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Background Long-term follow-up has rarely been reported after self-exposure therapy for phobias. Aims Completion of such a follow-up. Method Two-year follow-up was achieved in 68(85%) of 80 patients with phobias who had completed a previous 14-week randomised controlled trial comparing therapist-accompanied self- exposure, self-exposure or self-relaxation. Measures were self-reported ratings of symptoms, satisfaction and use of other treatment. Results Improvement at week 4 was maintained 2 years later. Clinician-accompanied exposure and self-exposure did not differ on any measure. Compliance with self-exposure homework during weeks 0-8 predicted more improvement 2 years later. Patients who failed to improve with relaxation by week 14 improved after subsequent crossover to exposure. A need for more treatment for their phobias was still felt by 33 patients (49%). Conclusions Patients with phobias maintained their improvement to 2-year follow-up after the end of self-exposure therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was carried out to compare the sensitivity as well as cost of three different methods of psychiatric case detection. It was found that the simplest method, which involved interviewing about 3% of the adult population, with a questionnaire taking only five minutes to complete, picked up as many adult epileptics and nearly as many psychotics as the inquiry with all the adults in the population using a sophisticated structured interview schedule. A method of medium complexity, in which the short five-minute questionnaire was given to one adult member of each family, detected in addition to all adult epileptics and psychotics, and many juvenile epileptics and mentally retarded. The cost of the simplest method was one-ninth and that of the method of medium complexity, one-fifth of the cost of the most sophisticated method. The method of medium complexity is recommended for use in the rural psychiatry programme of the developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the different classifications of phobic disorders. According to the author, "phobia" was derived from the Greek word "phobos" that means panic-fear and terror that can develop on any object or situation. Phobia was classified according to feared situation and were divided into two classes, Class I and Class II. Class I are phobias of stimuli external to the patient which include normal fears, abnormal fears, animal phobias, and the agoraphobia or fear of public places and crowds. Class II are phobias of stimuli internal to the patients which cannot be avoided such as illness phobias, obsessive phobias and phobias in children.

The article discusses the study which examines the autonomic functions and sexual fantasies and attitudes which are related to the stages of aversion treatment of patients with fetishism and transvestism. Researchers have selected fetishists and transvestists who have well-integrated personalities and their deviant behavior is associated with sexual excitement and achievement orgasm. During aversion therapy, it has been found out that some patients have developed erection less readily than others when they imagined the objects which attracted them and patients' fantasies have also changed.

Illness phobia and hypochondriasis can be associated with severe disability and requests for reassurance. Exposure to illness cues and prevention of reassurance produced rapid improvement in both health anxiety and in social functioning. Our uncontrolled results warrant a controlled prospective trial with follow-up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the articles on problems in exposure research previously published in the journal.