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Text Content

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 * ABOUT US
 * WHAT IS SOCIAL ANXIETY?
 * ABOUT CBT
 * SELF-HELP VIDEOS
 * SAMPLE CBT SESSIONS
 * SOCIAL ANXIETY BLOG
 * FOR CLINICIANS
 * PERSONAL STORIES
 * REGIONAL CLINICS & ASSOCIATES


 * CBT FOR SOCIAL ANXIETY
 * COMMON THERAPY GOALS
 * OVERCOMING SOCIAL ANXIETY
 * GROUP VS INDIVIDUAL THERAPY




CBT STRATEGIES TO OVERCOME SOCIAL ANXIETY

Change Destructive Thinking:  Cognitive Restructuring & Mindfulness for Social
Anxiety

Larry Cohen (NSAC cofounder and director of NSAC DC) explains how to use and
combine these two very different strategies to overcome our anxiety-inducing hot
thoughts.



CHANGING PERCEPTIONS IN SOCIAL ANXIETY (COGNITIVE RESTRUCTURING)

Learning to identify your hot thoughts (upsetting ideas, self-talk and mental
images) that contribute to your social anxiety; learning to test these thoughts
against real-life evidence; and learning to come up with a constructive attitude
about the situation and yourself that is more realistic, helpful and
compassionate.

Cognitive Restructuring alone is not always enough to overcome our distressing
hot thoughts.  Often, cognitive restructuring is a first step in preparing for
experiments (see below), where we have the opportunity to test out our hot
thoughts v. our constructive attitude about a situation and ourselves. Sometimes
we do cognitive restructuring during or after an upsetting situation so we can
overcome our distress and learn from the experience.


MINDFULNESS FOR SOCIAL ANXIETY

Learning to acknowledge and set aside your distracting and disturbing thoughts
and feelings, and refocus your attention on the conversation and activity in the
moment; learning to “get our of your head and into the moment” so that you can
interact with others more comfortably and naturally.


BEHAVIORAL EXPERIMENTS (EXPOSURES) FOR SOCIAL ANXIETY

Developing a series of learning experiences to help you work on your therapy
goals and overcome your social anxiety in small, manageable steps.  You choose
your own experiments based on your fear and avoidance hierarchy, starting with
situations that are only a little uncomfortable, and gradually working on harder
things as you build self-confidence one small step at a time. Generally you will
do cognitive restructuring before the experiments, and practice mindfulness
during the experiments (see above).  You will also identify safety behaviors
(psychological crutches) that you want to limit using during your experiments so
that you learn more and build more self-confidence.

Some of these experiments take place during therapy sessions: doing various
moderately challenging role plays and other activities with the therapist, as
well as going out in public with your therapist to do experiments with
strangers.  If you are in a social anxiety therapy group, you will do many of
these in-session experiments together with other member of your group, and
occasionally with former members of past groups.  If you wish, you will have the
option of making private video recordings of some of your in-session experiments
so you can test out your hot thoughts about how you come across v. how you
actually do appear.

You will also do many other experiments as self-chosen homework between
sessions, either on your own, with therapy group co-members, or with personal
friends.

Most importantly, you will also learn how to benefit from both your in-session
and homework experiments, no matter how they turn out.  You will learn how to
identify ways you helped yourself, ways you unintentionally hurt yourself, and
evidence you can gather from the experiments that refutes or supports your hot
thoughts.  You will also learn how to treat yourself compassionately about the
experiments you do, like a good parent or friend would do, so that you build
self-confidence and make progress toward your goals more rapidly.


ASSERTIVENESS AND PROBLEM-SOLVING FOR SOCIAL ANXIETY

Sometimes our social anxiety fears do come true.  Sometimes we do embarrass
ourselves.  Sometimes others do judge or reject us, and may even say critical or
mean things.  Sometimes we create a bad impression.  These bad things don’t
happen as often as we tend to think they do.  Nor do they usually have as
negative or lasting an impact on our lives as we believe they will.  Still, our
fears do sometimes come true.

One important CBT strategy in overcoming social anxiety is learning to figure
out what to do in the event our fears come true.  Sometimes that involves
asserting yourself with a critical person in a calm and confident tone.  We
practice such assertions in session, using role plays and imagery, and we also
practice it in various ways as homework.  Other times we use problem-solving
strategies to develop good ways of coping with a situation turning out badly,
which we also practice in session and in homework.  The more confident we feel
about being able to cope with a fear coming true with our heads held high, the
less socially anxious we feel about the situation.


CHANGING ATTITUDES IN SOCIAL ANXIETY (CORE BELIEFS AND PERSONAL RULES)

Why do some people experience troubling hot thoughts and much anxiety about a
situation in which many other people experience positive thoughts and feelings?
 Some of this has to do with different attitudes (core beliefs and
personalrules) that people have learned about themselves and the world as they
grew up.  Our attitudes act like glasses we wear: we don’t usually think of
them, but nonetheless they profoundly affect the way we see the world and the
situations we experience.   Change your glasses (attitudes), and the world looks
very different to you.

CBT helps you identify the unhealthy core beliefs and rigid personal rules that
contribute to your social anxiety.  You then learn various skills and strategies
to test and weaken your unhealthy attitudes, and to develop and strengthen
alternative, healthy attitudes.


HOW TO GET HELP FOR SOCIAL ANXIETY

The National Social Anxiety Center (NSAC) is an association of independent
Regional Clinics and Associates throughout the United States with certified
cognitive-behavioral therapists (CBT) specializing in social anxiety and other
anxiety-related problems.


FIND AN NSAC REGIONAL CLINIC OR ASSOCIATE WHICH IS LICENSED TO HELP PEOPLE IN
THE STATE WHERE YOU ARE LOCATED.

Сlick arrow to select stateAlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasAmerican
SamoaCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareDistrict Of
ColumbiaFloridaGeorgiaGuamHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew
HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaNorthern Mariana
IslandsOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaPuerto RicoRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth
DakotaTennesseeTexasTrust TerritoriesUtahVermontVirginiaVirgin
IslandsWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming


PLACES WHERE NSAC REGIONAL CLINICS AND ASSOCIATES ARE BASED

ARIZONA: Phoenix ● CALIFORNIA: Bixby Knolls ● Long Beach ● Los Angeles ● Newport
Beach / Orange County ● San Diego ● San Francisco ● Santa Barbara ● Silicon
Valley / San Jose ● COLORADO: Denver ● CONNECTICUT: Avon ● DELAWARE: Coastal
Delaware ● DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Washington, DC ● FLORIDA: South Florida ●
IDAHO: South Central Idaho ● ILLINOIS: Chicago ● IOWA: Des Moines ● KENTUCKY:
Louisville ● MARYLAND: Baltimore ● Montgomery County ● MASSACHUSETTS: Western
Massachusetts ● Children & Teens ● MICHIGAN: Kalamazoo ● MISSOURI: St. Louis ●
NEW JERSEY: North Jersey ● NEW YORK: Brooklyn ● New York City ● Staten Island ●
PENNSYLVANIA: Philadelphia ● Pittsburgh ● TEXAS: Dallas ● Houston / Sugar Land ●
VIRGINIA: Northern Virginia






QUICK LINKS

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 * WHAT IS SOCIAL ANXIETY?
 * RATE YOUR SOCIAL ANXIETY
 * ABOUT CBT
 * PERSONAL STORIES
 * FOR CLINICIANS
 * RESOURCES
 * SELF-HELP VIDEOS
 * SAMPLE CBT SESSIONS
 * SOCIAL ANXIETY BLOG

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