The Shyness & Social Anxiety Workbook
6However, she avoided eating lunch with other staff members, and she never attended 
any social events, including the company’s annual holiday party.
Rachel lived with her social anxiety for years, despite how it interfered with her 
education, work, and social life. It was not until the anxiety prevented her from having 
the kind of wedding she and her ﬁancé wanted that she decided to seek help.
Rachel’s story is not that different from those of other people who experience 
intense feelings of shyness, social anxiety, and performance-related fears. The types of 
anxious beliefs and behaviors that she reported are similar to those that many socially 
anxious people describe. After her evaluation at our center, Rachel began a twelve-
session course of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and gradually learned to cope with 
her anxiety more effectively. By the end of treatment, her avoidance of social situations 
had decreased signiﬁcantly, and Rachel was much more comfortable in situations that 
previously made her very anxious.
CBT involves (1) identifying the thought patterns and behaviors that contribute to 
people’s negative feelings, such as anxiety, and (2) teaching people new ways of thinking 
and behaving to better manage their anxiety. This book will teach you the strategies 
commonly used in CBT for social anxiety. Before exploring those strategies, however, we 
will begin this chapter in the same way we usually begin treatment with the individuals 
we see in our program—with an overview of the nature of fear and anxiety in general, 
and of social anxiety in particular.
ANXIETY, WORRY, FEAR, AND PANIC
Everyone knows what it feels like to be afraid. Fear is a basic human emotion. In humans,