A Therapeutic Experiment on Phobic and Affective Symptoms in an Individual Psychiatric Patient

An experiment was carried out on the symptoms of a 38‐year‐old female patient with phobias and depressive symptoms of long standing. Two forms of treatment, one ‘rational‐training’ and the other ‘non‐directive’, were applied to the patient. Eight sessions of each type of treatment were completed over a period of four weeks, in balanced order, with measures of both immediate and delayed effects of each type of treatment session upon the symptoms. The main findings were: (i) each form of treatment produced beneficial immediate effects; (ii) the delayed effect of the ‘rational‐training’ sessions appeared to be that of relapse, and that of the ‘non‐directive’ to be variable though with an average effect of improvement; (iii) previous findings of the relatively independent fluctuations of phobic and depressive symptoms were confirmed.