How to Deal With Social Anxiety: 5 Ways Therapy Can Help
If social anxiety is holding you back from feeling happy and fulfilled, you're definitely not alone. Tons of people struggle with worries about being judged, embarrassed, or rejected in social situations. No matter how long you've been struggling with these feelings, change is possible - and therapy can be a huge help.
In this post, I'll explore five therapeutic approaches I draw on when working with social anxiety: psychodynamic therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), exposure therapy, and self-compassion work. I'll explain what these theories focus on, and how I use them to help with social anxiety.
Psychodynamic Therapy: Digging Deep to Heal
Psychodynamic therapy is all about getting to the root of your social anxiety by exploring your unconscious. This means looking at your history and emotions to uncover patterns, beliefs, and experiences that make you feel stuck. In this type of therapy, we'll dive into your early life experiences, relationships, and any conflicts that may have shaped how you see yourself and others.
For example, if you experienced bullying, criticism, or rejection growing up, you might have internalized the belief that you're not good enough or that people will always judge you harshly. You may have developed a strategy for dealing with these painful feelings as a child that helped you. As an adult, though, these strategies are out-of-date and getting in the way. These early wounds and strategies feed into a fear of negative evaluation, and a tendency to avoid social situations as an adult.
In psychodynamic therapy, we'll work through these deeper issues in a safe, supportive environment. I help clients gain insight into how their past is influencing their present anxiety and guide clients in processing and healing from these experiences. By getting to the heart of your anxiety, you can start to challenge those long-held beliefs and patterns that are keeping you stuck.
CBT: Retraining Your Brain for Confidence
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a powerful approach that helps you identify and change the negative thought patterns and behaviors that feed into social anxiety. In CBT, we get curious about what happens moment-to-moment in your mind during stressful situations. We'll look at the automatic negative thoughts that pop up in social situations, like "everyone thinks I'm boring" or "I'm going to embarrass myself."
We'll look at how to question these thoughts and look for evidence that supports or contradicts them. CBT can help you learn to recognize thinking traps (called cognitive distortions) such as mind-reading (assuming you know what others are thinking) or fortune-telling (predicting the worst-case scenario). By challenging these negative thoughts and replacing them with more realistic, balanced ones, you can start to shift your perspective and feel more confident in social situations.
The cognitive triangle of CBT: thoughts, emotions, and behavior all interact with each other. If you can adjust one, you’ll adjust the others.
CBT also involves gradually facing your feared social situations through exposure therapy (which I'll dive into more later). By putting your new thinking skills into practice in real-life scenarios, you can build up your confidence and resilience over time.
IFS: Befriending Your Inner Voices
Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy is a compassionate approach that helps you understand and work with the different parts of yourself that contribute to social anxiety. IFS views the mind as having multiple sub-personalities or "parts," each with its own unique perspective, feelings, and motivations.
That might sound like I'm talking about having multiple personalities, but it's a common experience. You might be able to recognize a time when you've felt or said "part of me wants to do this, but part of me doesn't." IFS is about diving into that experience to gain more understanding and compassion for what really happens in your emotional world.
For example, you might have a part that feels anxious and wants to avoid social situations to stay safe, and another part that feels frustrated and wants to push through the anxiety to connect with others. In IFS, the goal is to build a loving, understanding relationship with all of your parts, even the ones that seem to be causing problems.
I'm on the lookout for moments when these parts of you express themselves, and might guide you in getting to know them better. You might want to avoid or criticize the part of yourself that gets anxious, but it can be helpful to recognize that this anxious part also is there to protect you. By listening to these parts with curiosity and compassion, you can start to understand their underlying fears and needs. You'll learn to react to your thoughts with reassurance and support, rather than frustration and avoidance.
IFS can be a deeply healing approach for social anxiety, helping you develop greater self-awareness, self-acceptance, and inner peace.
Exposure Therapy: Facing Your Fears, One Step at a Time
Exposure therapy is a key component of CBT that involves gradually and systematically facing your feared social situations. The idea is to help you build up a tolerance to anxiety-provoking scenarios and learn that the scary outcomes you imagine are actually pretty unlikely.
We'll create a hierarchy of feared situations, starting with the ones that cause mild anxiety and working your way up to the more challenging ones. For example, if the thought of mingling at a party makes your palms sweat, your hierarchy might start with making small talk with a cashier, then attending a small gathering with close friends, and eventually working up to a bigger social event.
During exposure exercises, you'll stay in the situation until your anxiety starts to come down naturally, which teaches your brain that the anxiety is temporary and manageable.
This can sound overwhelming, but my role as a therapist is to help make it manageable. I want you to be one step out of your comfort zone at any given moment in exposure therapy. Once your comfort zone expands to incorporate that step you've taken, we can step a little bit outside it again. I offer support, structure, and encouragement along the way to make sure it's manageable and effective.
Exposure therapy can feel tough at first, but it's one of the most effective ways to overcome social anxiety. By facing your fears in a controlled, gradual way, you'll develop confidence in your ability to handle social situations and start to see that they're not as threatening as you once believed.
Self-Compassion: Learning to Treat Yourself With Kindness
One of the most transformative things you can do for social anxiety is to cultivate self-compassion. Social anxiety often comes with a harsh inner critic that constantly points out your flaws and perceived shortcomings. You might beat yourself up for every awkward interaction or social misstep, believing that you're just not good enough.
I help clients to develop a kinder, more understanding relationship with themselves. I'll help you practice treating yourself with the same warmth and compassion you'd extend to a close friend who was struggling. This might involve:
Acknowledging your anxious feelings without judgment
Reminding yourself that everyone feels anxious sometimes
Challenging self-critical thoughts and replacing them with more supportive ones
Celebrating your strengths and accomplishments, no matter how small
Recognizing areas in your life where you could be more assertive around protecting yourself and your boundaries
Engaging in self-care activities that soothe and nurture you
I may also teach you mindfulness techniques to help you observe your anxious thoughts and feelings with a sense of distance and perspective, rather than getting caught up in them. By learning to relate to your anxiety with curiosity and acceptance, you can start to see it as a normal part of the human experience, rather than a personal failing.
Cultivating self-compassion is a lifelong practice, but it can have a profound impact on your self-esteem and overall well-being. By learning to be kind and supportive toward yourself, you'll build up your inner resilience and feel more equipped to handle the ups and downs of social interactions.
Conclusion
Whether you decide to explore the roots of your anxiety with psychodynamic therapy, reframe your thoughts with CBT, befriend your inner parts with IFS, face your fears with exposure therapy, or develop self-compassion, know that there is hope and healing available.
Therapy for social anxiety can make an enormous difference. With the right support and tools, you can start to see yourself and your social world in a whole new light – one that's filled with possibility, connection, and joy.
Taking the first step isn't easy, but addressing your social anxiety can lead to an enormous change in your life. You deserve to live a life that's free from the constant worry and self-doubt of social anxiety. With a little help and a lot of self-love, you can get there. So take a deep breath, pat yourself on the back for making it this far, and know that a brighter, more socially confident future is within your reach.