Changes in self-perception during treatment of social phobia

Ninety individuals with social phobia were randomly assigned to a waitlist control group, a cognitive– behavioral therapy group, or an exposure therapy group without explicit cognitive intervention. Two independent raters classified more than 2,000 thoughts that were reported by participants while antici-pating socially stressful situations at pretest and posttest. Each thought was classified on the basis of its valence (positive, negative, or neutral) and attentional focus (self or other). The 2 treatments demon-strated a greater reduction in the frequency of negative self-focused thoughts than the control group. Changes in negative self-focused thoughts and changes in social anxiety were significantly correlated only in the cognitive–behavioral therapy group. The implications of these findings for the cognitive model of social phobia are discussed. The self has been an anomalous and controversial subject since the early beginnings of psychology. William James (1890) devoted an entire chapter on this subject in his book, The Principles of Psychology, whereas John Watson (1924) hardly considered it a topic worthy of any serious scientific studies. Our field is still struggling to define and empirically investigate the self. At the same time, the self and self-related processes have occupied an important role in many contemporary theories of psychopathology, including models of social anxiety (e.g., Alden, Mellings, & Ry