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Biomedical subjects

R G Heimberg

Publications and source records attributed to R G Heimberg.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2003

Evaluation of the clinical global impression scale among individuals with social anxiety disorder.

BACKGROUND: The clinical Global Impression Scale (CGI) is commonly used as a primary outcome measure in studies evaluating the efficacy of treatments for anxiety disorders. The current study evaluated the psychometric properties and predictors of clinicians' ratings on an adapted version of the CGI among individuals with social anxiety disorders. METHOD: An independent assessor administered the CGI Severity of Illness and Improvement ratings to 123 patients at baseline and the subset of treated patients again mid- and post-treatment. RESULTS: Improvement ratings were strongly related to both concurrent Severity of Illness and changes in Severity of Illness ratings from baseline. Additionally, both CGI ratings were positively correlated with both self-report and clinician-administered measures of social anxiety, depression, impairment and quality of life. Measures of social anxiety symptoms accounted for a large portion of the variance in Severity of Illness ratings, with significant additional variance accounted for by measures of impairment and depression. Changes in social anxiety symptoms from baseline accounted for significant variance in Improvement ratings, but no significant additional variance was accounted for by changes in impairment and depressive symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings support the utility of the CGI as an index of global severity and symptom-specific improvement among individuals with social anxiety disorder.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Non-pharmacologic treatments for social anxiety disorder.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this paper is to present a review of research on the efficacy of psychotherapeutic interventions for children, adolescents and adults with social anxiety disorder. Data are presented on the relative efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapies (CBTs), pharmacotherapy and combination treatments. We also discuss research on specific clinical conditions that are likely to influence treatment success. METHOD: Relevant studies were identified through literature searches, reference lists and research databases. RESULTS: Non-pharmacologic treatments for social anxiety disorder, particularly CBTs, have gained substantial empirical support over the last two decades. However, questions remain about how to maximize the benefit of available treatments. CONCLUSION: New directions for future research in this area are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

The psychometric properties of the Interpersonal Sensitivity Measure in social anxiety disorder.

The Interpersonal Sensitivity Measure (IPSM) was developed to assess hypersensitivity to interpersonal rejection, a suggested trait of depression-prone personality (Aust NZ J Psychiatry 23 (1989) 341). Although studies of the IPSM and interpersonal rejection sensitivity have primarily been conducted in depressed populations, it is important to investigate interpersonal rejection sensitivity as a relevant construct in the assessment of social anxiety. This study examined the psychometric properties of the IPSM in treatment-seeking individuals with social anxiety disorder. The results of this investigation support the convergent and divergent validity and internal consistency of the IPSM in socially anxious individuals. An exploratory factor analysis of the scale was also conducted after the original factor and subscale structure was shown to be a poor fit for the present data. Three factors emerged (Interpersonal Worry and Dependency, Low Self-Esteem, and Unassertive Interpersonal Behavior), and 29 items were retained. Because they demonstrated negative factor loadings on Factor 2, it is suggested that the scoring for four items of the original IPSM be reversed. In summary, the revised IPSM assesses three aspects of interpersonal rejection sensitivity and appears to be a valid and reliable instrument for its assessment in social anxiety disorder.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Psychometric evaluation of the Beck Depression Inventory in adults with social anxiety disorder.

Although the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) is commonly used to assess levels of depressive symptoms in socially anxious adults, its psychometric properties in this context have never been formally examined. Therefore, we examined the psychometrics of the BDI in a sample of adults with a principal diagnosis of social anxiety disorder (N = 113). The BDI exhibited good internal consistency and re-test reliability. It also correlated significantly more strongly with other measures of depression than with measures of either social or non-social anxiety. Thus, the BDI appears to be a valid tool for the assessment of depressive symptoms in adults with social anxiety disorder.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Presenting problems among treatment-seeking gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth.

Gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth are at risk for a variety of clinical problems amenable to psychotherapeutic intervention. However, many psychotherapists may be unaware of the difficulties faced by this population. The purpose of this article is to familiarize therapists with presenting complaints common to psychotherapy-seeking gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth. Some of these problems include homophobia among family, peers, and authority figures (often expressed at school or at work), depression, suicidality, social anxiety, and body image disturbance. We illustrate these important issues via four case examples.

Adjustment Disorders↗
PubMed2001

Effects of varying levels of anxiety within social situations: relationship to memory perspective and attributions in social phobia.

