The effects of drug and psychodrama group therapy on alexithymia and sympathetic skin responses in social anxiety disorder

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the levels of emotion recognition, expression and discrimination, and sympathetic skin responses (SSR), the effects of drug and psychodramatic group therapy on social anxiety disorder (SAD). Method: The study included 32 patients with SAD and 16 healthy controls. Sixteen patients in the SAD group received only medication (SAD-I), 16 patients underwent additional psychodramatic group therapy (SAD-II). Participants were applied Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS), Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), Facial Emotion Identification and Discrimination tests (FID, FDSC); during the application FID, sympathetic skin responses were measured. Results: The scores of SAD-I and SAD-II groups were higher than the control group before the treatment. Although LSAS scores were decreased in SAD groups after treatment, it was still higher than the control group. There was no difference in TAS-20, FID and FDSC scores between the groups after the treatment. Patients with SAD compared to control group SSR rates were found higher before the treatment, more autonomous activity to negative stimuli, sensitivity to positive stimuli was less than control group, after the treatment; SSR rates were determined to be decreased significantly. While patients were finding a chance to experience different types of communication, providing awareness of the situations in which they experience anxiety and accompanying physical symptoms in group therapy, they showed more improvement in recognizing emotions compared to drug treatment. Discussion: While both drug and group therapy provide the ability to reduce anxiety symptoms, improve recognizing and differentiating emotions. Our results have shows that psychodramatic group therapy provides more benefits in recognizing others' feelings.