The role of personality in anxiety disorders.

It is widely believed that personality disorders and/or traits (PDT) have significant impact on the phenomenology, severity and consequently the treatment of anxiety disorders (AD). Specific PDT's are thought to be characteristic of certain types of AD's. However, little experimental data support these assumptions.

Early separation anxiety and adult agoraphobia.

The authors compared 137 adult patients who had agoraphobia with 81 patients who had either simple or social phobia for a history of childhood and adolescent separation anxiety. Female agoraphobics reported significantly more childhood separation anxiety than female combined simple and social phobics; males showed no significant difference between diagnostic groups. The reported prevalence of separation anxiety in adolescence was relatively low, but agoraphobics of both sexes reported significantly more separation anxiety than combined simple and social phobics.

Treatment of panic disorder with imipramine alone.

Ten patients with panic disorder were treated solely with imipramine in an open pilot trial. All patients reported cessation of panic attacks and considerable overall improvement. Four patients who took medication 5 months or longer reported marked overall improvement.