Cognitive-behavioral theorists (Clark & Wells, 1995: Clark, D. M. & Wells, A. (1995). A cognitive model of social phobia. In R. G. Heimberg, M. R. Liebowitz, D. A. Hope, & F. R. Schneier (Eds.), Social phobia: Diagnosis, assessment, and treatment (pp. 69-93). New York: Guilford Press; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997: Rapee, R. M., & Heimberg, R. G. (1997). A cognitive-behavioral model of anxiety in social phobia. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 35, 741-756.) propose that individuals with social phobia form mental images of themselves as if from an external point of view. Research by Wells and colleagues has shown that, when recalling anxiety-provoking social situations, individuals with social phobia are more likely to take an observer perspective (seeing oneself as if from an external point of view) whereas control subjects are more likely to take a field perspective (as if looking out through one's own eyes). Furthermore, this pattern is specific to social events, as both groups recall non-social events from a field perspective (see Wells, Clark & Ahmad, 1998: Wells, A., Clark, D. M., & Ahmad, S. (1998). How do I look with my minds eye: perspective taking in social phobic imagery. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 36, 631-634; Wells & Papageorigou, 1999: Wells, A. & Papageorgiou, C. (1999). The observer perspective: Biased imagery in social phobia, agoraphobia, and blood/injury phobia. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 37, 653-658). In the current study, individuals with social phobia took more of an observer perspective than non-anxious controls when recalling high anxiety social situations. However, both groups took a predominantly field perspective for memories of medium or low anxiety social situations. As memory perspective has also been shown to be related to causal attributions, we examined this relationship in our sample. Memories of low, medium, and high anxiety social situations were differentially related to attributions for each group. Patients' attributions for their performance became more internal, stable, and global as the anxiety level of the situation increased, while the attributions of control subjects showed the opposite pattern.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Distinguishing obsessive features and worries: the role of thought-action fusion.

Obsessions are a key feature of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and chronic worry is the cardinal feature of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). However, these two cognitive processes are conceptually very similar, and there is a need to determine how they differ. Recent studies have attempted to identify cognitive processes that may be differentially related to obsessive features and worry. In the current study we proposed that (1) obsessive features and worry could be differentiated and that (2) a measure of the cognitive process thought-action fusion would distinguish between obsessive features and worry, being strongly related to obsessive features after controlling for the effects of worry. These hypotheses were supported in a sample of 173 undergraduate students. Thought-action fusion may be a valuable construct in differentiating between obsessive features and worry.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Cognitive-behavioral models of social anxiety disorder.

In 1985, Liebowitz et al labeled SAD the "neglected anxiety disorder." Clearly, times have changed. Although it took 10 years after this pronouncement for the first cognitive-behavioral model of SAD to be introduced, a great deal of research has been carried out and a great deal has been learned since then. The core features of these models seem to hold a great deal of validity. Perhaps the greatest "learning curve" has been seen in work done on the processing of the self as social object, a component of both cognitive-behavioral models of SAD. A great deal of empiric evidence now suggests that people with SAD see themselves as they believe they are seen by others. Unfortunately, their perception of how they are seen by others is often grossly distorted, likely contributing to the distress they feel about social situations and their concomitant avoidance of them. Recent work by Hirsch and Mathews has gone so far as to suggest that people with the disorder may not attend at all to social information while social events are ongoing but rather may judge them later based on preexisting notions about themselves as social beings. In Rapee and Heimberg's model, preferential allocation of attentional resources is emphasized, and this has been another great area of progress over the past few years. While people with SAD may be hypervigilant to social threat in their environments, once they find it, they tend to divert their attention away from it--as has been most clearly demonstrated in the studies of processing of facial expressions. The data suggest that both angry and happy faces may be perceived as threatening and attention is diverted as a means of avoiding them--again having important implications for social behavior and for maintenance of the disorder over time. Important strides have also been made in understanding judgment biases in SAD. Studies on this issue have suggested that individuals with the disorder see positive social outcomes as unlikely and see negative social outcomes as highly likely. When presented with ambiguous scenarios, people with SAD are more likely to select negative interpretations for them, even when they are given the option of selecting positive interpretations and neutral interpretations that they could find at least somewhat believable. Furthermore, people with SAD see both negative social outcomes and positive social outcomes as coming at a higher emotional cost than do people without the disorder. Hirsch and Mathews suggest that the core of social anxiety may be a failure to (over-)emphasize the positive. However, people with the disorder may not adequately distinguish between positive and negative cues, seeing them as equal in valence. Gilboa-Schechtman et al and Wallace and Alden, using very different approaches, have also suggested that both positive and negative outcomes in social situations come at a great emotional cost for people with SAD. Studies of facial expressions suggest that positive and negative faces are perceived as threatening, leading people with SAD to divert attention away from both. Finally, the studies on the observer perspective suggest, also in line with the research of Hirsch and Mathews, that people with SAD do not pay sufficient attention to what is going on around them in social situations. In effect, they are looking at the wrong thing (or through the wrong eyes) and missing important social cues, both positive and negative. Perhaps, as suggested by Hirsh and Mathews, people with the disorder come away from social situations with very little information at all (this notion is supported by older studies that asked socially anxious people what they remembered from social situations after they had participated in them), forcing them to draw conclusions about their performance based on blanket assumptions about themselves as social beings rather than about what actually occurred during that single event. These conclusions have very important implications for treatment. First, it is clear that clinicians need to help their patients learn to pay attention in social situations and, furthermore, to attend to the "right" things. Studies that have included that manipulations of attention suggest that this is a positive direction to pursue. Furthermore, clinicians have to help their patients to make judgments based on what really occurred in a single situation, rather than drawing blanket conclusions for all situations based on preconceived notions of the self as social being. Again, some very preliminary evidence suggests that this approach (through the use of video feedback and other techniques) could be of great benefit.

