*Will be posted September 12th

There's been such a focus lately on putting out self-help books for teens--it's honestly amazing. The Shyness and Social Anxiety Workbook was another great resource that I feel deserves more attention.

The book stresses that we are social creatures that need contact and relationships, and that anxiety is normal. Something that affects our anxiety may be out of our control, but our reactions are not. We can change the way we react and retrain our bodies.

The main challenge is overcoming our own thoughts. The book focuses on this quite a bit. It covers automatic thoughts and fallacies we may run into. Sometimes our anxiety is misplaced or wrong and by catching our thoughts at the beginning we can lower our anxiety sooner.

The book also teaches teens to forgive themselves for social blunders. We all do it. It teaches you to reevaluate what your values are because once you redefine what success is for you, you can be more confident.

All the tips it gave were awesome. The only reason I knocked it down a star was that I felt like the exercises at the end were repetitive and really long. They walked you through filling them out for each step of the "ladder" but I think just a few examples would have been enough. Overall though, this book was a solid read that I think teens will be able to follow easily at their own pace and find helpful.

This workbook will be so helpful when working with my teenage clients. I like that it works on an area that is not covered frequently (social skills and communication) in workbooks. I really think this workbook gives very helpful skills that can be applied in various social situations.

Thank you to NetGalley and New Harbinger Publications for the chance to read an early copy of this book!

This is the kind of book that could have really helped me as a teen! (Actually, social anxiety took over my life much more in college and grad school but close enough....) In trying to work on CBT with therapists, I'd always been faced with a blank worksheet that I never remembered to use either in the moment or afterward. Here the book is liberally sprinkled with examples that the reader is asked to analyze, and I think that working through concrete comparisons, recognizing anxiety and potential mitigations in the archetypal examples, would have been enormously effective for me.

The one thing that made me uncomfortable about the book was the example of a teenage boy who really wanted to ask out a teenage girl who had no idea who he was. I really would have preferred this to not be a romantic example encouraging a feeling of entitlement to just try (I've definitely had a lot of "please don't talk to me or show interest in me just leave me alone" moments). I feel like an example of wanting to make friends with someone you think is cool but you've never talked to would work just as well and not have the same potential for creepiness.

I received a copy of this through NetGalley for review. As a clinical social worker, this book is a useful tool to have for teens and youth who are struggling with social anxiety and/or shyness around their peers or others. The updates to the second edition make it more engaging and easier for teens to want to interact with the activities. As a workbook, it would be something I use between sessions and as a discussion starter. Overall, handy to have!


#TheShynessandSocialAnxietyWorkbookforTeensSecondEdition #NetGalley

Posted to amazon on 2/5/22

A great book full of techniques and tools to help your teen deal with and process the anxiety and stressors they face on a routine basis. Would recommend for all parents of teens!

I read this as a parent of a shy and anxious teenager in hopes of being able to help my teen form some coping strategies. I found the cognitive behavior therapy tips to very helpful and I especially liked the ladder graphics.

Highly recommend this book to anyone who works with teens or has teens. Such a great, informative read. Highly recommend!!