Attention Training Experiment helps clients shift their focus from internal to external stimuli, reducing self-consciousness and anxiety during social interactions.
Offers theory, guidance, and prompts for mental health professionals. Downloads are in Fillable PDF format where appropriate.
Includes client-friendly guidance. Downloads are in Fillable PDF format where appropriate.
An editable Microsoft PowerPoint version of the resource.
Self-focused attention can make people less likely to see their social performance in a positive light, and contributes to the maintenance of social anxiety. The Attention Training Experiment is an exercise designed to help your clients learn to direct their attention outwards, so that they are more able to benefit from social experiments, and able to feel less anxious in social situations.
Attention training is a key intervention in cognitive therapy for social anxiety disorder (CT-SAD; Clark et al., 2003; Clark & Wells, 1995) and is introduced during the earlier stages of treatment (Warnock-Parkes et al., 2020).
Problematic self-focused attention during social interactions.
Intense self-scrutiny during public speaking.
Begin with a brief explanation of self-focused attention and its effects.
Conduct the experiment in a quiet, distraction-free environment.
Guide the client through tasks focusing on sounds, sights, music, shades, and speech.
Reflect on the client's experience during and after each task.
Encourage the client to practice externalizing their attention in social and non-social scenarios.
Assess changes in anxiety and self-focus over time.
According to the Clark and Wells (1995) cognitive model of social anxiety, self-focused attention is a key maintenance process in this disorder. Social situations cause socially anxious individuals to direct their attention inwards to manage how they present themselves (such as by closely monitoring and observing their performance during interactions). Unfortunately, this has many deleterious consequences.
Cognitive therapy for social anxiety disorder (CT-SAD) is based on the Clark and Wells (1995) model and has proved effective (e.g., Clark et al., 2003). Attention training is a key intervention in CT-SAD and is introduced during the earlier stages of treatment (Warnock-Parkes et al., 2020). Attention training takes place during one meeting and is the focus of the session. Training aims to help clients focus their attention externally so that they can gather more accurate information during subsequent behavioral experiments (e.g., noticing how others respond to them during social interactions). In addition to reducing problematic self-monitoring, attention training can also reduce anxiety and make social interactions feel less threatening (OxCADAT, 2022).
