CDs

Specific cognitive therapy methods we discuss, 
with a full explanation and printed handout: 

1.  How to focus externally... and stop listening to your internal anxieties and fears.

2.  "I Can't Do It!" thinking and how to change it.  You can do many more things than you imagine right now, if we go about it in the right way.  We discuss how to get going in the appropriate way to overcome social anxiety...by NOT facing big fears.

3.  More questions for our brain:
"The Power Statements": Why should we let other people cause us emotional pain?  Why should we let our own thoughts cause us depression and pain?
Why should we let other people get under our skin?

4.  The Profound Concept:
Why we must start slowly DOING things before we begin to FEEL better.
We can't wait around to "feel better" before we act...otherwise, we'll be waiting around forever.  Why taking the initiative first -- allows you to feel less anxious, more calm, and more at peace.

5.  Why to avoid irrational expectations.  Why expectations can harm us, and how to develop healthy and rational expectations.

6.  The Vicious Anxiety Cycle: How to kick dents in it, shrink it, and gradually step out of it.

Audio session #12

Specific cognitive therapy methods we discuss, 
with a full explanation and printed handout: 

1. Why it is important to act against your negative feelings (i.e., anxiety, frustration, irritation, anger, fear, and depression).  When you act against your negative emotions in the proper manner, your negative emotions have no choice but to shrink. 

2.  Why we feel we are living in a hostile world... and how we can start to see things more realistically and rationally, so that we can be happy.

3.  Changing our perceptions of the world around us by focusing on the good, the better, and the beautiful.  

4.  Eliminating anxiety and fear: Remember, it's still a paradox.

Audio session #13

Specific cognitive therapy methods we discuss, 
with a full explanation and printed handout: 

1.  Targeting the Emotional Brain (the mid-region section):
Stay out of the twilight zone ... move into the peace zone.  We want our good, healthy and positive feelings to grow ...  and we want to FEEL them.  The Peace Zone concept gives us a strategy to FEEL these emotions --  as we practice  our therapy (in our quiet time at home).

2.  Seeing and focusing on the present.  
How and why to stay focused on the present moment and be happy in it.  When we are content in the present moment, we never need to worry about the future ... you will be setting yourself up for contentment and peace.  

3.  Why acceptance of yourself and your progress is important.
How to "feel" the acceptance, the relaxation, and the peace.  Why we must stop fighting and start accepting ... how feeling this acceptance speeds our recovery..

4.  Determined Slow Talk:
Another method to use (at home) that allows us to FEEL relaxation, calmness, peace, and eventually confidence.  Using this method allows us to FEEL these emotions... and yes, we need to practice on growing our positive emotions, just as we practice on our cognitive therapy.

5.  Peace Zone: You are standing at the crossroads...
and have many important decisions to make... why it is easier now to see we have more choices than we thought at first, and how to keep making good choices and decisions

6.  Peace Zone: Rain is a paradox ...
On one hand it can darken the sky and ruin your day ... on the other hand, it can water the fields and the flowers and bring forth new life ...

Audio session #14

Specific behavioral therapy methods we discuss, 
with a full explanation and printed handout: 

This is the first tape to specifically cover the behavioral aspect of therapy.

1.  Behavioral therapy: the beginning
Why flooding does not work for social anxiety.  Why the opposite of flooding, avoidance, also does not work.  How to move forward in your life in the appropriate way -- so that you can make progress and feel confident.  What to do -- and what NOT to do.

2.  The Power of "Acting":
Behavioral therapy you can use in your own life.  How to get started and how to choose the right things to do.  

3.  The importance of a behavioral group.
A comprehensive cognitive-behavioral therapy group is explained on the next few tapes.  What is a social anxiety group like?  Why is it so different from other groups?  What do we do in a CCBT group?  How to get started and realize it is nowhere near as scary as you are thinking right now.  

4.  The behavioral "hierarchy":
What it is and how to use it.  A copy of it is in the workbook.  Determining where to start on your hierarchy ... basic rules for the behavioral group (e.g., no one is forced or coerced to do anything they do not want to do, etc.)  This must be a social anxiety behavioral group only -- mixes do not work -- why being around other people with social anxiety can be therapeutic and liberating as we work together to get better.

Audio session #15

Specific behavioral therapy methods we discuss, 
with a full explanation and printed handout: 

Behavioral therapy, tape two

1. The social anxiety behavioral group and how it works, part two

2.  Specific behavioral activities to help you work gradually up your hierarchy, part 1
group activities and individual activities within the therapy group are fully explained

3.  How to cut down on self-consciousness:
What you can do to reduce self-consciousness in your own life.  How to get started in the proper way.

4.  How to be assertive (not aggressive) when necessary
Why being assertive is important, how to learn to do it comfortably, and why it reduces our anxiety (surprise!).  When we can be assertive, we no longer need to be a doormat for anyone.  

