Treatment <br>Effective treatments have been developed for social phobia only in the past several years (Barlow & Lehman, 1996; Hofmann, 2004; Taylor, 1996; Turk, Heimberg, & Magee, 2008). Rick Heimberg and colleagues developed a cognitive-behavioral group therapy (CBGT) program in which groups of patients rehearse or role-play their socially phobic situations in front of one another (Heimberg et al., 1990; Turk et al., 2008). The group members participate in the role-playing, for example, acting as audience for someone who has extreme diffi culty giving a speech. At the same time, the therapist conducts rather intensive cognitive therapy aimed at uncovering and changing the automatic or unconscious perceptions of danger that the socially phobic client assumes to exist. These treatments have proven to be more effective than comparison treatments involving education about anxiety and social phobia and social support for stressful life events. More important, a follow-up after 5 years indicates that the therapeutic gains are maintained (Heimberg, Salzman, Holt, & Blendell, 1993). Clark and colleagues (2006) evaluated a new and improved cognitive therapy program that emphasized more real-life experiences during therapy to disprove automatic perceptions of danger. This program substantially benefi ted 84% of individuals receiving treatment, and these results were maintained at a 1-year follow-up. This outcome is the best yet for this diffi cult condition and signifi cantly better than previous approaches to which it has been compared.
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