Reward Processing and Exposure Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder
Eligible age
18–60 yrs
Accepts
All genders
Locations
1 state
Healthy volunteers
No
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About this study
The investigators are conducting a clinical trial of therapy for public speaking anxiety. There are many eligibility criteria, but the main ones are that participants need to be socially anxious and have public speaking anxiety. In this clinical trial, all participants will do exposure therapy. Before doing exposure therapy in the study, though, participants will be randomized to do one of two treatments: i) a positive mood treatment, which is designed to increase how positive people feel, and ii) a relaxation treatment, which is designed to help people feel more relaxed. The investigators are doing this study to see whether doing the positive mood treatment or relaxation treatment first will affect how well exposure therapy works.
Sponsor: University of California, Los Angeles
You may qualify if…
- ✓ Diagnosis of social anxiety disorder from the Structural Clinical Interview for DSM 5.
- ✓ Elevated fear of public speaking, defined as a score of \>= 66 (+1SD from the mean of population norms on a scale of 17-85) on the Public Speaking Anxiety Scale (PSAS; Bartholomay, E. M., \& Houlihan, D. D. (2016). Public Speaking Anxiety Scale: Preliminary psychometric data and scale validation. Personality and individual differences, 94, 211-215), which is a self-report scale measuring anxiety of public speaking.
- ✓ Low reward processing, defined as a score of \<56 (less than the population mean) on the Dimensional Anhedonia Rating Scale (DARS) (Rizvi, S. J., Quilty, L. C., Sproule, B. A., Cyriac, A., Bagby, R. M., \& Kennedy, S. H. (2015). Dimensional Anhedonia Rating Scale (DARS) \[Database record\]. APA PsycTests).
- ✓ Medication-free or stabilized on psychotropic medications for a minimum standard length of time (1 month for benzodiazepines and beta blockers, 3 months for SRIs/SNRIs and heterocyclics).
- ✓ Psychotherapy-free or stabilized on alternative psychotherapies other than cognitive or behavioral therapies that were not focused on their anxiety disorder for at least 6 months prior to study entry.
- ✓ Age 18-60.
- ✓ Fluent in English.
- ✓ To conduct MRI version of fear conditioning task, must have no MRI contraindications.
You may not qualify if…
- ✕ Recent suicidal ideation with intent or plan - defined as suicidal ideation with intent or plan in the past year.
- ✕ Lifetime history of suicide attempts.
- ✕ History of bipolar disorder, psychosis, intellectual disability, or organic brain damage.
- ✕ Substance use disorder within the last 6 months.
- ✕ Major respiratory, cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, or muscular-skeletal diseases.
- ✕ Pregnant or planning to become pregnant for next 6 months.
Where it's recruiting
Los Angeles
Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · NCT06776991 · last updated 2026-04-02