Are you feeling held back in life?

Perhaps you feel unable to make new friendships or build strong connections. Do social situations make you so anxious and nervous that you feel too scared to try new things or meet new people?

Social anxiety prevents you from reaching your goals and full potential. It can also make it harder to progress in your current work-life and personal relationships. 

So, what is CBT exactly and can help it you recover from social anxiety?

What Is CBT?

CBT is the abbreviation for cognitive behavioral therapy. This approach is a type of talk therapy aimed at helping you manage your problems and issues more effectively. By changing your thoughts you can change how you behave. 

CBT is most commonly used to treat patients who suffer from depression and anxiety disorders but can be utilized to help others recover from other mental and physical health issues.

In cognitive behavioral therapy, the main school of thought is that your feelings, thoughts, actions, and sensations are connected. CBT helps you to consciously recognize how negative thoughts can trap you and hold back your forward movement. 

The goal of CBT is to help you deal with problems by helping you identify and break negative patterns through guided goal-setting goals and intentionality. With this accomplished, you can create more positive and optimistic thoughts. An improved state of mind then supports coping with everyday life in a more productive and positive manner.

Can CBT Support Your Recovery From Social Anxiety?

CBT works to restructure your beliefs and how you think. When you have social anxiety, you may be conscious of what others think of you, or worried about embarrassing yourself. Worse, you may experience intrusive thoughts that make you nervous and anxious in social situations. 

CBT helps transform how you think of yourself. Prior to working through social anxiety with CBT techniques, your therapist helps you determine your goals. You may need to deal with a poor self-image or work on forgiving yourself for past social missteps. You may also want to learn how to be more assertive during social interactions. 

As you reshape your thinking and your behavior, you can more effectively incorporate the tools required to cope with social situations. You will likely feel less triggered to feel anxious and unnerved around other people

For instance, CBT will help you challenge thoughts such as, “People are going to laugh at me.” Instead, you will shift that thought to, “No one is going to laugh at me”.  As you learn to be more proactive and less timid,  you may find that accepting invitations to social events, initiating conversations, or mindfully letting go of damaging self-talk is increasingly easier.

The Social Support You Need Is Available

With CBT, you can effectively retrain your brain over time. The perceived social “danger” that controls you starts to fade. Soon, control over your own thoughts and choices grows. Your life and relationships can blossom. All you need is a guide.

Are you interested in the benefits of CBT? Working with a certified CBT therapist can help you heal and make meaningful life changes sooner rather than later. If you think CBT could be beneficial for you, don’t suffer alone any longer. Please read more about anxiety therapy and reach out soon for a consultation.