The observer perspective: biased imagery in social phobia, agoraphobia, and blood injury phobia

Clark and Wells' (1995). 'A cognitive model of social phobia'. In Social ph obia: Diagnosis, assessment, and treatment (pp. 69-93), R. G. Heimberg, M. R. Liebowitz, D. A. & F. R. Hope (eds.); cognitive model of social phobia p roposes that social phobics generate a negative impression of how they appe ar to others. This impression often occurs in the form of an image from an "observer" perspective in which social phobics can see themselves as if fro m another person's vantage point. This study investigated the specificity o f the observer perspective among patients with social phobia, agoraphobia, and blood/injury phobia. All participants were asked to recall and imagine a recent anxiety-provoking social situation and a non-social/non-anxiety-pr ovoking situation, and rate their perspective for each. Consistent with pre dictions only patients with social-evaluative concerns (social phobics and agoraphobics) reported observer perspectives for anxiety-provoking social s ituations. Only social phobics showed a significant shift from an observer to a field perspective across the two conditions. The clinical implications of these findings are briefly discussed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. Al l rights reserved.