Content Analysis of Social Phobics’ Discourse in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

The present study utilized an empirically derived coding system to identify content categories in the spontaneous verbalizations of social phobics in the context of a short-term cognitive-behavioral group therapy. The coding system was applied successfully to segments of transcriptions of eleven group sessions. Evaluation of changes in the content categories utilized by two subjects over the course of the life of the group indicates the usefulness of this coding system in identifying meaningful shifts in cognitive processes during treatment.