How Therapists Help People With Social Anxiety

Written by: Tyler Szelinski

Social anxiety is an anxiety disorder marked by fear of one or more social situations that leads to avoidance of those situations. In severe cases, social anxiety can interfere with a person’s ability to perform daily tasks, maintain relationships, and hold down a job. Because there is a psychological and a behavioral component to social anxiety, therapists who use cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) are effective in helping individuals struggling in this area. In this article, we will briefly explore aspects of CBT that are beneficial people are affected by social anxiety.

Cognitive restructuring

Cognitive restructuring is an intervention CBT therapists use to help people reshape the way they think about their anxiety around social interactions. For instance, a person might think that if they don’t perform well socially, others won’t like them. A therapist can help a person explore this line of thinking, which is primarily negative in nature. Why is it so important for this person to be liked by others? What is so bad about being disliked by someone? These are some questions that might be asked in therapy to get the person to think about why being disliked is such a problem for him or her. The truth is, being disliked by others is something we have no control over, and it’s bound to happen occasionally. The good news is, being disliked by someone isn’t the end of the world, and it doesn’t have to have a negative effect on us.

Behavioral activation

Behavioral activation addresses the avoidance of social situations that people with social anxiety often exhibit. The only way a person can ever be comfortable again in certain social settings is to put him or herself in those situations. With their new ways of viewing their anxiety from cognitive restructuring, a person with social anxiety will be much better equipped to handle the things they’ve been avoiding. The therapist may encourage the person to take baby steps. For instance, if a woman is fearful of being laughed at in dance class, the therapist can encourage the patient to sit in on the dance classes before fully immersing herself in the experience. Once she does get the courage to participate, she can find peace in knowing that if others do laugh at her, she won’t be harmed and can still enjoy dancing. The key is knowing that we don’t have to be perfect in social situations, we are allowed to make mistakes—we are only human after all.