Social Phobia and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (Specifics of Epilepsy Patients)

Overview

The paper deals with social phobia, its most frequent symptoms, and points to these problemswithin the framework of primary healthcare. It delimits its epidemiology and comorbidity withother psychiatric disorders, describes differential diagnostics and its etiopathogenesis with regardto the elucidation of the neurobiological mechanisms of social phobia with the aid of visualizationtechniques, and presents a review of risk factors. It deals with psychological theories on thedevelopment,appearance and maintenance of social phobia,on the one hand from the behavioralpoint of view and on the other from the point of view of contemporary cognitive theories, as wellas from the point of view of neuropsychology which stresses the significance of informationprocessing in the origin, development and maintenance of social phobia. Further on is outlinedthe cognitive-behavioral model of social phobia as well as methods of cognitive behavioraltherapy such as education, training of social and communicative abilities, exposure andcognitive restructuralization. The final part deals with the specifics of social phobia in neurologicalpatients, namely in those with epilepsy where cognitive conviction of the criticism andnegative evaluation of others appears secondarily in consequence of the somatic affection.

Key words:
social phobia - epilepsy - cognitive behavioral therapy - primary healthcare.