The Shyness & Social Anxiety Workbook
98depression. However, don’t be fooled by their name. These drugs are useful for a wide 
range of psychological problems, including social anxiety disorder. In fact, they appear to 
work for this problem regardless of whether an individual is depressed. There are several 
classes of antidepressant medications that are thought to be useful for treating social 
phobia. Each of these is described in this section. In addition, a table of  recommended 
dosages is included at the end of this section.
Note that we also indicate which of these drugs is ofﬁcially approved by the United 
States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Although FDA approval typically indicates 
that a medication is safe and effective when used properly, there are many medications 
that are safe and effective for social anxiety that are not approved by the FDA or regula -
tory bodies in other countries. This is because it is very expensive and time consuming 
for pharmaceutical companies to obtain ofﬁcial FDA indications for their products, and 
they therefore tend to limit the number of problems for which they apply for approval.
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)
SSRIs are often the ﬁrst choice for treating social phobia. In fact, the SSRI paroxetine 
(Paxil) was the ﬁrst drug to receive an FDA indication for treatment of social anxiety 
disorder. Paroxetine is also available in a continuous release formula, marketed under 
the name Paxil CR. Another SSRI that is FDA approved is sertraline (Zoloft). Although 
only two SSRIs are ofﬁcially approved for treating social anxiety disorder, there is no 
evidence that either of these medications works any better or worse than most other