The Speech Therapy Clinic at Danderyd Hospital is Sweden's largest speech therapy clinic admits patients with speech and language difficulties, such as people who stutter. Approximately half of people who stutter also have a diagnosis of social anxiety, which can complicate treatment and lead to depression, reduced social contacts, and avoidance of life and career choices due to avoidance behaviors. Despite this, there is no collaboration between speech therapists and psychologists. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) in the form of exposure with response prevention is an effective treatment for social anxiety, but for people who stutter, this can be counterproductive as fluency disorders, unlike anxiety, are not reduced by exposure with response prevention. One treatment option successfully implemented in other countries is to complement conventional speech therapy with CBT for stuttering-related social anxiety (CBT-SSA).

In this project, we aim to investigate whether CBT-SSA leads to reduced social anxiety, reduced stuttering, and increased quality of life. The project is based on a collaboration between the Department of Psychology at Stockholm University, with psychological and treatment evaluation expertise, and the Speech Therapy Clinic at Danderyd Hospital, with speech therapy and patient-centered expertise. The project has the potential to contribute to the creation of a new research environment specialized in psychological-speech therapy interdisciplinary studies.