The Efficacy of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy for Social Anxiety Disorder: Randomized Trial and Substudy of Emphasizing Feeling Versus Defense Work

This research examined the efficacy of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy (ISTDP) in the treatment of social anxiety disorder (SAD) and compared the therapeutic outcomes of ISTDP when feeling focus or defense work is emphasized. A three-group randomized design with 6-month follow-up was used. Forty-one subjects were selected among volunteer college students diagnosed with SAD. They were assigned randomly into three groups; 14 cases to feeling-focused ISTDP (FF-ISTDP) group, 14 cases to defense-focused ISTDP (DF-ISTDP) group, and 13 cases to a control group. All subjects were evaluated at pretest, posttest, and six-month follow-up through clinical interviewing using DSM-5 criteria for SAD along with the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale. Each experimental group had a course of 8 to 10 sessions of ISTDP treatment. Analysis of variance showed that ISTDP is an effective treatment for SAD compared with a control group. No outcome differences were found between FF-ISTDP and DF-ISTDP in treating SAD.