Behavioral experiments vs. verbal interventions in cognitive therapy for social anxiety disorder: A randomized...

The efficacy of cognitive therapy (CT) for social anxiety disorder (SAD) is well documented, although effect sizes (ES) vary significantly across studies. These variations may be attributable to differences in the active components of the treatments. A key component potentially influencing outcomes is the use of behavioral experiments (BEs), as opposed to purely verbal interventions (VIs) for changing social anxiety related negative beliefs. The present trial compared the effectiveness of CT incorporating behavioral experiments (CT-BE) with that of CT focusing more exclusively on verbal interventions (CT-VI). We hypothesized that CT-BE would lead to greater reductions in social anxiety symptoms.

Sixty patients were randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions: CT-BE or CT-VI (n = 30 per group). The primary outcome was the severity of social anxiety symptoms, which was assessed via the clinician-administered Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS). This measure was also used to compute response. The secondary outcomes included the self-administered Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN), clinician-rated and self-rated depression, and clinician-rated skills in emotion regulation regarding social anxiety. Assessments were conducted at baseline, posttreatment and (for clinician-administered measures) 6-months follow-up.

No significant differences between treatment groups were found for social anxiety outcomes or any other measure at post-treatment, however, a statistical trend in favor of CT-BE was observed for the primary outcome LSAS (p = .072). Between-group ES for anxiety outcomes at post-treatment were sizeable (d = 0.55 for LSAS, d = 0.41 for SPIN), suggesting a potential advantage of CT-BE over CT-VI. Although both treatments showed high overall effectiveness, as reflected in large within-participant ES for anxiety outcomes and high response probabilities (97.7 % for CT-BE, 74.9 % for CT-VI), within-participant ES for anxiety-related outcomes were particularly high in the CT-BE group (up to d = 2.59) and substantially exceeded those in the CT-VI group (up to d = 1.02). At follow-up, significant group differences emerged for emotion regulation, favoring CT-BE (p < .001, d = 1.19), indicating a large advantage of BEs in fostering long-term improvements in emotion regulation skills.

The results indicate that behavioral experiments may be an effective component in cognitive therapy for patients with social anxiety disorder, especially facilitating long term emotional regulation skills, in addition to verbal interventions and other experiential exercises. Future research should expand the use of behavioral experiments to larger trials and clarify which mechanisms are involved in the mediating effects of behavioral experiments on outcomes.

German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS), DRKS00014349.