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Social Anxiety

What is Social Anxiety?

If you feel nervous or uncomfortable in a social situation, you might be suffering from social anxiety disorder, also known as social phobia.

 

The DSM 5 Criteria for Social Anxiety Disorder include:

  • Persistent, intense fear or anxiety about specific social situations because you believe you may be judged negatively, embarrassed or humiliated

  • Avoidance of anxiety-producing social situations or enduring them with intense fear or anxiety

  • Excessive anxiety that's out of proportion to the situation

  • Anxiety or distress that interferes with your daily living

Treatments

From my framework, social anxiety is caused from low self-esteem, people pleasing, and sometimes not knowing yourself well enough to live authentically.

Treatments I use for this are digging deeper into who you are: your values, your upbringing, what you tie your self-worth to, the people you are around, etc. 
I also use self-esteem exercises, and discuss ways to tie your self-worth to personality traits rather than productivity, money, superficiality, or materialism. To truly work through social anxiety we have to know ourselves and accept ourselves, flaws and strengths.
Another helpful treatment in CBT is to reframe thoughts, and slow exposure to social situations.
 

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