Online Counseling In Chicago and Across Illinois

Counseling for Social confidence and anxiety

Unlock the power inside and be at peace with yourself

It’s not always easy knowing the right thing to say or how to connect.

The social awkwardness, the self defeating thoughts, the crippling anxiety, and feeling at a loss for words. It’s time for a change.

Do you ever find yourself in social situations where your anxiety takes the driver seat? You might feel like it’s hard to make friends, speak up in class or work, or even find a date for Friday night. What’s sometimes even more frustrating is watching others who seem to connect and relate with ease. As a result, you may stay on the sidelines where it safe.

Confidence and self-esteem building may seem like a challenging task, but it IS possible! You don’t have to live life through your phone or only interact with people through a computer. You can advocate for your needs and set healthy boundaries. With therapy for social confidence and anxiety, you’ll take back your power and unlock your true self.

MY APPROACH TO SOCIAL CONFIDENCE AND ANXIETY

ESTABLISHING GOALS FOR YOURSELF

The first step to social confidence & anxiety freedom is establish what you want to see different in yourself. Do you want to make new connections? Or speak with ease in a large group? Maybe you want to just feel more comfortable while being around coworkers or peers. In this stage, we will also discuss the origins of anxiety and potential barriers to reaching the goals we set.

OVERCOMING INTENSE EMOTIONS

Did you know that social confidence can often be rooted in trauma? Trauma can include having feelings of intense fear, deep rooted depression, or even flashbacks and nightmares! While not everyone will have extreme emotions related to social confidence, it’s important that we remain collaborative and not rush this process. That is why we need to focus on calming the body before working on the psychological and behavioral factors. I do this by drawing from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), and other cutting edge grounding techniques.

IMPLEMENTATION OF NEW SKILLS

Once we establish your goals and have incorporated techniques to calm the body, the next step is to implement your new skills in a social context. Here we will work on various strategies to enhance communication and relationship building skills. Then we will look for opportunities to practice in the real world (not just from a CPU). Remember, we will decide on goals together and move at your pace! I will never want to push you into something you are not ready for.

Therapy for Social Confidence and Anxiety Can Help.

Together, we will work on:

  • Finding the root causes of anxiety

  • Focusing on the processes that happen before, during, & after a social event

  • Learning grounding techniques that help rebalance your emotional state

  • Enhancing communication skills

  • Setting boundaries and learning self-compassion

  • Finding new opportunities and settings to make new connections

  • Breaking the “old patterns” of self-defeating thoughts and behaviors

  • Overcoming trauma from Narcissistic Abuse (A common barrier to social confidence)

  • Learning to develop healthy relationships

It is possible to take your power back and break free from anxiety.

Therapy for social confidence and anxiety can give you the support you need to make lasting meaningful connections and shut down the anxiety monster for good.

FAQS

Common Questions About Social Confidence & Anxiety Counseling

  • In the first session, I will learn about you and your goals from therapy. Sessions are typically 50 minutes each. From there, we will create a roadmap that we both agree upon to get to those goals.

  • Therapy is tailored uniquely to the individual. Therefore, some individuals might find they see results faster whereas other it might take more time. I typically try to be as collaborative as possible in this process. I won’t ever put you in a position where you feel unsafe or uncomfortable.

  • In course of this treatment, we are going to prioritize taking smaller steps towards larger goals. We will only move forward when you feel comfortable enough to do so. However, in order to overcome social anxiety, it does require to engage in social settings from time to time.

  • It is often common that individuals who struggle with anxiety and self-confidence issues to have had a relationship(s) with someone with strong personality traits. These traits can often include being overly aggressive and manipulative. If you have had one of these relationships (or trying to get out of one) we will work on first understanding how these traits affect you and strategies to move forward.

  • Absolutely! If you have relationship trauma and are trying to enhance your self-esteem and anxiety, we need to attend to the trauma first. Once the trauma is cleared, then we can employ interventions to boost confidence and diminish excess worry.