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Social Anxiety

Social Anxiety Disorder Counseling

  • Grow beyond social stigmas
  • Face social situations with confidence
  • Develop your self-esteem and confidence
Find a Therapist 855-722-4422
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What is Social Anxiety Disorder?

Social anxiety is marked by an extreme fear of social situations, often due to a person's worry that others will view them negatively. But don't feel alone; our anxiety counselors are here to assist you every step of the way.

Social anxiety attacks can affect your life in ways you never expected. It can be all-consuming, triggered by something specific, or pop up at inconvenient times. Anxiety can manifest in many ways, affect people around you, and appear in different forms and intensities. Our experienced social anxiety disorder counselors help you face your fears and live the life you aspire for.

Social Anxiety Disorder
Social Anxiety Therapy for Men

Social anxiety in adults, specifically men, can interfere with their daily functioning leading to extreme distress and performance anxiety.

Social Anxiety Therapy for Women

Women with a social anxiety disorder might have difficulty meeting and communicating with new people, maintaining relationships, and attending social events.

Social Anxiety Therapy for Children

Children with social anxiety disorder experience severe distress over everyday situations. Constant feelings of being watched or judged may unsettle and bother them.

Signs of Social Anxiety Disorder You Should Not Overlook

Social Anxiety looks distinct from person to person. But people who have an anxiety disorder usually experience some or most of these symptoms:

  • Excessive self-consciousness

  • Avoiding social situations

  • Sweating & trembling

  • Accelerated heartbeat

  • Blood Pressure issues

  • Muscle Tension

  • Inability to Catch a Breath

Social Anxiety is a natural stress response triggered by various stress-inducing events or experiences like:

  • Genetics
  • Unique Neurology
  • Environmental Factors

How Can Social Anxiety Disorder Be Treated?

You don’t have to allow anxiety to keep you from your best life. Our social anxiety therapists help you with an inclusive treatment process for a balanced life.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) works well for treating social anxiety disorder. Based on the belief that what you feel affects how you think, and your emotions affect your behavior, CBT seeks to work on how you feel about social situations that give you anxiety.

Our social anxiety counseling will help you to learn how to manage anxiety symptoms through relaxation techniques and breathing practices. Counseling for social anxiety disorder will allow you to challenge the negative thoughts that trigger and fuel social anxiety, substitute them with more balanced views, and help you face the social situations you stress in a gradual, organized way rather than avoiding them.

Interpersonal Therapy

This form of psychotherapy assists you with underlying personal issues impacting your social, private, or professional life. In some cases, this can pertain to unresolved suffering, sudden shifts in your everyday life, or disagreements with loved ones and peers. Interpersonal therapy as a social anxiety disorder treatment aims to develop healthy communication skills and understand how you can relate them to resolving burdens and conflicts. It’s one of the most common therapy methods in treating social anxiety disorder.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

The goal of acceptance and commitment therapy is to ease the struggle to manage anxious thoughts and increase involvement in meaningful actions that align with your life goals. It underlines acceptance as a way to deal with unhealthy thoughts, emotions, signs, or circumstances and prompts increased commitment to a healthy life and healing journey.

Teletherapy

Teletherapy can support those with a social anxiety disorder who might prefer to avoid in-person treatment. This is expected due to anxiety encountering someone new in person, even if their role is an anxiety counselor. Having that extra space and time can enhance results for people with social anxiety since their anxiety isn’t intensified by being in the physical presence of a counselor.

Peer Support Programs

Peer support programs provide an opportunity for people who have gained considerable healing from social anxiety treatments to aid others in their recovery journeys.
Peer specialists prompt healing, enhance hope, network through role modeling and activation, and augment existing treatment with teaching and empowerment.

Meet Our Social Anxiety Therapists

Our social anxiety disorder counselors assist you in developing coping skills as you advance down the road to a healthier and more confident you!

Insurance We Accept

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Book Your Appointment

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Fortunately, various social anxiety treatment options like therapies are available for treating social anxiety disorder. These treatment plans are tailored according to the person’s specific needs based on the intensity of the disorder and its influence on the quality of life. Different important therapies include -
  • Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
  • Exposure therapy
  • Group therapy

Although social anxiety disorder centers upon social circumstances, it can affect all areas of a person’s life, such as - work, school, relationships, finances, etc. It can prevent one from developing more open connections with best friends and close family members or new relationships. It may lead the person to avoid giving presentations or providing essential insights at work. People with a social anxiety disorder might look like they are protecting themselves from potential judgment or rejection, which might make them miss out on the important joy that can come from -
  • Attending functions
  • Meeting interesting people
  • Taking new opportunities
  • Trying out new things

Lifebulb therapists and counselors specialized in providing in-person or online therapy, social anxiety counseling, care, and treatment for a wide variety of mental healthcare needs and issues, including, but not limited to, anxiety, depression, grief & loss, trauma, PTSD, couples counseling, marriage counseling, life transitions, adjustment disorders, bipolar, schizophrenia, eating disorders, child counseling, teen and adolescent therapy, anger management, career coaching, life coaching, ADHD treatment, family therapy, panic or social anxiety attack, phobias, substance abuse, virtual therapy, online counseling, EMDR, EFT, and many more.

