COMPARING EFFECTIVENESS OF GROUP THERAPIES ON SOCIAL PHOBIA DISORDER: THREE TREATING STYLES OF BEHAVIORAL, COGNITIVE, AND COGNITIVE / BEHAVIORAL.

Social-phobia disorder is one of the anxiety-disorders. Its cognitive-behavioral group therapy has been used as a selective treatment by researchers and has recently received special attention. The present study aimed to compare the amount of effectiveness of three different ways of social-phobia disorder treatments: behavioral group therapy, cognitive group therapy, and cognitive-behavioral group therapy.

Materials & Methods: The study was fully experimental type with pre-test and post-test approach. The way of sampling was accessible sampling among volunteers. The subjects were 36 students of Tabriz University who were selected as social phobic after a DSM-IV-TR diagnostic Interview and a Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN). There were 12 in each under-treatment group, each group was controlled for two months, once a week in a 1.5-hour sessions in which the leader and two co-therapists were also present.

Results: The results show that there was a significant difference between cognitive-behavioral group therapy and the other ways of group therapies (P< 0.01). There was no significant difference between behavioral and cognitive group therapy (P> 0.01).

Conclusion: The findings indicate that cognitive-behavioral group therapy is preferable to the other two ways of treating considering their amount of effectiveness. Also, it was found that there was no significant difference between behavioral group therapy and cognitive group therapy considering their amount of effectiveness in treatment of social phobia disorder.