In this study, endoscopic sympathetic block was useful in reducing the symptoms of severe social phobia. Although the method is surgical and the effect hence mainly biological, the psychological symptoms of social phobia were also significantly reduced. The results are best if the main symptoms are blushing or palpitation, but even a smaller reduction in the other symptoms is important if it helps the patient to break his isolation.
Knowledge of the elimination of embarrassing physical symptoms in social situations helps the patient to expose himself to formerly impossible situations, and success in them also causes psychological symptoms to subside. But the relief of psychological symptoms may also be due to direct a biological effect of the operation on the anxiety-mediating areas in the nervous system. The only meaningful side effect is compensatory sweating of the trunk, but not even that is significant when modern surgical method are used.
Clamping is as good as bilateral cauterisation, and the results may be equally good with unilateral and bilateral clamping, but because there were only eight patients who had undergone a unilateral clamping procedure, the material is not sufficient to allow definite conclusions concerning that. The results remain unchanged over time, which shows that they were not due to a placebo effect. In the future, it is important to compare this treatment to traditional treatment in order to find out its place among the other, officially approved methods of treating social phobia.
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08039480310000266
