Social Anxiety · Online · Six Provinces
Online Therapy for Social Anxiety
Online only, so there is no waiting room to sit in: therapy for social anxiety here is one-to-one, built on CBT, with a therapist trained in it, in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador. Sessions are $150 for 60 minutes, and the first step is a free 15-minute consultation.
You got through the conversation. Then you spent the next four hours going back over it, finding the moment you said the wrong thing. The event was survivable; the replay afterwards is what actually costs you.
Prefer not to create an account? Text two times that suit you to (519) 760-5211 and we will book it for you, or send them through the short form. We reply with two consultation times, usually within 24 hours. If you would rather work with a particular clinician, say so and it is arranged.
Free 15-minute consultation · No referral needed · No waiting room to walk into
Therapy for social anxiety, at a glance. TEO Counselling provides CBT-based therapy online for social anxiety in six provinces, so starting therapy does not itself require a waiting room or a phone call. The CBT-trained clinicians are Mohamad Shabib, MACP, CCC (#11249205, CCPA), in six provinces, and Alison Shaji, MA, a Registered Clinical Counsellor (BCACC #22608), in British Columbia. Individual sessions are $150 and couples sessions $175, each 60 minutes, no intake fee. No provincial health plan covers counselling in private practice; every session comes with an insurance-ready receipt, and direct billing is available with Mohamad and Alison for Pacific Blue Cross and TELUS eClaims plans (Canada Life, Manulife). The first step is a free 15-minute consultation on a video call or a scheduled phone call, booked online, no referral needed.
It is not shyness, and it is not introversion
These three get used as though they were the same thing, and people with social anxiety end up being told to accept a temperament rather than address a fear.
Shyness is a slower warm-up around new people. Shy people can be perfectly content and have no reason to change anything. Introversion is about where your energy goes — socialising is depleting and you need to recover afterwards, but you are not dreading it and you are not convinced you embarrassed yourself.
Social anxiety is a fear of being evaluated and found lacking, strong enough to start making decisions on your behalf. It decides you will not apply for the job that involves presenting. It decides you will not say the thing you were about to say in the meeting. It decides you would rather not eat in front of people, or make the phone call, or go at all.
You can also be an extrovert with social anxiety — wanting connection badly and being frightened of it at the same time. That combination is particularly lonely, because from the outside it looks like you simply cannot make up your mind.
The useful question is not how quiet you are. It is what the fear is costing you.
Why it keeps proving itself right
Social anxiety is unusually good at generating its own evidence. Three mechanisms do most of that work, and each one feels like sensible self-management from the inside.
Your attention turns inward at the worst moment
In a conversation you are meant to be worried about, attention swings onto yourself — how your voice sounds, whether you are going red, what your hands are doing, whether that pause was too long. You are now running an internal broadcast of your own performance while also trying to have a conversation. Conversation gets measurably harder to do while monitoring yourself, so you do it worse, and the evidence arrives: see, I am bad at this. The monitoring created the outcome it was watching for.
The replay afterwards
Post-event processing is the technical name and it is one of the most consistently described features of social anxiety. The mind reviews the interaction afterwards, and the review is not impartial — it has been sent to look for evidence of awkwardness, so that is what it returns. Nobody replays the forty minutes that went fine. Everybody replays the eight seconds that did not.
It feels like honest self-assessment. It functions as rehearsal — which is why the next occasion is harder, not easier, and why a good evening can leave you feeling worse the following morning.
The precautions that keep it alive
Over-rehearsing what you will say. Keeping a drink in your hand so nobody sees it shake. Avoiding eye contact. Sitting where you can leave. Saying less so there is less to get wrong. Having a couple of drinks first. Arriving late enough to miss the loose small talk at the start.
Every one of these is intelligent and every one of them costs you the same thing: you get through the evening, and you conclude you got through it because of the precaution. The fear is never tested, so it never updates. Worse, several of these make you come across as more distant than you are, which produces exactly the cool response you were braced for.
Starting therapy is itself a social situation
This is worth naming directly, because it can be the reason some people with social anxiety never begin. Getting help traditionally means phoning a stranger, giving your details to a receptionist, sitting in a waiting room where other people can see you, and being collected by name in front of them. For this particular difficulty, the route to treatment is built out of the exact situations being avoided.
