The effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy based on the presence of mind in the reduction of anxiety symptoms of patients suffering from social phobia

Social phobia as a harsh, irrational fear which is considered as the action of a person getting ridiculed or criticized by others in social situations has a significant impact on persons’ social life. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral therapy based on presence of mind on anxiety symptoms of patients suffering from social phobia. For this purpose, in a clinical trial 40 patients who suffered from social phobia and referred to Imam Hussein hospital were selected from available samples and were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups. Subjects were evaluated in terms of anxiety at the beginning, end and 4 weeks after the completion of the study. The experimental group underwent 8 sessions of cognitive-behavioral therapy based on the presence of mind. Analysis variance of the subject scores in social phobia and anxiety after the intervention and in a 4 week follow up indicated that there is a significant difference between anxiety symptoms in experiment group compared to the control group. The effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy based on the presence of mind in the reduction of anxiety symptoms of patients suffering from social phobia along with the stability results in the follow up, indicated that the present method is an effective and recyclable one.