Abstract

The aims of this study were to develop a group cognitive therapy (GCT) including cognitive restructuring training for dysfunctional beliefs as well as negative automatic thoughts and to investigate the treatment effect and mechanism of the GCT for social phobia. 39 undergraduates diagnosed as social phobia were randomly assigned o one of the three conditions, namely GCT, group behavior therapy (GBT), and waiting-list (WL) control, 13 sociall phobics per condition. The numbers of clients who completed the assessment at termination period were 10 in GCT, 9 in GBT, and 13 in WL. The results are as follows: 1) GCT reduced both negative automatic thoughts and dysfunctional beliefs prominently, and 2) particularly, change in negative automatic thoughts in the middle phase and change in all types of dysfunctional beliefs in the terminal phase were significant in GCT condition, whereas both of them were not in GBT condition. 3) GCT alleviated social phobic symptoms effectively, and the treatment effect was maintained at 3-month follow-up. Therefore, these findings support the importance of cognitive restructuring for dysfunctional beliefs as well as negative automatic thoughts in clients' efforts to overcome their social fears. Finally, implications of the results for cognitive theory and cognitive-behavioral therapy for social phobia were discussed.