a b s t r a c tIncreasing evidence indicates that eye gaze direction affects the processing of emotional faces in anxious individuals. However, the effects of eye gaze direction on the behavioral responses elicited by emotional faces, such as avoidance behavior, remain largely unexplored. We administered an Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) in high (HSA) and low socially anxious (LSA) individuals. All participants responded to photographs of angry, happy and neutral faces (presented with direct and averted gaze), by either pushing a joystick away from them (avoidance) or pulling it towards them (approach). Compared to LSA, HSA were faster in avoiding than approaching angry faces. Most crucially, this avoidance tendency was only present when the perceived anger was directed towards the subject (direct gaze) and not when the gaze of the face-stimulus was averted. In contrast, HSA individuals tended to avoid happy faces irrespectively of gaze direction. Neutral faces elicited no approach-avoidance tendencies. Thus avoidance of angry faces in social anxiety as measured by AA-tasks reflects avoidance of subject-directed anger and not of negative stimuli in general. In addition, although both anger and joy are considered to reflect approach-related emotions, gaze direction did not affect HSA's avoidance of happy faces, suggesting differential mechanisms affecting responses to happy and angry faces in social anxiety.

During early abstention from alcohol, reduced stress-responsivity of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical axis seems to be connected to early relapse.

The goals of this study were to describe demographic variables, drinking history, and the 6-month prevalence of Axis I comorbidity among alcohol-dependent subjects in GERMANY: The variables: amount of alcohol consumption, age at onset of the first alcohol consumed, age at onset of daily alcohol consumption, age at onset of withdrawal symptoms and number of detoxifications were related to the different comorbid disorders and gender. In this study, 556 patients from 25 alcohol treatment centres were enrolled between 1 January 1999 and 30 April 1999. After a minimum of 10 days of sobriety patients who fulfilled ICD-10 and DSM-IV criteria of alcohol dependence were interviewed for data collection using the Mini-DIPS (German version of the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule) and a standardized psychosocial interview. The 6-month prevalence of comorbid Axis I disorders was 53.1%. Among the patients with comorbidity, affective and anxiety disorders were most frequent. Comorbid stress disorder was associated with an early start of drinking, an early beginning of withdrawal symptoms, highest number of detoxifications, and the highest amount of alcohol consumed. Female patients with anxiety disorder consumed more alcohol and started earlier than females without this comorbid disorder. The data do not answer the question of the pathogenesis of comorbid disorders and alcoholism, but indicate that stress disorders in alcoholic patients and anxiety disorders in female alcoholics influence the course and severity of alcoholism.

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