Therapeutic group for young people with social phobia

Abstract

There are few qualitative studies that aimed to recognize the use of the group therapy in the treatment of social phobia. The purpose of this study was to understand the process of a group therapy for young adults diagnosed with SAD, attended in a university hospital. The focus of the analysis was the group beginning sessions, the participants' behaviors and interactions. The first session of the group was analyzed through a vertical axle, used to identify the contents of the participants' speeches, the subjects that they talked about in each session, the emotional context, and the participants' interactions. The horizontal axle analysis was used to identify the process of producing these subjects, the interactions at each moment, and the interactions that happened before and after the group. The Psychoanalysis theoretical approach was used in the analysis. The analysis showed: the need to behave exactly in the way that other people want them to, the demand for perfection, the enormous fear to make mistakes, the need to control their feelings, low self-esteem, depressive feelings, paranoid feelings, social contact avoidance, and intimate relationships avoidance. These aspects could be observed in the group in the following aspects: the difficulty of the participants to talk, in their need to fulfill the therapist needs, in their fear of punishment, in the long periods of silence and in the anxiety felt during these periods of silence.