Can cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy help with social anxiety?

Social anxiety isn’t just about feeling nervous in certain situations. It’s a constant worry that can affect your daily life — your personal relationships, your work, and even your sense of self-worth. It often leads to avoiding social events or feeling self-conscious during simple interactions, and it can be exhausting.

If you’ve ever felt:

• an overwhelming fear of being judged or making a mistake
• avoiding events or conversations just to stay comfortable
• constantly overthinking how you came across
• getting stuck in a loop of negative thoughts
• worrying about what others might be thinking of you

You’re not alone. Social anxiety can feel isolating, but it doesn’t have to control your life. With the right help, it’s possible to break free from these cycles.

How cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy (CBH) helps with social anxiety

The first step in overcoming social anxiety is recognising the patterns that fuel it. Social anxiety doesn’t just show up in extreme situations — it can sneak into everyday moments, like:

• speaking up in meetings or at work
• attending a party or casual get-together
• making small talk with someone you don’t know well
• expressing your opinions or setting boundaries

It’s not just about avoiding these situations, either — it’s the thoughts you have about them that make the anxiety feel worse. Social anxiety often follows a predictable cycle:

Anticipatory anxiety: The worry starts long before the event even happens. What if I say the wrong thing? What if I look stupid?

Physical reactions: Your body reacts with a racing heart, sweating, or tightness in your chest.

Avoidance or safety actions: You might avoid the situation entirely or rely on coping mechanisms like rehearsing conversations in your head or trying to act “perfect.”

Reinforcement of anxiety: After avoiding the situation, you feel a brief relief, but in the long term, it only reinforces the idea that social situations are dangerous.

Why avoidance makes anxiety worse

Humans tend to repeat what feels familiar, even if it’s not helpful. If you’ve been avoiding social situations for a long time, your mind starts to believe that staying comfortable is the right choice. The problem is, when you avoid, you’re reinforcing the idea that social situations really are something to fear.

Here’s the thing: most people don’t notice the small mistakes we make in conversation the way our anxiety makes us think they do. People are usually more focused on themselves than on what you might be doing.

CBH helps break this habit of avoidance by challenging the thoughts and patterns that keep anxiety alive. Instead of running from situations, we slowly change the way you approach and experience them.

How CBT and hypnotherapy work together to help you

CBH combines cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) with hypnotherapy to target anxiety at both the conscious and subconscious levels. This combination improves outcomes and is highly effective because it works on multiple levels at once:

• CBT helps you develop the tools to challenge and reframe the thoughts and actions that fuel anxiety.
• Hypnotherapy reinforces new thought patterns and behaviours, making it easier to prepare for social situations by mentally rehearsing and approaching them in a calmer, more confident state.
• Mindfulness helps bring you back to the present moment, reducing the urge to overthink or judge yourself.

Together, these approaches add depth to therapy by linking thoughts, feelings, and actions in a more integrated way. When beliefs about yourself or social situations are deeply ingrained, hypnotherapy can help access them in a safe, supportive way, making the process smoother and more effective.

Breaking the cycle of social anxiety

Gradual exposure and mental rehearsal

Rather than throwing yourself into overwhelming situations all at once, CBH helps you ease into anxiety-provoking moments at your own pace. We start small — maybe rehearsing a conversation or mentally walking through a social event — and gradually build up to bigger challenges.

Hypnotherapy makes this process easier by helping you rehearse these situations in a relaxed, focused state. This makes facing real-life social situations feel more manageable.

Challenging negative thoughts

Social anxiety often feeds on thoughts like:

• “I’ll embarrass myself.”
• “Everyone’s judging me.”
• “I’m going to look stupid.”

CBT helps you notice these thoughts and start challenging them. Are they really true? What’s the worst that could happen, and how would you handle it? Hypnotherapy reinforces these new, balanced ways of thinking, so they feel more natural over time.

Rewriting automatic responses

Anxiety often leads to automatic reactions, like avoiding eye contact or rushing through conversations. Through CBH, we work on replacing these responses with more relaxed and confident reactions.

With practice, these new ways of responding to social situations will feel more natural—and eventually, the anxiety will start to ease.

Developing coping strategies

CBH also provides you with practical strategies to use in the moment, whether it’s a calming word or a mental image that helps you stay grounded during social interactions. Hypnotherapy makes these coping tools feel automatic, so you always have a resource to rely on when anxiety strikes.

CBH is a solution-focused, goal-oriented approach

One of the key benefits of cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy is that it’s solution-focused. Rather than diving deep into the past, we focus on understanding the problem in the present moment and working together to reduce it.

CBH is goal-oriented, meaning we identify clear objectives and take steps toward achieving them. This makes therapy feel practical and forward-moving.

Another advantage of CBH is its flexibility. We can adapt the pace to suit you, ensuring that each step feels manageable. Everyone’s journey is different, and we take things one step at a time.

Is CBH right for you?

If social anxiety has been holding you back, CBH offers a structured yet flexible way forward. Whether it’s something you’ve dealt with for years or something that’s just started to impact your life, CBH provides the tools and strategies to help you feel more comfortable in social situations.

Therapy is tailored to your needs, and progress happens at your own pace. Over time, social interactions will become easier, and your confidence will grow naturally.

If you're interested in exploring this approach, reach out to a therapist trained in both CBH and hypnotherapy. They can help you create a plan that works for you and support you in reducing and overcoming social anxiety.