Helping Your Shy and Socially Anxious Client

Henderson, Lynne

• Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781608829637

Helping Your Shy And Socially Anxious Client presents a breakthrough therapeutic approach to treating social anxiety.In a world dominated by extroverts, being shy or socially anxious can make life especially challenging. And while there is nothing wrong with being naturally introverted, avoiding social contact due to extreme fear and anxiety can be very damaging both mentally and physically.As a therapist, you understand that avoidance can often make a client's anxiety worse. But many clients with shyness and social anxiety believe they can never change. In fact, they may strategically adjust their lives to avoid social activities or situations that make them uncomfortable. In a sense, they allow their social "muscles" to atrophy, and in the end may become even more alienated and despondent. There is hope.

Just as physical fitness strengthens the body, "social fitness" can be developed through habit and action. In Helping Your Shy and Socially Anxious Client, shyness expert Lynne Henderson presents the Social Fitness program—a twelve session cognitive behavioral model for clients with shyness and social anxiety. Inside, mental health professionals will learn powerful tools for helping clients strengthen their social skills, track their successes, and learn to cope with setbacks or hurdles.

The techniques described in this manual were developed for the Stanford Shyness Clinic by Philip Zimbardo, and are currently being used by the Shyness Institute in Berkeley to educate therapists and other counselors. Find out more at shyness.com.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Redefining Shyness and Its Treatment
• Twelve-Session Treatment Plan Overview
• Session One: The Initial Evaluation
• Session Two: Constructing a Hierarchy
• Session Three: Cognitive Restructuring and the First Simulated Exposure
• Session Four: Attributional Restructuring and Exposure
• Session Five: Cognitive, Attributional, and Self-Concept Restructuring
• Session Six: Challenging Negative Attributions and Beliefs About Others
• Session Seven: More Practice in Changing Negative Thoughts and Beliefs
• Session Eight: Automatic Thoughts About Others and the Third Vicious Cycle
• Session Nine: Exposures and Progress Assessment
• Session Ten: Exposures and Anticipating Closure
• Session Eleven: More Exposures and Anticipating Closure
• Session Twelve: Review of Progress and Closure
• Interpersonal Social-Skills Training
• Appendix A: Answer Key for Attribution Style Quiz
• Appendix B: Final Interview Outline
• Appendix C: Letter to Friends
• Appendix D: Therapist Instructions for BAT
• Appendix E: Thought Listing Form
• References