Social Anxiety

It’s normal to be anxious when we are afraid, worried or tense, but feeling anxious about spending time with people can have a huge impact on us and our relationships.
It is very challenging to face anxiety about other people and to cope with the impact that social anxiety can have on daily life.

Understanding Social Anxiety

People who experience social anxiety are likely to be familiar with the physical signs of the ‘fight or flight’ response, such as:

• Increased heart rate.

• Deeper, faster breathing.

• Sweating.

• Changes to the digestive system, such as nausea or diarrhoea.

• Muscular tension.

People experiencing social anxiety may also experience panic attacks, particularly when faced with triggers they can’t avoid, such as work or public events.

Social anxiety may arise during periods of chronic stress or when stress is hard to manage. Some people experience chronic stress at work, and others experience stress when facing pressures outside of work, such as moving house, divorce, financial problems, or problems with their own or loved ones’ health.  

How Social Anxiety Affects Relationships

It’s common for people experiencing social anxiety to avoid people or social situations, which is likely to lead to loneliness and isolation and make it more difficult to cope with anxiety and stress.

Social anxiety might also put more pressure on relationships that are less triggering, such as parents, siblings or partners.

For example, relationship problems might arise when one or both partners become inflexible. In couples where one partner has social anxiety, the anxious partner’s struggle may appear to be a kind of ‘inflexibility’ for the other partner. In some couples, one or other partners may worry that social anxiety may lead to codependency.

Social anxiety may also prevent someone from going to work or pursuing hobbies, which can trigger depression and lower self-esteem. If social anxiety leads to depression, people may notice that they struggle to sleep or stay awake, eat or prevent overeating, and notice their energy and sex drive stays low. Therapy for social anxiety may also be able to treat depression as part of the same work.

Common Triggers For Social Anxiety

People will experience unique triggers for their social anxiety: for example, some groups of people may feel trustworthy while others feel unkind, unsafe or even dangerous.

However, common triggers for anxiety, including social anxiety, that affect many people include:

• Overinterpreting physical sensations.

• Food intolerances.

• Caffeine.

• Unhelpful thinking patterns and thought processes.

Some people may experience anxiety or social anxiety following a traumatic experience, broadly defined as a sudden and unpredictable threat to life.

Working with a therapist can help identify and isolate triggers for social anxiety, as well as explore feelings around the people who feel ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ around us.

Therapy For Social Anxiety

Psychotherapy is a highly effective treatment for anxiety, including social anxiety, and different modalities may also have specific suitability.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) For Social Anxiety

Unhelpful thinking patterns and thought processes are a common feature of anxiety, particularly social anxiety: CBT’s main objective is to change feelings by changing thoughts.

Working with a trained CBT therapist, you can learn cognitive skills and identify triggers that help reduce the frequency and intensity of anxiety. CBT can also include psychoeducation to teach mindfulness and breathwork skills that will help you regulate your nervous system during periods of higher anxiety.

Psychodynamic Therapy For Social Anxiety

Psychodynamic therapy helps you gain a deeper understanding of yourself and possible unconscious roots for social anxiety and its triggers, particularly if you feel caught in unhelpful patterns in relationships.

The goal of psychodynamic therapy is to help the client get a better understanding of unconscious feelings and how they may relate to problems such as social anxiety. Psychodynamic therapy is particularly interested in how early life continues to influence us, including its influence on how we perceive the groups around us.

Person-Centred Therapy For Social Anxiety

Person-centred therapy focuses on how we feel about ourselves and factors that impact our sense of self, particularly how we are in relationships. Distress – for example, social anxiety – tends to be conceptualised as a disconnection from our true selves.

Person-centred work is client-led, which gives the client a sense of control and direction over the therapeutic process. This may help clients to feel a sense of control during a time when it has become difficult for them to spend time with others and keep up with their normal social life.

Please get in touch with us to learn more about therapy for social anxiety or schedule an appointment for a free initial consultation.