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Compare the effects of self-focused attention vs external focus during social situations to test whether self-focus makes anxiety worse.
This experiment tests a key prediction: when you focus on yourself, anxiety increases; when you focus outward (on the conversation, the environment, the other person), anxiety decreases. Try each mode in similar situations and compare.
Use during behavioural experiments targeting self-focused attention, a core maintaining process in Clark and Wells' model. Introduce after the client understands how self-focused attention maintains anxiety by preventing the processing of disconfirmatory social information.
Frame as an experiment comparing two conditions: a social interaction with the client's usual self-focused attention versus one where they deliberately redirect attention outward to the other person and the environment. Emphasise curiosity about what happens rather than performance pressure.
For clients who find a sudden attention shift too demanding, use a graded approach starting with brief outward attention shifts during low-stakes interactions. Provide concrete external focus targets (e.g., the colour of the other person's eyes, what they are saying) to anchor attention.
Ensure the attention refocusing is not performed as a rigid safety behaviour. The goal is flexible, natural outward attention rather than effortful monitoring of where attention is directed, which can itself become self-focused.
The most powerful learning occurs when the client notices that external attention allows them to pick up positive or neutral social cues they previously missed. Debrief thoroughly: what did they notice about the other person's responses that they would not have noticed with self-focused attention?
Suitable for clients working with social anxiety, attention, self-focused attention, cbt, clark, wells, behavioural experiment. This tool can be used as a standalone worksheet or as part of a structured homework plan.
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