Psychological profile of the spouse of the female agoraphobic patient. Personality and symptoms.

It has been contended that psychological characteristics of the partner of the agoraphobic patient are important factors in the development and maintenance of the patient's symptoms. To examine this hypothesis, male partners of female agoraphobics were compared with those of non-phobic psychiatric patients and of normal controls on a total of 48 measures referring to several symptom complexes and traits, including defensiveness. The partners of agoraphobics as a group were not found to be more defensive or psychologically more disturbed than their control counterparts. Additional within-couple analyses across groups showed spouses in the control couples to be more comparable to each other than were agoraphobics and their partners-a finding which was attributed to the highly elevated scores of the agoraphobic patients.