Article

Self-images play a causal role in social phobia.

Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK.
Behaviour Research and Therapy (impact factor: 3.3). 09/2003; 41(8):909-21. pp.909-21
Source: PubMed

ABSTRACT Patients with social phobia often experience negative self-images in social situations. The current study investigated whether negative self-images have a causal role in maintaining social phobia. Patients with social phobia participated twice in a conversation with a stranger, once whilst holding their usual negative self-image in mind and once whilst holding a less negative (control) self-image in mind, with order counterbalanced across participants. Compared to the control image condition, when participants held the negative image in mind they experienced greater anxiety, rated their anxiety symptoms as being more visible, and rated their performance as poorer. An assessor who did not know which image was being held also rated participants' anxiety as more evident and their behaviour as less positive when the negative image was being held in mind. Finally, when participant and assessor ratings were compared, participants underestimated their performance and overestimated the visibility of their anxiety to a significantly greater extent in the negative imagery condition. Taken together, these results support the hypothesis that negative self-imagery has a causal role in maintaining social phobia.

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    Article: Efficacy of exposure versus cognitive therapy in anxiety disorders: systematic review and meta-analysis.
    Dennis Ougrin
    [show abstract] [hide abstract]
    ABSTRACT: There is growing evidence of the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for a wide range of psychological disorders. There is a continued controversy about whether challenging maladaptive thoughts rather than use of behavioural interventions alone is associated with the greatest efficacy. However little is known about the relative efficacy of various components of CBT. This review aims to compare the relative efficacy of Cognitive Therapy (CT) versus Exposure (E) for a range of anxiety disorders using the most clinically relevant outcome measures and estimating the summary relative efficacy by combining the studies in a meta-analysis. Psych INFO, MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched from the first available year to May 2010. All randomised controlled studies comparing the efficacy of exposure with cognitive therapy were included. Odds ratios (OR) or standardised means' differences (Hedges' g) for the most clinically relevant primary outcomes were calculated. Outcomes of the studies were grouped according to specific disorders and were combined in meta-analyses exploring short-term and long-term outcomes. 20 Randomised Controlled Trials with (n = 1,308) directly comparing the efficacy of CT and E in anxiety disorders were included in the meta-analysis. No statistically significant difference in the relative efficacy of CT and E was revealed in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and in Panic Disorder (PD). There was a statistically significant difference favouring CT versus E in Social Phobia both in the short-term (Z = 3.72, p = 0.0002) and the long-term (Z = 3.28, p = 0.001) outcomes. On the basis of extant literature, there appears to be no evidence of differential efficacy between cognitive therapy and exposure in PD, PTSD and OCD and strong evidence of superior efficacy of cognitive therapy in social phobia.
    BMC Psychiatry 12/2011; 11:200. · 2.55 Impact Factor
Data provided are for informational purposes only. Although carefully collected, accuracy cannot be guaranteed. The impact factor represents a rough estimation of the journal's impact factor and does not reflect the actual current impact factor. Publisher conditions are provided by RoMEO. Differing provisions from the publisher's actual policy or licence agreement may be applicable.

Keywords

anxiety symptoms
 
assessor
 
assessor ratings
 
causal role
 
control image condition
 
greater anxiety
 
greater extent
 
negative image
 
negative imagery condition
 
negative self-imagery
 
negative self-images
 
order counterbalanced
 
overestimated
 
participants
 
participants' anxiety
 
results support
 
social phobia
 
social situations
 
usual negative self-image
 
visible