Social Anxiety or social phobia is used to describe an intense and longstanding fear of social situations. Often the person is worried that they will be embarrassed or humiliated in some way and that they will be evaluated negatively or criticized by other people.

When you are faced with social situations, you may experience the following difficult emotions such as:
• Awkward
• Worried and concerned
• Unworthy and small
• Incapable and incompetent
• Seek validation and safety
• Frustrated and unease
• Low self-esteem
• Lack of self-confidence
• Stifled and silent
• Unable to speak and be expressive
• Agitated and uncomfortable
• Lonely and fearful
• Wanting to run away and hide

spiral2grow uses integration of multiple treatment techniques, to name a few, ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy), DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) and CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). CBT is based on the idea that our emotions and actions are largely impacted by the way we think. Research has shown that people with unhelpful thoughts are feeling socially anxious. CBT can teach you techniques and strategies to modify unhelpful thoughts and behaviors so that you can better manage your social anxiety. The counseling treatment may include:

• Learning and educating emotions, focusing on social anxiety
• Understanding and implement behavioral cognitive therapy (identifying, questioning and replacing unhelpful thoughts)
• Utilizing exposure therapy (developing a plan for gradually approaching feared situations)
• Practicing rumination control and attention training (being more able to take in what is happening around us)
• Developing a realistic self-image of how we appear to others when we are anxious.
• Incorporating non-judgmental mindfulness and relaxation techniques.

More about CBT

A powerful treatment option for reducing social anxiety is Cognitive-Behavioral-Therapy (CBT). CBT strategies address three components that contribute to social anxiety. It includes body responses, thinking responses and action responses. In this way, CBT seeks to change the anxiety habits that occur in social situations. Our approach combines motivation and encouragement with fear reduction to help clients taking gradual steps to reduce their social anxiety and feel more confident. Even if you fear or stress is not intense, spiral2grow can provide you with skills for easing the anxiety that you experience in social situations to enable you to be more engage and satisfy with your social life.

Our unique integrative program is action-oriented and focused on results. In addition to discussion of social anxiety issues, psycho-education and skills building, the main emphasis is on gradual exposure with exercises targeting all aspects of anxiety. The goal is to become a more skilled and confident communicator in all area of life. spiral2grow of New York City, offers Social Anxiety and Phobia solutions in a variety of formats: Individuals Anxiety Therapy, Group Therapy for Social Anxiety and Social Anxiety Workshop.