ABSTRACT
Introduction Pierre has suffered from social anxiety for as long as he can remember. The anxiety has influenced his life to such an extent that he has declined job offers and strongly feels that he is below his level of competence at work, since he avoids giving presentations and engaging in social activities with his colleagues. To his surprise he has found a girlfriend he trusts (and stayed together with for almost a year), and they are about to get married. Pierre tried psychotherapy and medication earlier in his life (he is now in his 40s) but neither helped him, with the possible exception of medication, since he was depressed at the time he received antidepressant and became better. The psychotherapy was insight oriented, which is not surprising since he lives in Switzerland, where CBT was not easily available. While he had found the therapy somewhat useful it had not helped him with his social fears. He now saw an advertisement for a trial on online CBT for social phobia and decided to apply. While he knew a bit about CBT for social phobia, he had never tried it. The Internet format suited him well as he worked in the information technology (IT) business. Progress with the program came slowly but steadily. Pierre was strongly encouraged by his girlfriend who he kept informed about the treatment. When the study period ended he had completed most of the assignments and exposure exercises and what surprised him the most was the fact that things had worked out so well at work. In a sense he had been a bit lucky as there had been some reorganization at work, and he had new colleagues which made it a bit easier to act in different ways than previously at work. In particular, he found the social skills advice useful but also the information on safety behaviours. He still experienced some anxiety when talking to colleagues but much less so and more importantly this anxiety did not provoke avoidance of social situations.
