Reduce Negative Self-Representations and Improve Social Anxiety Disorder with Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“for dealing with social anxiety, it is much more useful to practice mindful focus during conversations and other situations around people in which we are uncomfortable.” – Larry Cohen
Being in a social situation can be stressful and anxiety producing. Most people can deal with the anxiety and can become quite comfortable. But many do not cope well and the anxiety is overwhelming, causing the individual to withdraw. Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is characterized by a persistent, intense, and chronic fear of being watched and judged by others and feeling embarrassed or humiliated by their actions. This fear may be so severe that it interferes with work, school, and other activities and may negatively affect the person’s ability to form relationships.
Anxiety disorders have generally been treated with drugs. But there are considerable side effects and these drugs are often abused. There are a number of psychological therapies for anxiety. But, about 45% of the patients treated do not respond to the therapy. So, there is a need to develop alternative treatments. Recently, it has been found that mindfulness training can be effective for anxiety disorders including Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). It is not known, however, how mindfulness training has its effects on SAD.
In today’s Research News article “The Effects of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction on Negative Self-Representations in Social Anxiety Disorder—A Randomized Wait-List Controlled Trial.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8149603/ ) He and colleagues recruited online patients with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and randomly assigned them to a wait-list control condition or to receive a 2.5 hour, once a week for 12-weeks program of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). MBSR involves discussion, meditation, body scan, and yoga. They were measured before and after training for social anxiety disorder. They also completed a reaction time task in which they responded as quickly as they could to the color of a negative emotional word that was either signaled as referring to themselves or to others. This was followed by a surprise memory test for the words.
They found that memory of the words was better for words signaled as referring to self. But after treatment the group that received Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).had poorer memory of self-related words and better memory of other-related words than the wait-list group. They also found that for the MBSR group the lower the difference between memory of self and other-related words the greater the decrease in Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD).
This is an interesting study that demonstrates that patients with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) after Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).have poorer memory of negative words associated with themselves and better memory of these same words when associated with other people. This suggests a hypothesis of how MBSR improves the symptoms of SAD. It suggests that MBSR desensitizes these patients to self-referring negative representations. In addition, the results demonstrate that the greater the effects on memory produced by MBSR the greater the improvement in SAD. This further suggests that MBSR reduces the patients negative feelings about themselves which in turn reduces the symptoms of SAD.
So, reduce negative self-representations and improve social anxiety disorder with Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).
“If you are suffering with the symptoms of social anxiety disorder (SAD), regular practice will eventually improve your self-concept and ability to handle negative emotions. You will also learn how to better respond to troubling thoughts and treat yourself with more compassion.” – Arlin Cuncic
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
He, L., Han, W., & Shi, Z. (2021). The Effects of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction on Negative Self-Representations in Social Anxiety Disorder—A Randomized Wait-List Controlled Trial. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12, 582333. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.582333
Abstract
This study examines the impact of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) vs. wait list (WL) on the self-reference effect involving negative adjectives in individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD). Eighty-five participants with SAD were randomly assigned to 12 weeks of MBSR or WL and completed an incidental SRE task that assessed treatment-related negative self-representations. Self-related negative adjectives were worse remembered in MBSR than in WL, and other-related negative adjectives were better remembered in MBSR than in WL. No differences emerged between the levels of self- and other-related processing for adjectives in MBSR. Moreover, the MBSR-related decreases in the difference in recognition memory performance between self and other conditions, that is, the treatment-related equilibrium, could predict the MBSR-related decreases in social anxiety symptoms. The selfless functioning and self-other control that can provide reasonable interpretations for these findings were discussed.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8149603/