Abstract
Everybody has anxiety about dental treatment. However there are some patients who take maladjusted behaviors such as rejecting or avoiding dental treatment because this anxiety is extremely strong. We call them "dental phobia" and strive to make clear the disorder. We think that it is most proper to deal with the disorder from the standpoint of behavioral science, and consider that dental phobia is an anxiety reaction acquired during dental treatment ; it is a neurotic maladjusted behavior which elicits escape or avoidance reaction from the treatment by mechanisms of operant learning. Therefore we think it possible to cure the disorder by behavior therapy which is a psychological treatment based on learning theory. At present, we have found that systematic desensitization, which is one method of the behavior therapy, is effective in 87% of these patients and therefore we strongly suggest its usefullness in the treatment of "dental phobia". Recently the effectiveness of this method with biofeedback, modelling, flooding or administration of psychotropic drugs is under examination.
