A Comparative Study Effectiveness of Metacognitive Therapy with Neurofeedback Training on Reducing Anxiety Symptoms in Female Students with Social Anxiety Disorder

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is the most common anxiety disorder that damages one's functionsand social relationships. Each one of the therapeutic approaches has focused on treating one aspect of the damaged substructures in this disorder and none was completely successful. So lately new treatments such as Metacognitive therapy (MCT) and Neurofeedback training are considered. The aim of this research was to compare MCT with Neurofeedback in reducing the symptoms of SAD. This research was a single subject study with volunteer sampling method. 7 students from Ferdowsi and Farhangian universities of Mashhad were peered and replaced randomly in three groups (control, MCT and Neurofeedback). Conner's Social Phobia Inventory and DSM-IV-TR structured interview were used. 8 session per week for MCT and 16 sessions 3 times per week for neurofeedback was performed. Conner's Inventory was answered 2 times within and at the end of the treatment and also in 45 days follow-up. Percent recovery was used for data analysis. MCT and neurofeedback had 88 and 49 percent recovery in milder SAD subjects at the end of the sessions and Percent recovery in the three more severe subjects in both treatments was in the range of 17 to 39 percent and recovery for all the subjects has continued in the follow up. MCT and Neurofeedback were both effective in reducing SAD comparing to control group but MCT was more effective in milder SAD and Neurofeedback was more effective in severe SAD than MCT.