Cognitive and physiological reactivity and the effects of different behavioral methods in the treatment of social phobia

The importance of individual response patterns in social phobics was examined in the present study. Thirty-nine outpatients with social phobia were assessed in a social interaction test which was videotaped. Heart rate was measured continuously during the test and the patient's cognitive reacti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behaviour research and therapy 1986, Vol.24 (2), p.171-180
Main Authors: Jerremalm, Anita, Jansson, Lars, Öst, Lars-Göran
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Arousal
Behavior Therapy - methods
Behavior therapy. Cognitive therapy
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition
Female
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Phobic Disorders - psychology
Phobic Disorders - therapy
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Treatments
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Summary:The importance of individual response patterns in social phobics was examined in the present study. Thirty-nine outpatients with social phobia were assessed in a social interaction test which was videotaped. Heart rate was measured continuously during the test and the patient's cognitive reactions were assessed immediately after the test. On the basis of their reactions the patients were divided into physiological and cognitive reactors. Within each class the patients were randomly assigned to a physiologically-focused method (applied relaxation, AR), a cognitively-focused method (self-instructional training, SIT) or a waiting-list control group (WL). The patients were treated individually for 10 sessions. The within-group comparisons showed that both treatments yielded significant improvements on most measures. The between-group comparisons showed that for the physiological reactors the groups did equally well on most measures. On two self-report measures AR actually improved less than SIT, which was contrary to the hypothesis. Among the cognitive reactors SIT improved more than AR on 4/11 measures, thus to some extent corroborating the hypothesis. The conclusion that can be drawn is that the classification of social phobics into physiological and cognitive reactors did not predict different outcomes with a physiologically- and a cognitively-focused method, respectively.
ISSN:0005-7967
1873-622X
DOI:10.1016/0005-7967(86)90088-4