Emotion Regulation During RCT of CBT vs. MBSR for Social Anxiety Disorder

Stanford University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Social Anxiety Disorder

Treatments: Behavioral: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction; Behavioral: Cognitive Behavioral Group Therapy

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT02036658

R01MH076074 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

CBT-MBSR 10521038

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of the study is to investigate the immediate and longer-term impact of Cognitive-Behavioral Group Therapy (CBGT) versus Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) for patients with Social Anxiety Disorder.

Full description

A. Aims

The overall goal of this research is to elucidate the neural bases of two specific forms of emotion regulation - cognitive regulation (CR) and attention regulation (AR). CR and AR are thought to be important mechanisms underlying therapeutic change associated with Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) for generalized Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). We seek to test whether changes in CR and AR underlie the therapeutic effects of CBT and MBSR, which have been shown in the clinical science literature to be effective treatments for SAD. We will examine CR and AR in healthy controls (HCs) and in participants with generalized SAD at baseline, as well as in participants with SAD after they have completed a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with three treatment arms: CBT, MBSR, or Waitlist (WL). This work will address 3 aims: Aim 1 will examine the efficacy of CR and AR in individuals with SAD versus HCs; Aim 2 will investigate the immediate and longer-term impact of CBT versus MBSR for SAD; and Aim 3 will examine treatment-related changes in CR and AR and test whether these changes mediate the effects of CBT versus MBSR. The broad, long-term objective of this research is to contribute to advances in clinical interventions targeting individuals suffering from SAD, as well as a wide range of other anxiety and mood disorders.

Enrollment: 108 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 21 to 55 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Clinically diagnosable social anxiety disorder (generalized subtype per DSM-IV-TR criteria)
• aged 21-55
• working fluency in English
• residence in the Bay Area.
• eligible for fMRI scans (right-handed, no metal in body, etc.)

Exclusion criteria

• left-handed
• Medication use in the last 3 months
• Pervasive developmental disability
• acute suicide potential
• inability to travel to the treatment site
• schizophrenia or other psychotic disorder
• history of bipolar disorder
• current primary Major Depression
• current substance dependence
• Comorbid diagnoses of Major Depressive or other mood or anxiety disorders are acceptable ONLY if clearly secondary to the diagnosis of social anxiety disorder.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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108 participants in 3 patient groups

Cognitive Behavioral Group Therapy

Active Comparator group

Description:

Cognitive behavioral group therapy (CBGT) will be delivered by two Ph.D. clinical psychologists trained by Dr. Richard Heimberg to implement his CBGT for SAD (Heimberg \& Becker, 2002). Groups of six individuals will meet for 12 sessions of 2.5 hours each. The participants will also use selected portions of the client workbook developed by (Hope, Heimberg, \& Turk, 2010) to supplement relevant portions of the protocol. The treatment will be comprised of four major components: (1) psychoeducation and orientation to CBGT; (2) cognitive restructuring skills; (3) graduated exposure to feared social situations, within session and as homework; and (4) relapse prevention and termination. Further details of the treatment are available elsewhere (Heimberg \& Becker, 2002).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Cognitive Behavioral Group Therapy

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

Active Comparator group

Description:

MBSR will follow the standard curriculum outline compiled in 1993 by Jon Kabat-Zinn except that the one-day meditation retreat will be converted to four additional weekly group sessions between the standard class 6 and 7 so that there will be 12 weekly 2.5 hour sessions. This will be done to match the CBGT protocol in duration and time. The MBSR intervention will be delivered by a University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness certified MBSR instructor with more than 30 years of teaching experience. To support the practice, each participant will be given A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook (Stahl \& Goldstein, 2010), which includes descriptions of mindfulness exercises together with pre-recorded audio files to support ongoing practice.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

Waitlist Control

No Intervention group

Description:

This will be a delayed treatment arm. Participants randomized to the waitlist control group will be re-randomized after completing the no treatment period of 12 weeks to CBGT or MBSR with equal probability.