Social anxiety: the eight-step programme

The problem is not that you are awkward: it is that your attention turns inwards at exactly the moment it needs to be outside. The mechanism, and the treatment with the best results in the whole anxiety literature.

En resumen

This programme is for an adult who dreads other people's gaze — speaking in a meeting, making a phone call, eating in front of someone, meeting new people, being watched while working. It explains the real mechanism of the disorder, which is counter-intuitive: what keeps the problem going is neither social skill nor the level of anxiety, but three very specific habits. It then sets out eight steps drawn from cognitive therapy for social anxiety, the treatment that comes out ahead in head-to-head comparisons.

This programme supports care, it does not replace it. Social anxiety disorder is common, disabling and very treatable — the work described here has the best results in head-to-head comparisons. It is demanding, however, and more effective with support: section 25 says when that support is not optional. If you are having suicidal thoughts, if you drink to get through your days, or if you are depressed, this text is not the right first answer: contact your doctor or your local emergency services today. Allow forty minutes to read, and twelve weeks to practise.

1. Before you start

You prepared your sentence for twenty minutes, and when your turn came you said it too fast, looking at your notes. You cannot hear your name in a group without your heart speeding up. You do not call people back. You turned down a promotion because it would have meant chairing meetings. Or else you go, everything goes fine, and in the evening you replay the whole thing looking for what went wrong.

You have probably been told you should build your confidence. That is not false, and it is completely unusable as an instruction.

Social anxiety: the eight-step programme

1. Before you start

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