Improving Social Anxiety Treatment With Positive Mental Rehearsal

This study is testing whether a simple mental technique can make exposure therapy work better for social anxiety. Exposure therapy is already known to help people with social anxiety, but it doesn't work for everyone. Researchers want to see if adding a "positive mental rehearsal" exercise — where you mentally replay the good parts of your exposure experience — can help more people benefit from treatment.

While exposure therapy is the gold-standard treatment for anxiety disorders, only about half of people have a strong positive response. This trial aims to find ways to improve those success rates by focusing on positive emotions and rewarding aspects of the therapy experience, which may help the brain learn and remember better.