This is a case od phobia successfully treated by the application of behavior therapy.The patient was a forty-two year old married woman. Four years previously she had experienced an attack of palpitation and tachycardia upon being injected with streptomycin, and two years preciously she had experienced the same attack upon being injected with narcotics by dentist. After that, palpitation occurred frequently.Owing to a strang fear of death, and that the attack might happen again, she became unable to remain alone at home, eat food or do her daily necessary tasks. She develped a fear of riding in buses, street cars and elevators. That is, the conditioned fear which had been provoked by streptomycin and narcotics had widely been generalized not only to medicines, but also to daily necessaries and foodstuffs which seemed to contain chemicals or smelt of medicines. Consequently, the attack and the behavior disturbances had been reinforced by this.As my efforts in psychotherapy by persuasion and support and the pharmacotherapy by minor tranquilizers proved unsuccessful in her treatment. I decided to use systematic desensitization-a branch of behavior therapy. In the procedure of systematic desensitizatin, I followed Wolpe's method. The desensitization was done partially through having her imagine herself in sensitive situations and partially facing these situations in reality.This desensitization process was carried out for sixty days and she then was able to stay at home by herself, do daily necessary tasks and eat normally.At present three years treatment, shi is quite free from her former symptoms and has not developed symptom substitution.
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