Social Anxiety

Social anxiety is more than feeling shy—it’s the longing to connect with others while your body reacts as if connection is dangerous. Many people who come to us for therapy for social anxiety have spent years masking their true selves, overthinking every interaction, and feeling drained by constant worry.

While CBT can help manage symptoms, our therapists go deeper. We explore what your anxiety might be protecting you from and what it’s been trying to say. We help you address the roots of your anxiety so you can feel more confident, connected, and at ease in the world.

Why Social Anxiety Makes Sense

Social anxiety often reflects not just a current fear, but a deeper emotional history:

  • You may have a sensitive or introverted temperament that makes you especially attuned to subtle social cues.
  • You may have grown up in environments where being vulnerable or expressive wasn’t safe—where connection meant risk, not comfort.
  • If you’re neurodivergent, your way of relating might not align with dominant social norms—but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It means the world wasn’t built for your way of thinking.
  • Cultural and family expectations may leave you caught between conflicting identities, unsure of how to “be” in certain spaces.

In all these cases, social anxiety is not a flaw—it’s an intelligent, protective response to real past experiences.

Our Approach

We specialize in working with clients whose social anxiety is rooted in complex personal, cultural, and relational dynamics. Our approach goes beyond surface-level coping techniques, drawing from:

  • Somatic and nervous system work — to restore a sense of safety in the body
  • Relational and developmental trauma healing — especially around visibility, rejection, or shame
  • Neurodiversity-affirming support — honoring sensitivity and divergence as strengths
  • Attachment-based therapy — to build trust, boundaries, and authentic connection



We don’t pathologize your anxiety—we help you understand it.

When you learn to relate to it with compassion, rather than fear, something profound shifts. You stop trying to not feel afraid, and instead, begin to trust that your fear won’t undo you.

You don’t have to perform to belong.
You don’t have to hide to stay safe.
You can be fully yourself—and still be connected.

FAQs

Social anxiety often stems from past experiences where vulnerability felt unsafe—such as childhood rejection, cultural pressure, or neurodivergent masking. It’s not just irrational fear; it’s a protective response shaped by your emotional history.

Therapy helps by addressing the deeper emotional and nervous system patterns behind social anxiety—not just the surface behaviors. Through somatic work and trauma-informed support, clients learn to feel safe in their bodies, set boundaries, and connect authentically without fear.

Many people with social anxiety are deeply sensitive or neurodivergent. Your social fear may come not from a lack of social skills, but from the mismatch between your natural way of relating and cultural expectations.

Other issues we treat

Depression

Depression isn’t always obvious. For many people, especially those with a history of trauma, depression doesn’t show up as sadness or tears — it shows up as numbness, fatigue, disconnection, or a sense of not really being here.

Find out more

Medical Trauma

Trauma isn’t just about what happened—it’s about how your mind and body had to adapt to survive. Whether the trauma was acute or ongoing, physical or emotional, its imprint can linger in the nervous system as fear, numbness, shame, or disconnection.

Find out more

Self Esteem

Overcoming low self-esteem is less like becoming a new person, and more like finally coming home to yourself.

Find out more

Grief & Loss

Grief can feel like an unpredictable, exhausting tidal force—physical, emotional, and haunting all at once. Whether you’re grieving the finality of death or a more ambiguous loss—a breakup, estrangement, miscarriage, the loss of a role, dream, youth, abilities, innocence, job, home, faith, or worldview—grief shows up when something deeply meaningful is gone.

Find out more

Career Stress & Burnout

The pressures of modern life are real. The fast pace and multi-dimensional nature of life – work, school, family, social challenges and the baseline intensity of life can inspire us or push us beyond our limits.

Find out more

Chronic Pain

Is pain in your body—or your brain? The truth is, pain isn’t just physical. It’s also shaped by your emotions, thoughts, and even your relationships.

Find out more
Online therapy

More comfortable at home?

Online therapy lets you connect with our therapists from the safety and ease of your own space; no commute, no waiting room, just support where you feel most at ease.

You’re in the right place

Take the first step toward healing. Get in touch and we’ll walk with you from there.