Cognitive Behavioral Group Therapy for Patients with Co-Existing Social Anxiety Disorder and SubstanceUse Disorders: A Pilot Study

摘要

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) frequentlyco-occurs with substance use disorders (SUDs).Although the efficacy of separate cognitive behav-ioral treatments for each disorder has been widelydocumented, there is a dearth of studies investigatingtreatment outcome for patients with co-existing SADand SUDs. This paper presents preliminary data froma pilot study that investigated whether cognitivebehavioral group therapy—modified to explicitlyaddress the link between social anxiety and substanceuse—could lead to reductions in social anxiety-related symptoms and improvements in affect andunrealistic alcohol expectancies in a sample of 59patients diagnosed with co-existing SAD and SUDs.Results indicated significant reductions across treat-ment in social anxiety-related symptoms and negativeaffect, whereas no changes in positive affect orunrealistic alcohol expectancies were found. Theresults warrant a randomized controlled trial toexplore the specificity of these effects.