A cognitive-behavior therapy  applied to a social anxiety  disorder and a specific phobia,  case study

George D. Tsitsas; Antonia A. Paschali

doi:10.4081/​hpr.2014.1603

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A cognitive-behavior therapy applied to a social anxiety disorder and a specific phobia, case study

George D. Tsitsas¹, Antonia A. Paschali^1*

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¹ Counseling Center, Harokopio University; Faculty of Nursing, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

HPR 2014 , 2(3), 1; https://doi.org/10.4081/hpr.2014.1603

Submitted: 22 April 2014 | Revised: 1 July 2014 | Accepted: 4 July 2014 | Published: 6 November 2014

© 2014 by the Author(s). Licensee Health Psychology Research, USA. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )

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Abstract

George, a 23-year-old Greek student, was referred by a psychiatrist for treatment to a University Counseling Centre in Athens. He was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and specific phobia situational type. He was complaining of panic attacks and severe symp toms of anxiety. These symptoms were trig gered when in certain social situations and also when travelling by plane, driving a car and visiting tall buildings or high places. His symp toms lead him to avoid finding himself in such situations, to the point that it had affected his daily life. George was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and with specific phobia, sit uational type (in this case acrophobia) and was given 20 individual sessions of cognitive behavior therapy. Following therapy, and fol low-up occurring one month post treatment, George no longer met the criteria for social phobia and symptoms leading to acrophobia were reduced. He demonstrated improvements in many areas including driving a car in and out of Athens and visiting tall buildings.

Keywords

social phobia

specific phobia situa tional type

high places

cognitive behavior thera py

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare no potential conflict of interests.

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