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Understanding Social Anxiety Disorder: How It Develops, What Maintains It, and How Therapy Can Help

Social anxiety disorder is more than shyness or occasional nervousness. It is a persistent fear of being judged, rejected, embarrassed, or negatively evaluated by others. For people with social anxiety, everyday interactions—speaking in meetings, meeting new people, eating in public, or making eye contact—can trigger intense anxiety and self-consciousness.

Over time, social anxiety can limit relationships, career opportunities, and a person’s sense of confidence and self-worth. Understanding how social anxiety develops and is maintained is often a powerful first step toward change.

What Is Social Anxiety Disorder?

Social anxiety disorder involves a heightened fear response in social or performance situations where there is perceived scrutiny or judgement. Common experiences include:

• Fear of saying or doing something “wrong”
• Intense self-monitoring and self-criticism
• Physical symptoms such as blushing, sweating, shaking, or a racing heart
• Avoidance of social situations or enduring them with significant distress
• Ongoing worry before social events and rumination afterward

Social anxiety is not a personal failure or weakness. It is a learned pattern shaped by experiences, relationships, and the nervous system.

How Social Anxiety Develops

Social anxiety often develops gradually and is influenced by a combination of temperament, early experiences, and relational environments.

Common contributing factors include:
• Early experiences of criticism, bullying, or rejection
• Growing up in environments where approval felt conditional or unpredictable
• A naturally sensitive or inhibited temperament
• Experiences of shame, humiliation, or being singled out
• Caregivers who were anxious, highly evaluative, or emotionally unavailable

From these experiences, people may develop core beliefs such as:
• “There’s something wrong with me.”
• “If people really see me, they’ll reject me.”
• “I have to perform perfectly to be accepted.”

These beliefs can shape how social situations are interpreted long after the original experiences have passed.

How Social Anxiety Is Maintained

While avoidance and safety behaviours reduce anxiety in the short term, they unintentionally keep social anxiety going.

Social anxiety is commonly maintained by:

• Avoiding social situations, which prevents new learning
• Relying on safety behaviours (rehearsing, staying quiet, avoiding eye contact)
• Excessive self-focus during interactions
• Harsh inner criticism and self-judgement
• Post-event rumination and replaying perceived mistakes

Over time, the nervous system learns that social situations are dangerous and must be managed or avoided. Therapy helps gently retrain these patterns.

Therapeutic Approaches for Social Anxiety Disorder

Effective therapy does not aim to eliminate anxiety entirely, but to help people relate differently to fear, shame, and self-doubt so they can live more fully and authentically.

Schema Therapy: Addressing Core Beliefs and Emotional Patterns

Schema therapy focuses on long-standing patterns of belief and emotional response that often develop in childhood or adolescence- called schemas.

Common schemas associated with social anxiety include:

• Defectiveness/Shame
• Social Isolation
• Unrelenting Standards
• Failure

Therapy involves identifying these schemas, understanding how they developed, and learning to respond to them with compassion rather than self-criticism. Experiential techniques help clients emotionally update these beliefs so they no longer feel absolute or defining.

As schemas soften, people often feel more secure, authentic, and less driven to hide or perform.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): Changing the Relationship With Anxiety

ACT supports people in building a more flexible relationship with anxious thoughts and feelings rather than trying to eliminate them.

ACT helps clients learn to:
• Notice anxious thoughts without automatically believing them
• Make space for discomfort without avoidance
• Take meaningful action guided by values rather than fear (a humanistic approach to exposure therapy), with a goal of reducing behavioural avoidance

Clients clarify what matters most—connection, authenticity, contribution—and practise moving toward those values even when anxiety is present. This reduces the control anxiety has over daily life.

Internal Family Systems (IFS): Working With Anxious and Protective Parts

IFS understands social anxiety as the result of protective parts trying to prevent emotional pain.

These may include:
• An anxious part that anticipates judgement
• A critical part that tries to prevent rejection through self-attack
• An avoidant part that limits social risk

IFS therapy helps clients relate to these parts with curiosity and compassion. Often, these protective parts are guarding younger, vulnerable parts that hold experiences of shame or rejection.

By healing these underlying wounds and helping protective parts feel safer, social situations begin to feel more manageable and less threatening.

Moving Toward Confidence and Connection

Social anxiety disorder is highly treatable. With supportive, evidence-based therapy, people can develop greater self-trust, emotional safety, and confidence in relationships.

Change doesn’t come from forcing confidence—it comes from learning to feel safe enough to be yourself.

If social anxiety is interfering with your life, therapy can help you move toward connection without needing to change who you are. Contact us today.

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