Running Head: Does Prior Psychotherapy Experience Affect Therapy?
Does Prior Psychotherapy Experience Affect the Course of Cognitive-Behavioral Group Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder?
Introduction:
It is known, that certain psychotherapy patients have prior history of in- or outpatient treatment. These previous treatments can affect the attitude toward future treatments. This article is about a study that’s main purpose was to examine the patterns of past psychotherapy experience in its patients with social anxiety disorder. The focus is to analyze how the past experiences could have an affect the course of cognitive behavioral- group therapy. There are two key points in this analysis. The first key point was to look at whether the previous psychiatric treatment was successful. From that judgment, it is thought patients with unsuccessful previous treatment would have poorer outcomes than those that either had no previous treatment at all or those with successful previous treatment.
Method:
The subjects that were chosen for this study were already undergoing cognitive-behavioral group therapy. They were each diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. It is noted, all participants met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder- Fourth Edition’s criteria for social phobia and had Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale intake scores with the social phobia range (Delsignore, 2008, p 510). The age of the patients was on an average of thirty five years old deviating by eleven years. A small percentage of the patients had never received previous treatment. Of those who did have previous treatment, more than half assessed their treatment as helpful. While the lesser half, rated their previous treatment unsuccessful. Half of the patients sought this treatment on their own, while 37% were referred by an external therapist, and the rest were referred by a primary care physician of family member (511).
The treatment lasted over a 3-month period. It...