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I believe I'm the person that mentioned it. I have not personally gone to a cognitive-behavioral therapist, preferring a do-it-yourself approach based on applying my readings and learnings. (I don't think a teenager would have that kind of discipline, but would need more help.) If you want to know more, check out the resources below, which include manuals and materials. This list was founded by graduates of that therapy program. Also look over the archives of this list, which contains posts on this subject.
One thing I do know from experience: traditional non-directive therapy is virtually useless with shyness. Shyness, as with any phobic disorder, maintains itself by avoidance of the thing that is feared. Non-directive therapy allows one to endlessly ruminate and find excuses (often from the past) not to confront the feared situations. Because it is non-directive, it does not provide alternative strategies, but then pushes the patient to "try." This effectively sets up the patient for failure, because the patient without new strategies only ends up repeating the same unproductive behaviors. After I discovered these materials and the book "Shyness: A Bold New Approach," I found to my surprise that there were different ways I could look at social situations, specific strategies I could try, and that I could actually learn and progress. In non-directive therapy I felt frozen. If I had been given a cognitive-behavioral approach when I was a teenager, my adult life might have been very different.
Here are the sites. Good luck!
Annette
----- Original Message -----From: JKOSTA5303@...Sent: Monday, June 14, 2004 4:14 PMSubject: Re: [SocialFitnessForum] help me please, newbie student needs advice!i am a therapist who works a lot with teenagers. lately I've had several clients who had issues with shyness and wanted to work on being less shy and more talkative. in a recent email someone mentioned how well cognitive behavioral therapy work for shyness. does anyone know more about that. jan
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