Reward Processing and Exposure Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder

Ki vehet részt

• Diagnosis of social anxiety disorder from the Structural Clinical Interview for DSM 5
• Elevated fear of public speaking, defined as a score of >= 66 (+1SD from the mean of population norms on a scale of 17-85) on the Public Speaking Anxiety Scale (PSAS; Bartholomay, E. M., \& Houlihan, D. D. (2016). Public Speaking Anxiety Scale: Preliminary psychometric data and scale validation. Personality and individual differences, 94, 211-215), which is a self-report scale measuring anxiety of public speaking
• Low reward processing, defined as a score of <56 (less than the population mean) on the Dimensional Anhedonia Rating Scale (DARS) (Rizvi, S. J., Quilty, L. C., Sproule, B. A., Cyriac, A., Bagby, R. M., \& Kennedy, S. H. (2015). Dimensional Anhedonia Rating Scale (DARS) [Database record]. APA PsycTests)
• Medication-free or stabilized on psychotropic medications for a minimum standard length of time (1 month for benzodiazepines and beta blockers, 3 months for SRIs/SNRIs and heterocyclics)
• Psychotherapy-free or stabilized on alternative psychotherapies other than cognitive or behavioral therapies that were not focused on their anxiety disorder for at least 6 months prior to study entry
• Age 18-60
• Fluent in English
• To conduct MRI version of fear conditioning task, must have no MRI contraindications

Ki nem vehet részt

• Lifetime history of suicide attempts
• History of bipolar disorder, psychosis, intellectual disability, or organic brain damage
• Substance use disorder within the last 6 months
• Major respiratory, cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, or muscular-skeletal diseases
• Recent suicidal ideation with intent or plan - defined as suicidal ideation with intent or plan in the past year
• Pregnant or planning to become pregnant for next 6 months