5.  Experiments you can do in your life today.
How to experiment in the right way .. what to do to get started .. and how to continue "experimenting" to prove to yourself what is rational and true

Audio session #16

Specific behavioral therapy methods we discuss, 
with a full explanation and printed handout: 

1.  Continuation of the behavioral therapy group and its activities
Examples of all the major behavioral group activities are explained:
The circle of death, the stare chair, self-assertion role plays, pass the conversation, the house shout, true confessions, impromptu questions, popcorn questions, mingling parties, hello - I'm here!, etc.

2.  Behavioral activities and experiments you can do on your own, part two... how to start at the right place and move up from there slowly and successfully.... 

Audio session #17

Back to the cognitive therapy on this tape....

Specific cognitive therapy methods we discuss, 
with a full explanation and printed handout: 

1.  The role of repressed anger in anxiety.
How our buried anger may be causing us trouble today, and fanning the flames of our social anxiety.  What we can do about it ... so that we can move forward with our life, and leave the past in the past.

2.  Letting go of the negative past.
A "peace zone" handout specifically designed to allow us to release buried anger in the only way that works for social anxiety.  This must be handled gently, peacefully, and with our positive emotions.  We cannot forget the past -- that is neurologically impossible -- but we can learn to lose the negative feelings associated with traumatic events in the past.  But, we must be careful and do this in the right manner..

3.  What to do when the ANTs come crawling.
This is not a new method for us at this point, but it pulls together the therapy from several other places and reinforces this for us.  We always need to know what to do when we feel anxiety or depression calling .... and we must practice at this method...

4.  Why it is important to stay away from perfectionism and pressure
We can only do our best....and that's all we can do.  Then, we move on.
Trying to be "perfect" only adds fuel to the fire and increases our social anxiety.  How we can stop the double "p's" of perfectionism and pressure...

5.  The Perfectionism Pit
Why the need to be perfect increases social anxiety and how to stay out of the pit.

Audio session #18

These are the supplemental tapes we have had available for the last six months.  These tapes fit right in with the cognitive and "emotional brain" therapy we have already been doing...and they reinforce essential concepts.  You will probably also find them to be relaxing and calming.

Side One: Moving into The Peace Zone

Side Two:  Seeing the Present

Audio session #19

These are the supplemental tapes we have had available for the last six months.

Side One:  The Deserving Statements

Side Two: Letting Go of the Negative Past

Audio session #20

How to put the cognitive and the behavioral therapy together ... why this "synthesis" is important ...

Why continued repetition is necessary until social anxiety is gone...

What to do if you don't have a behavioral therapy group to attend and how to go about starting one...

You are the sculptor of your own life now.  This is easier to realize at this time than it was when you began.  How to keep going and realize you have this power and control over your life....you have many more reasonable and rational choices than you once thought....

Positive thoughts to dwell on ....

How have other people with social anxiety disorder responded
to this cognitive-behavioral therapy?

To order this audio therapy series: 


Social Anxiety Ordering Page

Or Go Back...

Audio Sessions #1-10

IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ:

Again, we would not want anyone to purchase this audio series believing that simply by listening to these tapes they will overcome social anxiety.  

These audio tapes are very close to the same therapy you would receive if you came to The Social Anxiety Institute and participated in our CCBT.  The one big exception, of course, is that this series is not tailored to you specifically, as we would do if you were physically here at SAI.  The audio series is designed for people with a (generalized) social anxiety and will cover all major areas and many related areas of social anxiety.  But, it cannot cover everything, and there may be some "gaps" concerning your own individual problems and the more generalized therapy on the audio sessions.  

You must be willing to set aside thirty (30) minutes a day to practice on the cognitive therapy. If this therapy does not become "learned" by your brain, it is not going to do any good.  On the other hand, if you gently get it down into your brain -- and repeat it over and over again -- your brain will respond and remember, and the methods, strategies and techniques that you practice....will become automatic in your mind as time goes by.

Nothing happens overnight, unfortunately.  The human brain cannot process all the "information" on these tapes in only twenty weeks.  If you follow the tapes as explained, you will see slow, but steady, progress.  This is explained in detail on the tapes.  

The point here is that if you expect to be "cured" of social anxiety in just a few short weeks, do not purchase these tapes - because nothing, even 1:1 therapy can do this.  

We need to be consistent and persistent with our practice to learn these new strategies and allow them to change our brain (i.e., thinking patterns, belief systems, etc.)  

The brain can only work so fast, and we cannot pressure it or force it to work faster.  "Cramming" therapy into our minds does not work.

We believe this audio tape series will prove much more helpful than books or articles because things are explained to you in detail, with examples, and you always have something tangible to practice.  On the other hand, we do not believe that this tape series will be comparable to treatment in person at SAI, for example.  An audio series cannot ever be as good as a comprehensive CBT program that is specifically run for social anxiety.