Anxiety Disorders↗
PubMed2001

The Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale: a comparison of the psychometric properties of self-report and clinician-administered formats.

BACKGROUND: The clinician-administered version of the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS-CA) is a commonly used assessment device for the evaluation of social anxiety disorder and has been shown to have strong psychometric characteristics. Because of its apparently straightforward rating format and potential savings in time and effort, interest in the use of the LSAS as a self-report (LSAS-SR) measure has increased, and the LSAS-SR has been used in a number of studies. However, the psychometric properties of the LSAS-SR have not been well established. METHODS: This study examined the psychometric properties of the LSAS-SR in comparison to the LSAS-CA in a sample of 99 individuals with a primary diagnosis of social anxiety disorder and 53 individuals with no current psychiatric disorder. RESULTS: There was little difference between the two versions of the LSAS on any scale or subscale score. Both forms were internally consistent and the subscale intercorrelations for the two forms were essentially identical. Correlations of each LSAS-SR index with its LSAS-CA counterpart were all highly significant. Finally, the convergent and discriminant validity of the two forms of the LSAS was shown to be strong. CONCLUSION: Results of this study suggest that the self-report version of the LSAS compares well to the clinician-administered version and may be validly employed in the assessment of social anxiety disorder.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Effects of writing about rape: evaluating Pennebaker's paradigm with a severe trauma.

We examined the effect of disclosing to others an attempted or completed rape. Eighty-five undergraduate women who acknowledged attempted or completed rape wrote about their experience and read their narratives. In a 2 x 2 design, we examined the value of writing only factual information versus factual plus emotional information, and reading to oneself versus reading aloud to another woman. Before and 1-month after the task, symptoms of dysphoria, social anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder were assessed. Greater detail and a moderate level of personalization in the description of the trauma were associated with decreased symptoms of dysphoria and social anxiety. Neither the nature of the writing task nor the presence of another woman predicted degree of symptom reduction.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Attachment in individuals with social anxiety disorder: the relationship among adult attachment styles, social anxiety, and depression.