TEO is virtual, which removes all of that. You book online without speaking to anyone. Or text two times that suit you to (519) 760-5211 and we book the consultation for you. There is no waiting room, no reception desk, no walking past anybody. The first session happens from wherever you already feel unobserved.
To be straight about it: this removes the barrier to starting, not the work itself. Facing avoided situations is still central, and it still happens — in your own life, in steps you choose, at a pace you set. What online therapy does is make sure the first step is the therapy rather than the car park.
If it helps at the beginning, sessions can run with your camera off. You can turn it on when you are ready; nobody is made to.
What the work involves
Cognitive behavioural therapy for social anxiety works on the mechanisms above rather than on confidence in the abstract. Being told to believe in yourself has never shifted this.
Getting attention back outside your own head
Practising deliberately moving focus onto the other person and the room instead of onto your own performance. It sounds slight, but it matters, partly because conversations genuinely go better when you are actually in them.
Testing the prediction instead of arguing with it
Rather than disputing "they will think I am boring", the work is to make the prediction specific enough to check, then go and check it. What did you actually expect to happen, what actually happened, and what does the gap tell you. Your own accumulated evidence moves this in a way that reassurance from someone else does not.
Dropping the precautions on purpose
One at a time, in situations you have chosen, so the occasion can finally teach you something the safety behaviour has been blocking. This is planned in advance with you, never sprung.
Interrupting the replay
Post-event processing gets treated as a target in its own right rather than as a side effect. This can be where the largest share of the suffering actually sits, and it may be the part nobody has previously named for them.
Where the social fear grew out of something specific — bullying, humiliation, a childhood in which attention was dangerous — that is worked with directly using EMDR or Internal Family Systems, rather than managed around. Social anxiety that traces back to a particular period needs that period addressed too. Where it shows up mainly as panic in social settings, the panic page covers that cycle in more detail.
Does online therapy work for social anxiety?
It can. A meta-analysis of studies on live online therapy (Fernandez and colleagues, 2021) found outcomes that differed negligibly from therapy in a room, with large before-and-after improvements for anxiety and larger ones where CBT was used than where it was not. Our piece on whether online therapy is effective sets out the broader evidence. For social anxiety specifically, clinicians who developed cognitive therapy for social anxiety disorder have published guidance on delivering it remotely (Warnock-Parkes and colleagues, 2020). That describes the evidence, not a promise about how it will go for you.
Working online also changes a few practical things, and some of them help with this problem in particular. You can hide your own picture on screen: watching yourself talk feeds exactly the self-monitoring described above, and if the platform will not hide it, a sticky note over that corner works. Practice can happen where it is needed — the email you have been redrafting for a week can be sent during the session, or a short call made while your therapist is still there, and you look at what actually happened straight afterwards. What online does not replace is practice in rooms with people in them. That stays part of the plan, in steps you choose.
How long it takes
The number varies from person to person. For adults with social anxiety disorder, the UK's NICE guideline (CG159) recommends individual CBT developed specifically for social anxiety, run over about four months: up to 14 sessions of 90 minutes in one model, or 15 sessions of 60 minutes plus one 90-minute session in the other. Those are guideline figures, not a prediction for you, and sessions at TEO are 60 minutes. Some people come to work on one situation, such as presenting; others come because the fear reaches into most of life, and the plan is sized to that. You review it together as you go, and there is no package to sign.
Who you would be working with
Mohamad Shabib, MACP, CCC is a Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC) with the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA). He is trained in CBT, with CBT for Trauma at Levels 1 and 2, alongside Advanced EMDR and Internal Family Systems. Sessions in English or Arabic, across all six provinces the practice serves.
Alison Shaji, RCC is a Registered Clinical Counsellor in British Columbia, trained in CBT and DBT alongside EMDR and EFFT. Sessions in English, Hindi or Malayalam. Her registration is provincial, so she works with British Columbia clients.
Neither of them will diagnose you — that sits with physicians and psychologists — and you do not need a diagnosis to start.
Cost and appointment times
Individual sessions are $150 for sixty minutes. The first conversation is free — 15 minutes, with no referral needed, and it happens on a video call or a scheduled phone call. Booking it is done online, with no phone call needed.
