Randomized controlled trial of acceptance and commitment therapy versus traditional cognitive behavior therapy for social anxiety disorder: Symptomatic and behavioral outcomes

Effect of Group Cognitive-Behavioral Techniques Training on Social Anxiety in Nursing Students

“…These findings are consistent with those of Seeger et al and Huppert et al in terms of the effectiveness of group cognitive-behavioral training on the reduction of social anxiety among the students [16,25]. Herbert et al documented the effect of group cognitive-behavioral training on social anxiety [28]; the subjects were also able to maintain the treatment outcomes for a month. Suveg et al [30] found that cognitive-behavioral training is effective in reducing communication fear and improving the quality and quantity of communication in people with social anxiety.…”

“…Researches have argued that 85% of people with social anxiety have experienced decreased academic performance [26]. This disorder is highly pervasive and disabling [27,28]. Research studies indicated the proficient effect of cognitive-behavioral therapies on social anxiety disorder [29,30].…”

Piloting a New Model for Treating Music Performance Anxiety: Training a Singing Teacher to Use Acceptance and Commitment Coaching With a Student

“…By training music teachers in an evidence-based coaching model like ACC to use with students with MPA, the gap between the laboratory and real-world settings may be narrowed, and best-practice guidelines combining results from both efficacy and effectiveness research may be developed with help from music teachers. As a psychotherapy, ACT has already shown efficacy in treating social anxiety disorder (Kocovski et al, 2013;Craske et al, 2014;Herbert et al, 2018), and MPA would be considered a version of that disorder, according to diagnostic criteria in the DSM-V (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Therefore, future research investigating the efficacy of ACT solely as a psychotherapy for MPA may not be needed.…”

“…For this reason, ACT is part of the newer, "mindfulness and acceptance" wave of behavioral therapies made popular over the past 20 years. As a psychotherapy, ACT is an efficacious treatment for a variety of clinical disorders, including social anxiety (Kocovski et al, 2013;Craske et al, 2014;Herbert et al, 2018), depression (Tamannaeifar et al, 2014;A-Tjak et al, 2018;Pleger et al, 2018), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (Ghasemi et al, 2017;Rohani et al, 2018;Twohig et al, 2018), chronic pain (Thorsell et al, 2011;Wetherell et al, 2011;McCracken et al, 2013), substance use disorders (Luoma et al, 2012;Lanza et al, 2014;Azkhosh et al, 2016), and others. It is also efficacious when used in non-clinical settings, to help enhance athletic performance (Lutkenhouse et al, unpublished;Gross et al, 2016;Josefsson et al, 2019), to improve workplace performance (Bond and Bunce, 2003;Bond and Flaxman, 2006;Bond et al, 2016), to lessen procrastination in college students (Scent and Boes, 2014;Gagnon et al, 2016;Wang et al, 2017), to serve as a smoking cessation treatment (Hernandez-Lopez et al, 2009;Bricker et al, 2017;O'Connor et al, 2020), and others.…”

“…Improving psychological flexibility requires training in persisting with behavior of personal value to someone, even if doing so includes the presence of unwanted discomfort. The flexibility that comes from tolerating unwanted internal experiences while simultaneously engaging in valued actions (and making a commitment to regularly behave this way) correlates with a host of desired outcomes in both clinical and non-clinical settings, like increased well-being (Wersebe et al, 2018), improved ability to interact in social settings (Herbert et al, 2018), improved public speaking ability (Glassman et al, 2016), improved quality of life for depressed patients (A-Tjak et al, 2018), decreased pain interference in daily life (Wetherell et al, 2011), reduced drug use (Lanza et al, 2014), and the performance outcomes already mentioned for athletes and workers (Bond and Bunce, 2003;Bond and Flaxman, 2006;Lutkenhouse et al, unpublished;Bond et al, 2016;Gross et al, 2016;Josefsson et al, 2019). Newer ACT for MPA psychotherapy research also shows that similar, performance enhancement outcomes have occurred with musicians; for example, an undergraduate violinist earned higher performance ratings by a juror after 10 sessions of ACT (Juncos and Markman, 2015), and seven vocal students showed a statistically significant improvement in their performance ratings from two classically trained jurors, after 12 sessions of ACT (Juncos et al, 2017).…”