Social Anxiety Hierarchy Worksheet

What is the theory behind this Social Anxiety Hierarchy Worksheet?

Social Anxiety Hierarchy is a list beginning with the least anxiety provoking situations and moving on to the most anxiety provoking situations. Planning hierarchies is a key part to behavioural therapies as it  helps in exposure therapy and designing behavioural experiments. Since it can be too overwhelming to face one’s strongest social fears for the first time, it is advisable to follow the order from least provoking to most provoking ones. 

How will the worksheet help?

This worksheet will help clients plan a hierarchy for their social anxiety by listing down the situations that trigger their social anxiety and giving them a rating of 1 to 10 to identify how anxiety-provoking they are for them. Once this is done the situations can then be put in the correct order to be used for behavioural experiments. 

How to use the worksheet?

Instruct the client to first identify a particular area in their life that provokes social anxiety that they would like to address. Then they have to list down behaviours related to that particular area beginning from least anxiety provoking to most anxiety provoking. Then tell them to give each a rating of 1 – 10 based on how fearful or anxious those situations are for them. 

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