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Emotional Clarity's Link to Social Anxiety Changes
J Anxiety Disord; ePub 2018 Mar 9; Butler, et al
Changes in emotional clarity (EC) predicted changes in social anxiety, according to a recent study, but EC did not moderate treatment outcome. Participants were patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD; n=108) and healthy controls (n=37) who were assigned to cognitive behavioral group therapy (CBGT), mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), or a wait list (WL) in a randomized controlled trial. Researcher s examined:
- Differences between controls and patients with SAD in EC and attention to emotions;
- Changes in EC and attention to emotions associated with CBGT, MBSR, or a WL condition; and
- Whether EC and attention to emotions moderated changes in social anxiety across treatment.
At pretreatment, post-treatment, and 12-month follow-up, patients with SAD completed measures of social anxiety, EC, and attention to emotions. Controls completed measures at baseline only. They found:
- At pretreatment, patients with SAD had lower levels of EC than controls.
- EC increased significantly among patients receiving CBGT, and changes were maintained at 12-month follow-up.
- EC at post-treatment did not differ between CBGT and MBSR or between MBSR and WL.
Butler RM, Boden MT, Olino TM, et al. Emotional clarity and attention to emotions in cognitive behavioral group therapy and mindfulness-based stress reduction for social anxiety disorder. [Published online ahead of print March 9, 2018]. J Anxiety Disord. doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2018.03.003.