Psychological treatment of social phobia

In the 1980s social phobia was the 'neglected anxiety disorder' The diagnosis was new, few treatments were available and the evidence base was sparse. Today, the situation is more encouraging: the clinician can select from a wide variety of treatments, many of which have been extensively evaluated. This contribution describes and reviews psychological interventions for social phobia, grouping them into the broad categories of behaviour therapy and cognitive therapy (Figure 1). Psychodynamic approaches are not considered here. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.