Etiology and treatment of social anxiety: a commentary.

Substantial advances in our understanding of the etiology and treatment of performance anxiety have occurred during the past decade. It has become clear that the development of efficient and effective treatments cannot be divorced from knowledge of the specific form of psychopathology being treated and that treatments must be tailored to this psychopathology. After describing a current model of the etiology of performance anxiety and social phobia, this commentary notes the common factors present across the rich and diverse set of articles in this issue describing treatments from different approaches and different theoretical orientations. To the extent that these common factors are important mechanisms of action, it is possible that the future will introduce more unified and more effective, efficient, and theoretically informed treatment for performance anxiety as well as the potential for preventive techniques.