s adjuncts, or as preferred methods.
Behavior therapy. As noted above, behavior therapy is generally the treatment of choice when the diagnosis is Specific Phobia, with one or more of the indicated subtypes. That does not mean, however, that behavior therapy is always effective or that it is universally acknowledged as the most, or only, effective method to use.
Muris and Merckelbach (1996) looked specifically at behavior therapy outcomes for individuals with an animal type of phobia. They investigated the relationship between defense style and the outcome of behavior therapy using a sample of 54 patients from age 16 51 with fear of spiders and 29 controls from age 17 53.
Using the Defense Style Questionnaire, they found that the distribution of defense styles was similar for the two groups. In terms of relationship between defense style and behavior therapy outcome for the group with the specific phobia, an immature defense style, and specifically the defense mechanism projection, was significantly related to less favorable treatment outcomes (Muris and Merckelbach, 1996).
In another study looking at the prediction of outcome in the treatment of a specific phobia, Hellstrom and Ost (1996) examined the data in four studies, totalling 138 subjects. These four studies included two studies on spider phobia, one study on blood phobia, and one study on injection phobia. All subjects had been diagnosed with simple phobia according to the DSM.
Hellstrom and Ost (1996) identified 14 different prognostic variables for consideration and used multiple regression analyses in a cross validation procedure. They focused on behavior therapy outcome at one week after treatment and at one year follow up. Results indicated that pretest diastolic blood pressure was a predictor of behavior therapy outcome at post treatment for one sample, while credibility was a predictor for the other sample, both at post treatment and at one year...