Effective Strategies for Social Anxiety and Perfectionism

Please note that all registrations have to be paid in full before the event takes place - otherwise you will miss out on receiving the Zoom link.

This event will be recorded for all those who are registered but can't make it on the day - recordings are available for a limited time only.

Social anxiety disorder is among the most prevalent of psychological problems, affecting up to 1 in 10 individuals. People with high levels of social anxiety often set unreasonable standards in social and performance situations and they often fear the possibility that they may not meet the standards of others. This presentation provides practical, step-by-step, evidence-based strategies for helping individuals to overcome perfectionism-driven social anxiety. Participants will learn cognitive strategies for challenging the most common beliefs that help to maintain both social anxiety and perfectionism. Exposure-based approaches will be suggested to help your clients to confront the situations that they currently fear. Mindfulness and acceptance-based strategies will also be discussed, providing alternatives to the usual “control-oriented” approaches that clients often use to manage their anxiety.

Learning Objectives

1. Discuss the features of social anxiety disorder and perfectionism, and describe how they interact
2. List a range of cognitive strategies that can be used to challenge anxiety-related and perfectionism-based thinking in social anxiety disorder
3. Discuss how exposure therapy can be used to confront situations that trigger social anxiety and perfectionism-related fears
4. Use a number of acceptance-based strategies to help clients shift from a control-focused state to an acceptance-focused state

PRESENTER: Dr MARTIN ANTONY (CA)

Dr. Martin M. Antony is Professor and Chair in the Department of Psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University. Previously, he was founding director of both the Anxiety Treatment and Research Clinic and the Psychology Residency Program at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton. He was also Clinical and Training Lead for the Ontario Structured Psychotherapy Program. Dr. Antony is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and he is a past president of the Canadian Psychological Association and the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. He has published 34 books and over 300 scientific articles and chapters in areas related to cognitive behavior therapy and anxiety-related disorders. He has given more than 425 presentations to audiences across four continents, and has been interviewed, featured, or quoted more than 450 times in various print, radio, television, and online media outlets, including BBC News, CBC, CNN, New York Times, O (Oprah) Magazine, Prevention Magazine, Reader’s Digest, Scientific American Mind, USA Today, Washington Post, and many others.

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