Help, I Need a Social Anxiety Psychologist!

We all get a little nervous, anxious, or shy in social situations, particularly if we have to do something challenging – like make a big speech in front of a room of people. Scary, right?! Like a lot of things, anxiety in social situations can occur on a spectrum. For many people, feeling anxious about making a speech is pretty typical. However, if you want to avoid day-to-day social interactions, have difficulty collecting your thoughts into sentences when in these situations, and you are significantly worried about what other people might think of you – then you may be experiencing social anxiety.

Social Anxiety Disorder Criteria

There are a few main factors that indicate social anxiety disorder, otherwise known as SAD.

• The main indicator is the presence of a persistent fear that you will be judged negatively by others.
• Understandably so, this can lead to avoiding situations that may trigger this fear, usually meaning the person avoids social situations.
• Due to this fear, there is a high level of anxiety felt – this is usually out of proportion to the situation.
• The fear and anxiety have a significant impact on your day-to-day living.

So, what does this actually look like?

Some examples of SAD thoughts:

• “It’s essential that everyone likes me”
• “I’m going to make a fool of myself”
• “People can tell I am nervous, they must think I am stupid”
• “People find me boring”
• “I shouldn’t appear anxious in front of others, I should be able to control this”

Some Examples of SAD feelings:

• Physical symptoms: racing heart, increase in sweating, blushing, feeling dizzy, upset digestion, chest pain, breathlessness, nausea, tearfulness, numbness, dry mouth
• Emotions may include feeling scared, anxious, insecure, nervous, inadequate, worried, dread

Some examples SAD behaviours:

• Difficulty speaking in front of others (stammering)
• Not accepting social event invitations, or cancelling last minute
• Avoiding eye contact when in conversations

How a Social Anxiety Therapist Can Support You

Current research identifies two main ways to treat SAD: talk therapy (psychology) and medication, or a combination of the two. We might be biased, but we always recommend involving at least a little therapy. This is because many of the factors that keep anxiety going are to do with the way we interpret the world around us, and behaviours we do that keep the anxiety going. Whilst medication may reduce symptom severity, most people ultimately need to address these underlying factors if they want ongoing change.

When it comes to psychological treatment for social anxiety disorder, the gold standard and first line treatment is Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Good news is, in Australia almost all psychologists are trained CBT.

What does CBT for Social Anxiety involve?

CBT focuses on  challenging your thinking, as well as challenging your behaviour that may keep your social anxiety going. Some common CBT techniques that a psychologist may use for social anxiety include:

Psychoeducation – This is where the psychologist will provide information about social anxiety and the process of therapy.

Attention Training – A common factor for people with high levels of social anxiety is to become over-focused on the self in social situations. For example, becoming very aware of the butterflies in your stomach, your negative thoughts, and the pressure of not knowing what to say next. Therefore, attention training is about becoming more aware of where your attention is and then being able to refocus it, which has a flow on to reducing anxiety. One way to do this is to bring your awareness to the present moment through your five senses. A common strategy is the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. 

Cognitive Restructuring – This is a strategy to assist you in becoming more aware of what you are thinking and to change this to a more balanced and rational thought process. This is done by increasing your awareness of what you are thinking in the moment, and by doing this, noticing if there are any unhelpful thinking patterns. Your psychologist will then help you challenge your thinking to allow you to look at the same situation in an alternative way.

Graded Exposure – As the name suggests, this technique is about safely gradually exposing yourself to situations which trigger your social anxiety in a systematic way. This helps by increasing your confidence over time as well as decreasing avoidance.

Getting Support

If you are feeling motivated towards making changes with your social anxiety, you can read more in our blogs on managing social anxiety in general, and how to handle social anxiety at family events. However, if you feel like you’d benefit from having someone in your corner to help you overcome your anxiety, you can reach out to our support team today to find out more information on getting psychological treatment. All of our psychologists are highly trained in CBT, so, they are well-equipped in being able to support you with social anxiety.