ACT for Social Anxiety – A Great Self-Help Book and Treasure Trove of Resources

I’ll make a confession here: I’m a failure at bibliotherapy. By bibliotherapy, I mean assigning a self-help book to a client and following it along with the client in order to guide treatment. For clients who are interested in self-help resources, I’ll make recommendations for books that clients can read on their own as a complement to treatment, but I feel stifled at the idea of using the book to guide treatment.

The authors of Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Social Anxiety & Shyness have made things much easier for therapists like me. The book is based on a group treatment for social anxiety that has been studied in two published research studies—an initial pilot followed by a randomized controlled trial.

On their website (www.actonsocialanxiety.com), the authors offer a downloadable treatment manual based on their book. The manual is an adaption of the group treatment manual they (Jan Fleming, MD and Nancy Kocovski, PhD) used in their research studies. It includes copies of the handouts, so you don’t have to press your book against the photocopier—which I find a bit of pain to do in the digital age.

If you visit the publisher page on the New Harbinger website and register, you can also download audio files of the exercises (e.g., mindfulness exercises) and a separate collection of the handouts.

I’ve not had a chance to use the book in therapy yet, but I’ve read through it and am very impressed with it. The book is engagingly written, includes interesting exercises, and is relatively concise (I prefer brevity in a self-help book).

For all these reasons, I highly recommend Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Social Anxiety & Shyness. You can find additional resources at the authors’ website and on the publisher’s website (under the “Accessories” tab—but you must register). Check it out—it’s one of the better self-help books I’ve read and the resources the authors provide are extremely generous.