ریشه های هراسهای خاص در نمونه های بالینی مخلوط: تفاوت طبقه بندی شده بین دو ابزار خاستگاه

The origins of 41 cases of specific phobia at an outpatient anxiety clinic were investigated. All subjects completed Menzies and Clarke's Origins Questionnaire (OQ) and Öst and Hugdahl's Phobic Origins Questionnaire (POQ). Results for the individual questionnaires were similar to those reported in previous studies. However, a comparison of assignments to origin categories for the two questionnaires showed widely discrepant results. The POQ returned 20 positive responses for classical conditioning, the OQ only 4. By contrast the OQ returned 11 origins as “non-conditioning traumatic event,” all of which returned positive responses for classical conditioning on the POQ. A further 18 subjects on the OQ were categorized as “always been this way”, the preponderance of these being classified as vicarious or mixed pathway in origin on the POQ. The POQ does not have questions or categories for the nonassociative acquisition of phobias. Other difficulties in the interpretation of POQ-based results are described. It is suggested that use of the POQ in the past has led to a substantial overestimate of frequency of direct conditioning events in onset of the phobic disorders.