do sudden gains predict treatment outcome in social anxiety disorder findings from two randomized controlled trials objective sudden gains sgs have been found to occur during randomized controlled trials rcts for social anxiety disorder sad evidence is mixed whether sgs relate to treatment outcome in sad we examined sgs in two rcts for sadmethod study 1 n68 examined sgs in individual cognitivebehavioral therapy cbt and study 2 n100 compared sgs in group cbt and mindfulnessbased stress reduction mbsr weekly ratings of social anxiety were used to calculate sgs the liebowitz social anxiety scaleselfreport and the social interaction anxiety scale were completed at pretreatment posttreatment and followup to assess outcomeresults in study 1 176 of participants experienced a sg participants with sgs started and ended treatment with lower social anxiety sgs were not associated with greater decreases in social anxiety from preto posttreatment or 12month followup in study 2 sgs occurred in 27 of participants and at comparable rates in mbsr and group cbt sgs were not associated with changes in social anxiety during treatment in either conditionconclusion sgs occurred during treatment for sad in both rcts participants improved regardless of experiencing a sg suggesting that sgs are not predictive of greater improvement during treatment for sad