Association
- Background In emotional regulation, the patient remembers an emotional situation,
focuses his attention on his physical sensations when he relives a recent emotion, and
let evolve his sensations.
- Method Evaluate the relevance of this method by an interventional study, in a pre-post
mono group, on patients suffering from phobia.
- Objective The investigators aim to validate the effectiveness of this emotional
regulation method and compare its results with that of conventional methods. Sessions
are individual and repeated until the disappearance of phobic fear.
The present study may contribute to propose a new possibility to treat phobias in a simple
and fast way.
Between 2003 and 2006, the investigators conducted an exploratory, prospective and
comparative research study, taking each person as their own control, to evaluate the benefits
of the type of emotional regulation developed by the Tipi association on a population
suffering from phobias.
- Participants Phobias can be categorized by type, as defined in the DSM IV, the standard
reference during the study period (American Psychiatriy Association, 2000) : agoraphobias,
social phobias, specific situational phobias (claustrophobia, transport phobia), phobias
linked to the natural environment (heights, water, fire), to animals (spiders, snakes,
amphibians, tentacled shellfish) and other types of specific phobias (fear of physical
contact, being dirtied, contaminated, vomiting), phobia of blood - injections - medical
techniques - accidents.
The investigators aim to conduct a prior and systematic verification with each person to
confirm that their fears were phobias as defined in the DSM IV (American Psychiatriy
Association, 2000). The phobia must be diagnosed by a doctor or psychiatrist. Each people
must provide a medical certificate that evidenced the diagnosis in writing.
All people must read an information form on "Understanding your emotions" All participants
must have suffered from their phobias for a long time. They have to describe their treatment.
Everybody in the study population have to provide a short-written report on the effects of
the session(s) 1 week, 1 month, 3 months and 12 months after the session.
- Intervention (see below)
- Follow-up During the one-year follow-up period, the patient was requested to send a
written self-assessment of his situation and the change and/or disappearance of his
phobia. If the investigators didn't receive the person's assessment, the investigators
followed-up with a mail and a phone call.
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