Psychological treatment of social phobia

Social phobia is described and defined. The stages of cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT) for social phobia are outlined. These include drawing out an idiosyncratic model of the patient's social anxiety, reducing the use of safety behaviours and self-focused attention, correcting patients' overly negative self-impressions, testing out social fears and planning for the future. Techniques that are particularly useful in CBT for social phobia (video feedback, behavioural experiments, surveys) are highlighted. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved