Week 1 Recap

Welcome back to the DBT for Social Anxiety Course. Last week we covered the following topics on social anxiety: 

• What is social anxiety
• Differences between shyness, social anxiety, and social anxiety disorder
• Causes of social anxiety
• A model of social anxiety
• Factors that maintain social anxiety
• Understanding social anxiety in your own life

We discussed how the factors that maintain social anxiety can become targets for intervention and that, by changing them, we can break the cycle and put a stop to social anxiety once and for all. We then introduced DBT as a therapeutic framework for tackling social anxiety and discussed:

• What is DBT?
• Principles of DBT
• How DBT can help with social anxiety 
• Making a commitment to change

If you need to refresh your memory on these topics, please refer back to Week 1.

Action Plan Review

Your action plan for last week was to:

• List your reasons for change
• Complete the pros and cons of change exercise
• Make a contract with yourself and set some goals
• Use the Social Anxiety Diary to start noticing when, where, and how your anxiety shows up  

How did you go? 

If you completed your action plan tasks, well done! Looking at your Social Anxiety Diary, what situations tended to trigger your anxiety? Were you able to notice your own negative self-talk and self-defeating behaviour? Take a moment to reflect on what you learned before jumping into the education content for Week 2.

If you didn’t get a chance to complete these tasks, we encourage you to go back and do so before taking on Week 2.

Week 2 Outline

This week we jump into the world of mindfulness. 

You will learn about what mindfulness is, its many benefits, and how it can help specifically with social anxiety. You will also learn helpful mindfulness skills and strategies that you can apply in your own life.