ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2026
Case Report: Psychological acupuncture for severe cynophobia with comorbid PTSD.
Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with comorbid specific phobia represents a challenging clinical condition, particularly when patients decline pharmacological or trauma-focused psychotherapeutic interventions due to fear of re-traumatization or intolerance to adverse effects. This report describes a unique case of severe cynophobia with comorbid PTSD successfully treated using psychological acupuncture, an integrative intervention combining guided trauma recall with fingertip acupoint tapping. Methods: A 63-year-old woman developed intense fear of dogs, intrusive nightmares, avoidance of outdoor activities, hypervigilance, and severe insomnia following a dog attack. The patient met DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for PTSD and specific phobia (cynophobia) and refused standard psychiatric treatments. Psychological acupuncture was administered in two 40-minute sessions over a two-week interval, incorporating relaxation training, guided trauma recall, and rhythmic fingertip tapping (4-5 Hz) on selected acupoints associated with emotional regulation. Clinical outcomes were assessed using the Subjective Units of Distress scale (SUDs), Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), and PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5). Results: Marked clinical improvement was observed following the intervention. The patient's SUDs score decreased from 10 to 3, ISI score from 23 to 7, and PCL-5 score from 54 to 20. Improvements in fear reactivity, sleep quality, and avoidance behavior occurred rapidly after treatment and were maintained at the 3-month follow-up. No adverse events were reported. Conclusion: This case suggests that psychological acupuncture may serve as a rapid, safe, and well-tolerated integrative therapeutic option for patients with trauma-related specific phobia and comorbid PTSD who decline conventional treatments. The findings highlight the potential role of combined cognitive-emotional activation and somatic modulation in alleviating trauma-related symptoms and support further investigation of this approach in controlled clinical studies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.