Can Therapy Help with Social Anxiety?
You replay conversations in your head. You dread meetings or parties for days. You worry about saying the wrong thing, coming across badly, or simply being noticed at all.
Social anxiety can feel like living under a spotlight - one you never asked for. Even everyday situations, like ordering coffee or joining a group chat, can leave you flushed, tense, or panicking inside.
Here in our Edinburgh practice, we meet many people who live with social anxiety. Some come because they want to feel more confident. Others just want to stop feeling like they're constantly under threat. Therapy can help - not by changing who you are, but by understanding where this fear comes from, and what it might need.
What is social anxiety?
Social anxiety is more than just shyness. It’s an ongoing fear of embarrassment, judgment, or rejection in social situations - one that can affect work, relationships, and your overall sense of safety in the world.
It might show up as:
Avoiding phone calls, group gatherings, or speaking in meetings
Rehearsing what you’ll say - or replaying what you said - over and over
Physical symptoms like a racing heart, dry mouth, or shaky hands
Feeling exposed, ashamed, or as though everyone is watching you
Worrying for hours (or days) about how you came across
What makes social anxiety especially painful is that it touches one of our most human needs: connection. The desire to be seen is often tangled with the fear of being judged. And so, social situations can feel like emotional minefields.
Where does social anxiety come from?
There’s no single cause. Often, social anxiety has roots in early experiences - perhaps a time when it wasn’t safe to express yourself, or when mistakes led to shame, criticism, or withdrawal.
Some people grow up in families or environments where they learned to stay small or unnoticed to avoid trouble. Others may have experienced bullying, humiliation, or exclusion that shaped how they see themselves in relation to others.
At its core, social anxiety often develops as a form of self-protection. If you’re constantly bracing for judgment, it may be because you learned - somewhere along the way - that judgment can hurt.
How therapy can help
At Room for Therapy in Edinburgh, we offer a calm, accepting space where you don’t have to perform, impress, or explain yourself.
We don’t aim to “fix” social anxiety with tips or tricks. Instead, we help you understand your anxiety as something that makes sense in light of your story. Therapy can:
Provide a consistent, non-judgmental relationship where you can feel safe enough to explore what’s going on
Help you notice the patterns and beliefs that keep social anxiety in place
Gently explore early experiences that may have shaped your fear of being seen or misunderstood
Support you to begin relating differently - not just to others, but to yourself
We work relationally and at depth. That means we pay attention not just to your symptoms, but to the whole of your experience - including what hasn’t had space to be expressed.
An example from our practice
One client, who worked in a professional role, came to therapy after years of avoiding team meetings and social invitations. She described feeling physically sick before every presentation, and spending hours worrying that colleagues thought she was awkward or incompetent.
In therapy, we explored how she had learned early on that it was safer to stay quiet than risk saying the “wrong” thing. Over time, our sessions became a place where she could try saying the things she’d been holding in - without fear of ridicule or rejection.
It didn’t happen overnight. But slowly, she began to feel less frozen. Her fear didn’t vanish completely, but it no longer controlled her.
You don’t have to manage it alone
Living with social anxiety can be exhausting. It can limit the relationships, opportunities, and ease that you long for. But you don’t have to tackle it alone - or “fix” yourself to be worthy of connection.
Therapy offers a relationship where you can be met just as you are. And in that meeting, something often shifts - not because you’re doing anything differently, but because you’re being seen in a new way.
If you’d like to explore more about how social anxiety works, this Mind article is a good starting point.
If you’re based in Edinburgh or nearby and are living with social anxiety, our team is here when you’re ready. You can learn more on our Therapy for Anxiety page or get in touch directly.
To hear more about the support we offer or to begin a conversation with us, reach our using our contact form or email us at contact@roomfortherapy.co.uk