I saw you post and thought I’d reply. Social anxiety is a general term used to describe any anxiety that people experience in relation to social situations, whether that be minor or crippling. When social anxiety reaches levels where it is having a significant negative effect on a person’s life it is often called Social Phobia or Social Anxiety Disorder. These terms are used in the UK and US. Many people with social anxiety turn to alcohol to cope, it’s really good to hear you’ve been dry for a year now. Keep up the good work.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of social anxiety and the fact that most self-help groups are set up by the sufferer’s themselves, there are not very many groups about. Hopefully being in Phoenix, there will be a group near you. There’s a guy called Dr. Thomas Richards who used to suffer with social anxiety himself who lives in Phoenix, AZ. If you’ve not already discovered him, he runs therapy groups for people with social anxiety there. I think there’s a charge, but he seems like an honest guy who has a reasonable approach if you want something local. http://www.socialanxietyinstitute.org/local.html In my own interest I shouldn’t really be advertising other people’s services, but I’d rather people got access to help when they need it and find out about what’s local to them. After all, there’s plenty more people out there to help!

People seem to have found my free hypnosis mp3 beneficial. It’s very good to hear, as it was designed to be beneficial. I have to admit though that it’s a bit rough around edges and I didn’t really expect anyone to listen to it. My understanding of social anxiety increased a lot since then and it’s very different from my current work which doesn’t include any hypnosis. I hope it continues to be beneficial for you.

Best wishes,

Nick