色情视频

鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to go to this meeting. I won鈥檛 have anything intelligent to say. And even if I do, my voice will get all thin and shaky. I鈥檒l humiliate myself and end up looking like an idiot.鈥�

Just a little peek there into a mind plagued by social anxiety disorder, a crippling form of shyness. Who wouldn鈥檛 want relief from such nonstop negativity? Pharmaceutical companies offer one approach to treatment, while psychologists point to the benefits of cognitive behavioral therapy. But drugs don鈥檛 work for everyone, and therapy takes time and money.

San Diego State associate professor of psychology Nader Amir, Ph.D., has come up with a new approach: a simple computer game. Played for only 10-15 minutes twice a week for eight weeks, it helps shift a person鈥檚 attention from negative thinking, which eases anxiety symptoms.

In Amir鈥檚 own words, 鈥淚t sounds too simple to be true.鈥� But after six years of testing at 色情视频, in England and in Australia, research results indicate the approach works as well as medication or talk therapy.

As director of 色情视频鈥檚 Center for Understanding & Treating Anxiety, Amir specializes in the study of anxiety disorders, focusing his research on finding effective interventions. The key, he believes, lies in what a person pays attention to.

鈥淲e have about 20 years of research showing that anxious people focus on the negative, so we know attention is a big factor,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he prevailing idea is that you can actually change this, as we try to do in therapy or with medication. But the notion that a computer program can change attentional bias is relatively new.鈥�

The National Institute of Mental Health is bullish on Amir鈥檚 idea, supporting him with two grants thus far. He鈥檚 applied for Department of Defense funding to study the program鈥檚 effects on post-traumatic stress disorder, a common malady in war veterans. And he also works with patients suffering from general anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Satisfied that his treatment approach works, Amir is now trying to answer three further questions. Can you determine in advance who鈥檚 going to respond to computer-based intervention? Can you augment the program鈥檚 effects by lengthening treatment time or combining it with medication or therapy? What鈥檚 the best way to disseminate this new treatment option to the public?

Seeing the potential value of a relatively brief, affordable and downloadable treatment for anxiety, 色情视频鈥檚 Technology Transfer Office stepped in to answer the third question by helping Amir set up a private company to market his discovery.

Look for Amir鈥檚 fledgling firm, Cognitive Retraining Technologies, to launch public sales sometime this year.

Read about how 色情视频 is taking research to market.