Dropping Safety Behaviours in Social Situations

Safety behaviours are subtle strategies that individuals with social anxiety use to manage their fear during social interactions. Common examples include avoiding eye contact, speaking quietly or quickly, rehearsing what to say, holding objects to hide trembling hands, wearing concealing clothing, positioning yourself near exits, using alcohol before social events, and monitoring your internal state (checking whether you are blushing, sweating, or appearing awkward).

Whilst safety behaviours feel protective, they actually maintain social anxiety through several mechanisms. First, they prevent disconfirmation — because you used the safety behaviour, you attribute any positive outcome to the behaviour rather than to your own social competence ("The conversation only went well because I had rehearsed everything"). Second, some safety behaviours actually increase the very problems you fear — avoiding eye contact makes you appear less engaged, speaking quickly makes you harder to understand, and monitoring your anxiety makes you more self-conscious.

Dropping safety behaviours is a core component of CBT for social anxiety. The process involves first identifying your specific safety behaviours (your therapist will help, as many are so habitual they operate below conscious awareness), then systematically testing what happens when you enter social situations without using them. This is done through behavioural experiments: you make a specific prediction about what will happen without the safety behaviour, carry out the experiment, and compare the actual outcome with your prediction.

Most people discover that the feared catastrophe does not occur, that other people do not notice their anxiety to the degree they expected, and that social interactions actually flow more naturally without the interference of safety behaviours. This new learning, acquired through direct experience, is far more powerful than any amount of rational argument.