Beyond The Comfort Zone: How Cbt Reshapes Thought Patterns In Social Anxiety

By Author: Kiran
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You might have Social Anxiety Disorder or SAD even without knowing it. There are some definite symptoms, such as hesitation to join social gatherings or too much worry about being judged. What others would generally take as mere shyness can be something more critical, such as SAD. And when it worsens, you can also experience undesired physical symptoms such as profuse sweating and rapid heartbeat. Vast research on the subject points at cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT as an effective line of treatment for social anxiety. But is there a way to ensure that it works for one and all? Here is what you need to know.

The Goal

You can think of CBT as an umbrella form for a series of therapies, including stress reduction through mindfulness, talk therapy, motivational interviewing, and exposure therapy, among others. No matter the way your therapist chooses, it would comprehensively aim at:

● Giving a reality check on the negative and false beliefs that you might have about your worth or abilities.
● Making you more assertive.
● Tackling over consciousness, embarrassment, anger, or any other ...
... strong emotions.
● Making you more realistic about your expectations.
● Dealing with mistaken thoughts that you are being judged.
● Managing procrastination, especially when it comes up due to social anxiety.

Why CBT?

Numerous research studies have suggested cognitive behavioral therapy to be more efficient than conventional counselling and medication. Through this therapy, individuals can learn various ways to understand their feelings and thoughts. As someone receiving CBT, you would be asked to perform various engaging activities that eventually become a part of social skill development. The CBT skills that your therapist suggests often come in the form of "homework," which you need to perform after every session. As an evidence based therapy, CBT helps with faster recovery from a social anxiety disorder than many other line of treatments.

Delving Deeper

CBT helps individuals to understand how their thoughts and core beliefs are connected to their emotions and the way they respond to their environment. Through different activities and skill development, the therapist helps individuals to recognize their unhelpful thoughts, and to help them change by replacing it with more balanced perspectives. Through planning activities that involve gradual exposure to social situations, CBT helps individuals to work through their anxiety and fosters adaptive behaviors that promote lasting changes.

The Obvious Challenges

The benefits of cognitive behavioral therapy are by all means promising. However, success of therapy lies in a good therapeutic alliance between the client and the therapist.

While a therapist might help you learn skills and strategies to overcome social anxiety; success is also contingent on your own efforts that you put in to cope with the anxiety you experience in social situations. There are some challenges that may come up while starting or being in therapy. Initial discomfort when confronting negative thoughts can be challenging as well as keeping up with the behavioral exposure exercises. For example, finding and managing time to practice activities discussed in therapy along with your everyday tasks may seem impossible or difficult. .

Keep in mind, the initial days can be emotionally overbearing. But once you manage the teething phase, it can be the perfect treatment plan that you are looking for.