Despite their apparent implications for social functioning, adult attachment styles have never been specifically explored among persons with social anxiety disorder. In the current study, a cluster analysis of the Revised Adult Attachment Scale (N. L. Collins, 1996) revealed that 118 patients with social anxiety were best represented by anxious and secure attachment style clusters. Members of the anxious attachment cluster exhibited more severe social anxiety and avoidance, greater depression, greater impairment, and lower life satisfaction than members of the secure attachment cluster. This pattern was replicated in a separate sample of 56 patients and compared with the pattern found in 36 control participants. Social anxiety mediated the association between attachment insecurity and depression. Findings are discussed in the context of their relevance to the etiology, maintenance, and cognitive-behavioral treatment of social anxiety disorder.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Screening for anxiety and depression in early adolescence.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the level of diagnostic and discriminative accuracy of three dimensional rating scales for detecting anxiety and depressive disorders in a school-based survey of 9th grade youths. METHOD: Classroom screening instruments, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS), and the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC) were administered to 632 youths from three sites in 1998. On the basis of rating scale results, samples of high-scoring and non-high-scoring youths were invited to participate in a diagnostic interview conducted within 2 months of the screening sessions. RESULTS: MASC scores were most strongly associated with individual anxiety disorders, particularly among females, whereas the CES-D composite score was associated with a diagnosis of major depression, after controlling for comorbid disorders. The RCMAS was least successful in discriminating anxiety and depression. When receiver operator characteristic curves were examined, diagnostic accuracy was moderate. CONCLUSIONS: The ability of the MASC and CES-D to discriminate within and between categorically defined diagnostic groups has important implications for the accurate identification of youths in need of services.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Current status of psychotherapeutic interventions for social phobia.

Psychotherapeutic interventions, especially the cognitive-behavioral psychotherapies, have been well studied as treatments for social phobia. The purposes of this article are to (1) enumerate and describe the varieties of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) that have been applied to the treatment of social phobia, (2) provide a meta-analytic overview of the efficacy of these approaches, (3) examine the relative utility of CBT versus that of pharmacotherapy for social phobia, (4) examine the potential utility of multidisciplinary approaches to treatment, and (5) discuss possible future directions in the development of psychotherapeutic strategies for the treatment of social phobia, including the use of computers as adjunctive tools.

Clinical Trials as Topic↗
PubMed2000

Anxiety sensitivity in social phobia: comparison between social phobics with and without panic attacks.

The current study examines levels of anxiety sensitivity among social phobic patients with and without panic attacks. Two-hundred fourteen individuals with a primary diagnosis of social phobia completed the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI) prior to treatment. Social phobics who experienced panic attacks reported higher levels of anxiety sensitivity than those without panic attacks. Patterning of response to ASI items differed between panicking and non-panicking patients, with the panicking patients reporting greater fear of catastrophic consequences of bodily sensations. Individuals with an additional diagnosis of panic disorder did not differ from those with exclusively situational panic attacks. The findings suggest the importance of examining differences between anxiety-disordered individuals who experience panic attacks and their non-panicking counterparts.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Patterns of anxious arousal during exposure to feared situations in individuals with social phobia.

Behavioral assessment tests (BATs) are commonly used in studies of social phobia (SP). While previous studies have examined subjective anxiety during BATs, they have usually reported only mean or peak ratings. The current study examined whether there are different patterns of anxious arousal in anticipation of, and during exposure to, feared situations among individuals seeking treatment for SP (N = 153). A four cluster solution was judged to best describe the data, and the four clusters were labeled 'high anxiety,' 'increasing/high anxiety', 'moderate anxiety' and 'mild anxiety'. Before treatment, the cluster groups did not differ on person characteristics, subtype of social phobia, or levels of depressive symptoms. However, they did differ in terms of the severity of social phobia symptoms and the emotional valence of thoughts reported at the conclusion of the BAT. While members of all clusters benefited from cognitive-behavioral group therapy for social phobia, the clusters showed some differential response in amount of symptom reduction and likelihood of continuing to meet diagnostic criteria following treatment. The different emotional experiences of clients in the various clusters are explored and implications for cognitive-behavioral therapy are proposed. Finally, limitations of this study and future directions are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

The impact of comorbid mood and personality disorders in the cognitive-behavioral treatment of panic disorder.

The present review examined the effect of comorbid major depressive disorder and personality disorder on the outcome of cognitive-behavioral interventions for panic disorder. Panic disorder patients often present with these comorbid conditions, but for the most part, treatment studies have paid little attention to them. Most studies on the effects of comorbidity on treatment outcome address pharmacological treatment. However, there is a growing literature on the effect of additional disorders on the outcome of cognitive-behavioral interventions for panic disorder. Findings from the studies of comorbidity with depression are equivocal, possibly reflecting inconsistencies in measurement methodology across studies. However, personality psychopathology was found to exert a detrimental effect on the outcome of cognitive-behavioral treatment for panic disorder. Further research is necessary to elucidate the impact of these concurrent conditions on cognitive-behavioral treatment for panic disorder. It is suggested that studies utilizing cognitive-behavioral treatment routinely examine the influence of comorbid conditions on treatment outcome.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy↗