CBT has been shown to be extremely effective for social anxiety. Dr. McGinn and the team at CBC have developed comprehensive CBT treatment plans for social anxiety that combine evidence-based CBT treatments developed by Richard Heimberg, Samuel Turner, Deborah Beidel, Carrie Masa, and others to help children, adolescents, and adults reduce and manage their anxiety, and lead fulfilling lives.
CBC’s social anxiety program includes a combination of individual and group therapy. Patients learn new skills in group therapy and learn to apply skills in their daily lives with their individual therapist. Parents and families may also be involved in treatment, especially if the client is under the age of 18. By adopting this type of comprehensive treatment approach, therapists help clients to gain new skills for managing anxiety and provide them with a place for practicing these skills so that they generalize to the client’s life outside of treatment.
Individual CBT therapists will provide the following:
Family sessions focus on helping caregivers to learn more about social anxiety, the nature of anxiety, and ways to most effectively support their family member in engaging in this treatment and using the skills learned during this treatment. This modality is used on an as-needed basis.
To complement individual therapy or act as a stand-alone treatment, CBC offers social anxiety group treatment. The group setting provides a unique opportunity to gain exposure to social situations that elicit anxiety and practice newly acquired skills in vivo, with coaching and feedback from skilled clinicians and supportive peers. All groups are offered in our White Plains location.
This group is designed to help adolescents (9th through 12th grade students) who experience difficulty with anxiety in social settings such as school, with friends/peers, when participating in extracurricular activities, or when performing in public. The main goal is to boost group members’ comfort, confidence, and competence in these situations. The group helps adolescents gain a better understanding of social anxiety, challenge worry thoughts they experience in social situations, learn valuable social skills to improve their confidence in these situations, and practice facing their fears in real-time.
The social anxiety group meets weekly for 16 weeks and is 90 minutes in length. Group sessions are based on the evidence-based treatments Social Effectiveness Therapy for Children and Adolescents (Beidel, Turner, & Morris, 2003) and Skills for Academic and Social Success (Masia,Warner, Fisher, Shrout, Rathor & Klein, 2007) and include:
The social anxiety adult group meets weekly for 12 weeks and is based on the evidence-based treatment Cognitive Behavior Group Therapy developed by Heimberg and Becker (2002).
Please contact our Director of Intake Services at 212-595-9559 (ext.1) or 914-385-1150 (ext.1), or fill out the form above, with any questions regarding eligibility, for further information, or to make a referral. If you are a current patient at CBC, please speak to your individual therapist to see how this group may be of added benefit to you.