SRP
MBSR resulted in decreased negative and increased positive self-views on the SRP task. This suggests
that training in the mindfulness meditation skills may influence habitual distorted social
self-views that are deeply entrenched in SAD. MBSR emphasizes cultivating an equanimous perspective
toward mental and visceral experience. This perspective is described as a nonevaluative
moment-to-moment awareness and a nonjudgmental metacognitive orientation.
Being able to shift from evaluative to nonevaluative awareness is a psychological skill that
may be related to reductions in negative self-focused rumination. Decreased self-focused attention
may account for the adaptive shift in social self-view in patients with SAD during MBSR.
Changes in negative self-focused attention have been shown to vary as a function of social anxiety
symptom reduction during from pre- to postexposure therapy (Hofmann, 2000). This pattern
of results indicates that a modulation of both cognitive content (i.e., self-focused thoughts) and
cognitive processes (i.e., attention and interpretative biases) may be core mechanisms underlying
the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions for SAD.