Abstract :
This article is an invited commentary on Moscovitch’s (2009) paper “What Is the Core Fear in Social Phobia? A New Model to Facilitate Individualized Case Conceptualization and Treatment.” The crux of Moscovitch’s argument is that current models of social phobia fail to conceptualize the nature of social fears correctly. Moscovitch proposes that the self is the phobic stimulus and should be the target of exposure treatment, rather than social situations. This commentary evaluates Moscovitch’s claim and agrees that distorted views of self are at the heart of the disorder, but contests the idea that the self can be conceptualized as a phobic stimulus. Instead, we need to recognize that all individuals have multiple self-representations and that access to a current working self depends on a set of retrieval mechanisms that involve both the contents of self-knowledge and the way that this information is stored. The application of these ideas to social phobia is discussed. In the final section of the commentary, I discuss Moscovitch’s contributions to treatment derived from his new model and outline some additional methods of working with the self, including imagery rescripting.
