ABSTRACT
With a conceptual model and elements described in previous chapters, this chapter provides a session-by-session accounting of treatment. A standard course of treatment is targeted weekly for 12 to 16 sessions. The treatment can be delivered in either 1-hour individual sessions or 2.5-hour group sessions (with two therapists and four to six individuals per group). Group treatment has a number of advantages over individual therapy, but it also presents a number of unique challenges. Advantages include a ready-made social group for exposure practices. The group provides an audience, a forum for feedback, and an opportunity for supportive discussions. Yet, although the group provides ample opportunities to learn from others (and understand the global nature of negative thoughts and self-defeating social expectations and interpretive biases), it also diffuses the intensity of focus from what can be provided in individual therapy. As is explicated later, individual therapy also requires the use of other confederates (others who can provide a social exposure audience) or the sort of public exposures (e.g., buying then returning a CD) that do not require confederates but do require a trip from the therapist’s ofce. In this chapter, we provide a primary focus on providing treatment in the context of a group, but the treatment protocol can also be delivered as an individual treatment with relatively minor modications.
