Our thoughts and behaviours sometimes stem from our deeper beliefs and underlying assumptions about ourselves, other people and the world around us. Beliefs that perpetuate social anxiety might include things such as ‘there is something wrong with me’, ‘people things have always gone wrong in the past’, ‘no one understands how I feel’, ‘other people are mostly critical’. Such beliefs are probably based on negative experiences you have had in the past, or you may feel like the belief has always been with you. Please see our page on causes of social anxiety disorder.

Where negative beliefs about ourselves or others have been able to develop they often act like a negative filter, affecting so much of how we think, feel and behave.

How to challenge Negative Beliefs

As with negative thoughts, the “challenging” process starts with trying to identify the difficult negative beliefs you hold that may stop you from making progress.

See our worksheet called challenging core beliefs.

Use the worksheeets above to re-examine core beliefs: are things really as absolute as you think? Are you forgetting that no one is perfect? Or jumping to conclusions because of your experiences when you were younger? Unhelpful beliefs can be challenged in a similar way to unhelpful thoughts. You can start to look for new information: very often we only notice things that confirm our beliefs (this is known as confirmation bias). You may take the negative from a recent social experience and forget all the good things that may have happened.

Particular thoughts and beliefs can sometimes be tested in the real world – see our pages on exposure therapy and hierarchies.

Building up new and more helpful beliefs may take time and practice. For those that feel that further help may be needed please see What the NHS Offers, Finding a private therapist, self help books.

Please also see:
Australia CCI – Challenging Core Beliefs (PDF)