The British Journal of Psychiatry 131: 610-615 (1977)
© 1977 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
The role of social anxiety in social interaction difficulties
R Hall and D Goldberg
Social anxiety was found to be the most common complaint in a sample of
psychiatric patients reporting social interaction difficulties. High social
anxiety was shown to be associated with impairments to social behaviour in
socially anxious psychiatric patients and non-psychiatric volunteers. A
comparison was made of systematic desensitization and a form of social
skills training in the treatment of social interaction difficulties
associated with high social anxiety. This indicated that while both
therapies were effective in the reduction of social anxiety, the training
programme was the more effective in reducing problem behaviour, but
desensitization appeared to lead to a wider generalization of improvement
as indicated by increases in social participation.