Cognitive-behavioral approaches to social phobia

Author: Irina Holdevici
Titu Maiorescu University, Bucharest, Romania
Email: nicoletalixandru@yahoo.com

Cognitive theories consider that the dysfunctions of informational processing play a crucial role in developing and maintaining anxious disorders. The fundamental element in maintaining these manifestations is constituted by a selection dysfunction regarding potential threats (Beck & Clark, 1997). This dysfunction probably intervenes on all levels of information processing. The first levels which imply a parallel, involuntary and unconscious processing, just as it is necessary in identifying threat are named levels of automatic processing and the following stages which demand a serial, intended, aware processing such as attributing meaning and semantic analysis are named controlled or strategic processing levels (Brewin, 1996; Schiffrin, 2014).
Keywords: Cognitive-behavioral therapy, social phobia, modeling, behavioral rehearsal, feedback, role play