RECENT ADVANCES IN THE TREATMENT OF SOCIAL PHOBIA

Social phobia is one of the less studied of the anxiety disorders. Whi le early conceptualisations stressed a lack of social skills as the ba sic causal mechanism, more-recent research seems to indicate that thes e individuals do possess adequate skills. Rather, recent conceptualisa tions of social phobia stress the importance of distortions in the way such individuals process information related to their own performance and others' evaluations. Based on such conceptualisations, treatment packages which stress cognitive restructuring and in vivo exposure see m to have considerable success. The results of these studies are revie wed and data from the treatment of 30 social phobics are presented.