Your first session with a Lifebulb social anxiety therapist or counselor won't simply be a background or demographic information-gathering session - We know deciding to get help is a big deal and a difficult step. That's why our first offline or online therapy session with you will be about providing you with the service you're seeking and proving that the therapy process can work with the right effort and commitment from both sides.

We believe getting access to a social anxiety disorder specialist or counselor should be quick and easy. So our process is straightforward. Simply browse our therapists' bios to find the right fit for you and schedule a virtual social anxiety counseling or in-person social anxiety counseling session online. Or call our office, and a team member can help make sure you're matched with the right social anxiety therapist or counselor for you and your goals. Whether online social anxiety disorder treatment therapy or offline therapy, your therapist will help you with an individualized social anxiety disorder treatment plan to help you reach your specific goals.

If you are experiencing an emergency right now, please call 911 right away.

While Lifebulb is not a crisis social anxiety clinic and Lifebulb social anxiety therapists and counselors are not emergency services, we understand that urgent matters can and will pop up from time to time. You will have direct email and phone access to your therapist or social anxiety treatment center, who will make their best effort to be available to you when you reach out. Depending on your specific social anxiety disorder treatment plan, your social anxiety therapist may provide you with resources to use or contact when situations occur beyond the scope of your online therapy or offline therapy work together.

When you book a session with your therapist or counselor, our team will email you a confirmation of your appointment date and time with a link to the virtual social anxiety counseling room. Click the link and log in to the virtual therapy room a few minutes before your session, and your social anxiety disorder specialists will meet you there.

Yes. All of our therapists are able to provide best online social anxiety therapy and social anxiety disorder treatment services for our clients including for social anxiety in young adults.

We use a HIPAA-compliant video counseling service integrated into our Electronic Health Records System to provide a smooth process for our clients to engage in online social anxiety counseling sessions. Booking a session with us is easy. Simply call our office or request a specific session time from our website, and a team member can book you with the best possible fit as a therapist or confirm your online session details. We'll review insurance information and a few simple policies and email you a confirmation of your session date and time, whether in-person or virtual therapy.

We have a flexible cancellation policy. Simply call our office or reach out to your counselor 24 hours or more before your social anxiety counseling session time to cancel or reschedule an in-person or virtual therapy appointment.

Booking a session for social anxiety disorder treatment with us is easy and flexible, with several options. You can call our office, and a team member can book you with the best fit-in therapist. We'll review insurance information and a few simple policies and email you a confirmation of your session date and time, whether in-person or virtual. Or you can select your ideal therapist from our website, select a session time that works for you, and we'll reach out to you to confirm your appointment details.

We have a flexible cancellation policy. Call our office or reach out to your counselor or social anxiety therapist 24 hours or more before your online therapy session time to cancel or reschedule any appointment at no cost.

Social anxiety disorder treatment is often a long-term process that can help in improving overall mental health. It has been demonstrated that therapy can enhance feelings and behaviors and is associated with healthy adjustments to the brain and body. There is never a guaranteed "social anxiety cure," but therapy helps make positive lifestyle changes.

Social anxiety disorder, or ‘Social Phobia,’ is marked by an extreme, continual fear of social circumstances. Anyone with social anxiety disorder would be intensely worried about people discriminating against them or getting embarrassed before others. People with this disorder fear social interactions, getting observed, etc. They might also be fearful of others, sensing that they are anxious. The fear is irrelevant compared to the genuine threat of the actual situation, which often results in avoiding social problems, making the situation worse.

The exact causes of social anxiety disorder aren’t known. But, it’s possibly due to a combination of factors, including genetic and environmental concerns, like -
  • Immediate family members have social anxiety and either develop a genetic risk or accidentally create anxious social behavior.
  • Having a history of nerve-racking events, like teasing, family conflicts, trauma, or bullying
  • Highly controlling or overprotective parenting

Social anxiety in adults and kids tends to exhibit particular symptoms, actions, and thoughts when required to perform in front of or be around other people. The following are physical and physiological signs of social anxiety disorder:
  • They can blush, sweat, tremble, or experience heart palpitations in social situations.
  • Feeling so anxious in social situations that it makes them sick.
  • Avoid making eye contact with others when interacting with them.
  • Maintaining a rigid body stance around other people.
Here are a few examples of situations that might trigger these symptoms include:
  • When meeting new people
  • When talking to strangers
  • When speaking up in group settings like meetings
  • When going to school or work
  • When using public toilets
  • When being watched during eating or drinking
  • When public speaking
If you have been experiencing any of the above mentioned symptoms, we suggest you should seek help; you can reach out to Lifebulb with our 24x7 active helpline or simply search for us online using terms like ‘social anxiety counseling near me,’ ‘social anxiety therapist near me,’ or ‘treatment for social anxiety in adults,’ ‘counseling for social anxiety disorder.’

