My Comparison of Common Social
Anxiety Disorder Treatment

There are two common types of social anxiety disorder treatment:

1. One-on-one counseling for social anxiety disorder

2. Social anxiety group therapy

This page shows you the 2 main treatment options for social anxiety, in the hope that it will help you to decide which one best suits your needs.

It is my understanding that these social anxiety disorder treatments have a limited effectiveness - and that there's a better solution than either of them. More on that at the end of this page.

1-on-1 Counseling Vs Group Therapy:
Effectiveness

Group therapy should bring you better results than 1-on-1, although not by much.

With group therapy you at least get to practice social situations so that you can see for yourself that they're not threatening. In one-on-one counseling, it's just you and the therapist talking.

Both of these therapies usually adopt a CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) approach. I'm convinced that this doesn't work because social anxiety disorder is a subconscious problem, yet CBT works with the conscious mind.

The conscious mind cannot, in and of itself, affect the subconscious positively - that's why I believe CBT to be, in terms of social anxiety disorder treatment, ineffective. It just isn't the best treatment for social phobia.

Comparison of Cost

Given that group therapy is made up of other clients too, you should be able to share the cost between you. This should mean that group therapy works out cheaper per person, than one-on-one therapy.

One-on-one therapy can cost hundreds of dollars per session. It can vary depending on where you live, what your income is and how well established the therapist is.

How Easily Can I Find These Therapies?

You should have no problem finding 1-on-1 therapy if you live in a Westernized country. A visit to the doctor will probably be enough for a referral to some kind of counsellor.

Group therapy is a little harder to find. 

The logistics are the problem. Trying to get 5-10 people to all show up at the same time with regularity isn't so easy.

These social anxiety disorder treatments
don't work so well

The cognitive behavioural approach is the problem. This is because as I said before, SAD is a type of subconscious conditioning, and conscious cognitive techniques can't affect the subconscious mind. 

My article Why Traditional Social Anxiety Treatments Don't Work can show you more on this.

You Already Have Everyone You Need
To Beat Social Anxiety

In yourself, and a world that isn't as frightening as your mind thinks, you have everything you need to beat SAD.

Your subconscious mind has some faulty conditioning. The help that health professionals can give you is limited - it's YOUR brain, remember.

You, just you, are the one capable of giving 99.9% of the help needed. My article Treating Social Anxiety Disorder By Yourself will help you see that this is the truth.