Wellcome PhD Supervisors Mental and Cognitive Health Theme

Social anxiety disorder is one of the most common, disabling and persistent of the anxiety disorders. We have developed a cognitive therapy programme for adults, which specifically targets the maintaining factors outlined in Clark and Wells’ (1995) model. Randomised controlled trials show that the treatment is highly effective. It is recommended as the first treatment option by NICE. However, there is room for further improvement. Key areas for research include: 1) adapting and evaluating the treatment for use with children and adolescents, 2) testing aspects of the cognitive model in children and adolescents, 3) understanding the mechanism of change, 4) developing an internet version of the treatment for fear of public speaking with associated experiments that characterise the cognitive processes distinguishing fear of public speaking from generalised social anxiety disorder. Students will be able to spend their day-­­a-­­week of clinical work in the Oxford Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma supervised by Professors David M Clark, Anke Ehlers and colleagues. Other possible placements include research within a local IAPT service, or working with Christopher Fairburn’s (eating disorders) or Daniel Freeman’s (psychosis) clinical teams.