A new Multidimensional Intervention for Social Anxiety: The MISA Program

This article presents a new treatment program for social anxiety, specifically for social anxiety disorder (social phobia) and avoidance personality disorder. Its name, Multidimensional Intervention for Social Anxiety (MISA), indicates that it revolves around the five dimensions that our research team found working on social anxiety with participants from 20 countries for more than 15 years, namely (1) interaction with strangers, (2) interaction with the opposite sex, (3) assertive expression of annoyance, disgust, or displeasure, (4) embarrassment or criticism, and (5) speaking in public/interaction with persons of authority. It incorporates both traditional techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy and strategies of third-generation therapies. The MISA program is applied in a group format through 15 treatment sessions of 2.5 hours each, plus one booster session, and pre/post-treatment and follow-up assessment sessions. We believe that it is currently the best treatment program available for social anxiety and in the coming months we will be able to substantiate this claim.