CBT has good results when applied to someone who suffers from social anxiety disorder. Using cognitive therapy, your therapist can help you to tackle negative thought patterns you may direct at yourself or that you perceive from the world around you. It is usually these negative thoughts that trigger an episode of anxiety.
After you have recognised these negative thoughts and when they occur, you can work to replace them with something more rational and positive which will allow you to cope with anxiety in a calm and controlled manner.
CBT is a way to rewire the software of your brain, rehearsing troubling situations in your mind in order to create alternative ways of thinking when that situation arises again. In effect, you’re creating new mental circuitry by challenging and changing old responses that feel hardwired in, but aren’t.
With CBT, the therapist acknowledges that there may be behaviours that you cannot control through rational thought. Rather, these harmful coping strategies are as a result of prior conditioning from the environment and other internal or external stimuli.
By taking (what can feel like) insurmountable tasks and teaching you how to apply a pragmatic and objective viewpoint to these issues, CBT gradually changes the way you look at everyday challenges.