Investigating the efficacy of a brief psychotherapeutic intervention in reducing post-event rumination in individuals with Social Anxiety Disorder.

All participants (in both the intervention and control conditions) will be asked to complete a 3 minute impromptu speech task. This involves speaking for 3 minutes about a topic of their choice. The speech is video recorded. Following this, those in the intervention condition receive a brief Metacognitive Therapy (MCT) intervention, which involves eliciting participants’ beliefs about post-event rumination, and challenging and reappraising any unhelpful beliefs that serve to maintain post-event rumination. a) Materials: A video camera will be used to record the speech task and the intervention. The psychotherapeutic intervention will be delivered verbally, with no physical or other informational materials used. b) Procedures: All participants complete the aforementioned speech task. Then, for those in the intervention condition, the experimenter will ask the participant about their beliefs surrounding post-event rumination (specifically, do they believe it is helpful or unhelpful to engage in post-event rumination, and in what way/s). The participant will provide their response verbally. Using psychotherapeutic principles such as Socratic questioning, the researcher will challenge and reappraise any beliefs that serve to maintain post-event rumination, and provide psycho-education regarding the unhelpfulness and controllability of post-event rumination. The participant will then be instructed to attempt to refrain from engaging in post-event rumination in relation to the speech task over the coming days. c) Who: The intervention will be delivered by a doctoral level research student (Hayley Donohue) who is also a registered provisional psychologist and has undertaken postgraduate training in clinical psychology. She will be supervised by the chief investigator of the study who is a clinical psychologist and board-approved clinical supervisor. d) Mode of delivery: Face-to-face, one-on-one format. e) Dose: The intervention is a brief (20 minute), single-session intervention that is delivered once only, immediately following the speech task. f) Location: The intervention will take place in a consultation room at the University of Sydney Psychology Clinic, Level 2, 94 Mallett St, Camperdown NSW 2050. g) The intervention delivered by the researcher will be video recorded for fidelity purposes. The video will be rated for fidelity by an independent researcher within the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney.