Individuals with social phobia fear negative evaluation, which is most directly signalled by an angry expression of the interlocutor's face. This study investigated the processing of 3 series of schematic emotional faces, which were morphed in 7 steps from a neutral face to an angry, happy, or sad face by systematically varying features of the mouth, eyes, and eyebrows. Individuals with social ...

George, a 23-year-old Greek student, was referred by a psychiatrist for treatment to a University Counseling Centre in Athens. He was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and specific phobia situational type. He was complaining of panic attacks and severe symptoms of anxiety. These symptoms were triggered when in certain social situations and also when travelling by plane, driving a car and v...

Clark and Wells’ [1995. A cognitive model of social phobia. In: R. Heimberg, M. Liebowitz, D.A. Hope, & F.R. Schneier (Eds.) Social phobia: Diagnosis, assessment and treatment (pp. 69–93). New York: Guildford Press.] cognitive model of social phobia proposes that following a social event, individuals with social phobia will engage in post-event processing, during which they conduct a detailed r...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of the study was to explore whether the comorbidity of social phobia affects symptoms severity, positive and negative symptoms, self-stigma, hope, and quality of life in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. METHODS This is a cross-sectional study in which all participants completed the Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness (ISMI) scale, Adult Dispositional Hop...

S ome social phobias are clearly genuine mental disorders. However, in just 2 decades, social phobia (or social anxiety disorder) went from “rare” (in the DSM-III) to “common” (1), amidst changing criteria and concern about caseness thresholds (2). The evidence suggests that social anxiety is a normal, species-typical, designed response to specific triggering situations, one that is roughly nor...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Attentional bias towards threat in socially anxious adults is well documented; however, research on this bias in children with social phobia is rather scarce. The present study investigates whether the hypervigilance-avoidance hypothesis also applies to children with social phobia. METHODS Thirty children (aged 8-12) with social phobia and 43 control children partici...

Negative self-images are a maintaining factor in social phobia. A retrospective study (Hackmann, A., Clark, D.M., McManus, F. (2000). Recurrent images and early memories in social phobia. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 38, 601-610) suggested that the images may be linked to early memories of unpleasant social experiences. This preliminary study assessed the therapeutic impact of rescripting su...

Research into the etiology of social phobia has lagged far behind that of descriptive and maintaining factors. The current paper reviews data from a variety of sources that have some bearing on questions of the origins of social fears. Areas examined include genetic factors, temperament, childrearing, negative life events, and adverse social experiences. Epidemiological data are examined in det...

The authors investigated the prevalence of DIS-ascertained DSM-III psychiatric disorders occurring in 28 patients with dystonia and 28 patients with Parkinson's Disease (PD). In patients with dystonia, lifetime prevalences of major depression (25.0%), bipolar disorder (7.1%), atypical bipolar disorder (7.1%), social phobia (17.9%), and generalized anxiety disorder (25.0%) were significantly mor...