Why is the Self Important in Understanding and Treating Social Phobia?

Abstract

Current cognitive models of social phobia all agree that the self plays a key maintaining role in the disorder. However, all of these models use a relatively limited conceptualisation of the self. The author proposes a tripartite approach in which theories of the self are grouped into three broad categories: content, structure, and process. Content refers to knowledge and information about the self, structure to the way that information is organised, and process to the ways in which individuals attend to and regulate the self. Structure has been largely neglected to date, and the author outlines ways in which the structural organisation of self-knowledge could contribute to social anxiety. High social anxiety is associated with low clarity about the self and with more uncertainty about self-judgments. Structure interacts with content, and in the final part of the article potential interactions among imagery, self-concept, and self-structure are discussed.

Keywords:

• social anxiety
• cognitive therapy
• imagery
• self.

Acknowledgments

Preparation of this article was supported by Wellcome Trust Grant WT079794MF to L.A. Stopa & C.R. Hirsch.