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The Role of Social Anxiety in Social Interaction Difficulties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Roisin Hall
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Manchester, Swinton Grove, Manchester M13 0EU
David Goldberg
Affiliation:
University of Manchester, University Hospital of South Manchester, West Didsbury, Manchester M20 8LR

Extract

Social anxiety was found to be the most common complaint in a sample of psychiatric patients reporting social interaction difficulties. High social anxiety was shown to be associated with impairments to social behaviour in socially anxious psychiatric patients and non-psychiatric volunteers. A comparison was made of systematic desensitization and a form of social skills training in the treatment of social interaction difficulties associated with high social anxiety. This indicated that while both therapies were effective in the reduction of social anxiety, the training programme was the more effective in reducing problem behaviour, but desensitization appeared to lead to a wider generalization of improvement as indicated by increases in social participation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1977 

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