We accept many major commercial insurance plans for social anxiety disorder treatment, including Aetna, Amerihealth, Cigna, Optum Health, United Healthcare, Tricare, and others. If you don't see your insurance listed, we would be happy to verify your benefits to see if we can accept them, and if not, we offer you an affordable self-pay rate.

At Lifebulb, we operate without any ongoing membership or fees. We believe that everyone deserves to receive the best online social anxiety disorder treatment service experience. And we believe those benefits should come free of any ongoing out-of-pocket fees simply for engaging in therapy. With us, your only session costs will be those set by your insurance provider or our low self-pay rate.

While many practices accept only self-pay clients or out-of-network benefits, at Lifebulb, we aim to keep your costs low by accepting most major insurance plans. Often the out-of-pocket expense per online therapy session is a low copay determined by your specific insurance provider and plan. We also offer a self-pay rate lower than many practices for those without insurance or simply preferring not to use their healthcare benefits for in-person or virtual counseling for social anxiety disorder.

At Lifebulb, we are extremely picky about who we hire to help you achieve your therapy goals. But we understand that every social anxiety therapist may not be the perfect match for every client. If your therapy experience is less than you hoped, we will help you get set up to see someone you prefer.

While the majority of our clients opt to have their insurance benefits to get treatment for social anxiety in adults online, we offer a self-pay rate, which may vary slightly by geography and therapist licensure.

We take the responsibility of maintaining your privacy seriously. Lifebulb is considered a covered entity under HIPAA guidelines, which means we are subject to all HIPAA rules and regulations. If you have any questions (or recommendations) about our privacy and security practices, we want to help. Contact us at privacy@lifebulb.com.

Therapists that don't enjoy their workplace are often, unfortunately, unable to provide their clients with the best possible level of social anxiety counseling and therapy. That's why at Lifebulb, our social anxiety therapists are our top priority. This means that your counselor or therapist can provide you, their client, with the best social anxiety treatment because they enjoy the work they do in session with you, where they work, and who they work with.

Our online social anxiety counseling sessions are all conducted by our therapist aid social anxiety in private spaces, and our video platform is contained within our HIPAA-compliant Electronic Health Records system, so your face, voice, and data are always private and protected.

Lifebulb is considered a covered entity under HIPAA guidelines, which means we are subject to all HIPAA rules and regulations. If you have any questions (or recommendations) about our privacy and security practices, we want to help. Contact us at privacy@lifebulb.com.

At Lifebulb, our biggest difference lies in our therapists. Many practices, large and small, often put growing businesses before growing people. It may sound simple, but at Lifebulb, we treat our therapists like valuable people that provide a valuable service. What does that mean for our clients? While we believe therapists and counselors, regardless of where they work, do their best for their clients, we've found that therapists who genuinely enjoy where they work are able to provide the best therapy for social anxiety disorder to those they help. To that end, our primary goal at Lifebulb is to provide our therapists with the best possible environment in which to operate. In doing so, we believe Lifebulb clients are best positioned to accomplish their goals regarding treatment for social anxietyin adults through in-person counseling or virtual therapy for social anxiety disorder.

At Lifebulb, we are extremely selective about the therapists we hire because we know choosing the right therapist can make all the difference in our clients reaching their goals. Our social anxiety therapists are all educated at the masters level and above and have received several years of hands-on training before becoming fully licensed clinicians. Even among the pool of highly trained therapists, we only work with those who align with our core values. That way, we know your social anxiety therapist will go the extra mile to help you and offer the best therapy for social anxiety disorder online or in-person counseling.

Lifebulb’s social anxiety clinics has several locations for providing in-person counseling and is adding more regularly. We also provide telehealth or online therapy session services for those who may live distant from our offices.

All our counselors are highly educated and trained and have received their full clinical licensure from practicing counseling. We also thoroughly interview each of our therapists, ensure that they pass a background check, and train them in-house to work with us. Additionally, we ensure that each of our counselors and therapists participates in ongoing education to continue to provide the best in-person social anxiety disorder treatment and online therapy services possible.

It is important that our clients work with the best possible fit as a social anxiety therapist for their specific treatments for social anxiety disorder. This is why we provide detailed bios of our therapists for our clients to review before reaching out to us. If you have a specific social anxiety therapist in mind to work with, we would be happy to schedule you to see them. We also understand that our clients don't always match perfectly with their therapist, and in the case of a less-than-great fit, we will help you to find the right match among our team and, if necessary, provide the best referral we can to someone more suited to help you beyond our walls.

A professional counselor is a master- or PhD-level mental health professional approved by a state licensure board to diagnose and treat mental health disorders. The exact name of a professional counselor's license can vary by state, but some of the most common are: Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC), Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC), and Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC).

We do employ licensed clinical psychologists, as psychologists can offer services, such as best social anxiety disorder treatment and psychological testing, that many other license types are unable to offer. Many times, your counselor or therapist can work in tandem with a psychologist to provide therapy and psychological testing when necessary to better provide for your specific needs or goals. In this way, we are able to better provide for a wider range of your needs.