Cognitive and coping therapy for agoraphobia - a controlled trial

The purpose of the project was to compare the impact of cognitive therapy and guided coping in the treatment of agoraphobia. It has been investigated whether cognitive therapy is more effective than exposure-based coping therapy for severe agoraphobia. An overall test showed no differences between the conditions at a one-year follow-up. The cognitive therapy patients were more improved in terms of conditions related to spontaneous panic attacks. As expected in the cognitive model, change in catastrophic beliefs during treatment proved to predict change in outcome after treatment.