Effect of group cognitive behavioral therapy based on Hofmann model on anxiety symptoms and brain behavioral systems in adults suffering from social anxiety disorder

Introduction: social anxiety disorder (sad) as a negative emotion can be associated with specific patterns of brainbehavioral system functions. the purpose of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of hofmann-based cbt(cognitive behavioral therapy) in reducing anxiety symptoms and improving brain behavioral system functions inpatients suffering from social anxiety disorder.materials and methods: this research is a semi-experimental study with a pretest/posttest plan. 20 sad patients wererandomly selected and divided equally into two groups (experimental and control). the experimental group underwent 12sessions of hofmann-based cbt, whereas the control group was placed in the waiting list. anxiety disorder interviewschedule for dsm-iv (adis-iv), social phobia questionnaire, and gary-wilson’s personality questionnaire were usedfor evaluating results at pretests and posttests. data were analyzed with descriptive indices and multivariate analysis ofcovariance (mancova) by spss software.results: the experimental group showed significant improvement in total scores of social phobia, including fear(p<0.001), avoidance (p<0.001), and physiological discomfort (p<0.001)also, brain behavioral systems (including behavioral activation, behavioral inhibition, and fight/flight) showedsignificant improvement (p<0.001) in behavioral inhibition in the experimental group.conclusion: cognitive behavioral therapy based on hofmann model is effective in patients suffering from social anxietydisorder, especially in improving anxiety symptoms and behavioral inhibition functions