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Cognitive-behavioral group therapy (CBGT) can effectively treat social anxiety disorder (SAD), but symptoms often persist. Whereas CBGT explicitly teaches patients to change their distorted cognitions and avoidant behavior through practice, attention bias modification (ABM) training implicitly trains patients to divert attention from threats. Because the two therapies target different mechanisms, combining them makes theoretical sense. In this study, 50 participants with SAD received 18 weeks of manual-based CBGT and were randomized to receive eight 15-minute computer-based ABM or control trainings, occurring immediately after the CBGT sessions.
Both ABM and control treatments required participants to respond to a series of probes appearing …