No provincial health plan in Canada covers counselling in private practice. Reimbursement through an extended health plan depends on the designation your plan covers — Canadian Certified Counsellor, Registered Clinical Counsellor or Registered Social Worker. You receive an insurance-ready receipt after each session. Full detail on the fees page.
Sessions run seven days a week from noon to 9pm Pacific — up to 11pm on the Prairies and midnight in Ontario. A small number of reduced-fee spots are held; if cost is the obstacle, say so on the consultation call.
Free options exist and are worth knowing about. In Ontario, Ontario Structured Psychotherapy offers free cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and guided self-help for adults 18 and older with symptoms of depression or an anxiety-related disorder. The Canadian Mental Health Association's BounceBack program offers free CBT-based coaching by phone and online for low mood, worry and stress; each participating province runs its own version, so check what is available where you live. Our guide to what therapy costs in Canada sets out free and lower-cost options province by province.
What you say in session is kept confidential, with the limits every Canadian therapist works under: a risk of serious harm to you or someone else, a child in need of protection, a court order or subpoena, and the reporting obligations a regulator can impose. Those are explained in full in the first session.
Common questions
Is social anxiety just shyness?
No, though they overlap and get used interchangeably. Shyness is a temperament — a slower warm-up around new people, which some people carry comfortably their whole lives. Social anxiety is a fear of being judged and found wanting, strong enough that it starts editing your decisions: which jobs you apply for, whether you speak in the meeting, whether you go at all. The test is not how quiet you are, it is how much the fear is costing you.
I am an introvert. Is that the same thing?
They are different things and it matters, because introverts get told to fix something that is not broken. An introvert finds socialising depleting and needs to recover afterwards, but does not necessarily dread it or believe they came across badly. Social anxiety is about fear and anticipated judgement rather than energy. You can be an extrovert with social anxiety — wanting connection badly and being frightened of it at the same time is a particularly painful combination.
Does doing therapy online defeat the point if my problem is people?
It is a fair question and the answer is that online therapy removes the wrong barrier, not the useful one. What it removes is the waiting room, the receptionist, the walk past other clients — a set of feared situations that have nothing to do with the therapy and can stop people booking at all. What it keeps is the part that does the work: one person, talking about difficult things, with someone who is paying close attention. Facing real social situations is still part of the work, done in your own life and in planned steps.
Why can I not stop replaying conversations afterwards?
That is post-event processing, and it is a reliably reported feature of social anxiety. After an interaction the mind reviews it, and the review is not neutral — it searches for evidence of having been awkward and finds it, because that is what it was told to look for. It feels like honest self-assessment. It functions as rehearsal of the fear, which is why it makes the next occasion harder rather than easier.
What does CBT for social anxiety involve?
Shifting attention outward, first of all — social anxiety pulls your focus onto monitoring yourself, which makes conversation harder and confirms the fear. Then identifying the safety behaviours that feel protective but keep it running, and dropping them deliberately. Then approaching avoided situations in graded steps you choose. It also means working on the post-event replay directly, because that is where a great deal of the damage accumulates.
What does it cost?
Individual sessions are $150 for sixty minutes, with a free 15-minute consultation first. No provincial health plan in Canada covers counselling in private practice, but some extended health plans do — check which designation your plan names. You receive an insurance-ready receipt after every session.
How many sessions does CBT for social anxiety take?
There is no fixed number. The UK NICE guideline recommends individual CBT for social anxiety disorder over about four months: up to 14 sessions of 90 minutes in one model, or 15 of 60 minutes plus one of 90 minutes in the other. Sessions at TEO are 60 minutes, the plan is reviewed with you as you go, and there is no package or minimum.
Can I book without phoning anyone?
Yes. Book the free 15-minute consultation online through Jane, or text two times that suit you to (519) 760-5211 and we book it for you. The consultation is a video call or a scheduled phone call, and sessions can start with your camera off.
Is there free therapy for social anxiety in Canada?
Some. In Ontario, Ontario Structured Psychotherapy offers free CBT and guided self-help for adults with symptoms of an anxiety-related disorder, and BounceBack, run by the Canadian Mental Health Association, offers free CBT-based coaching that differs by province. Provincial health plans do not cover private therapy; some extended health plans reimburse it.
If you need someone now
Therapy is not a crisis service. These are free and staffed around the clock:
- · 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline: call or text 9-8-8 (Canada, 24/7)
- · Kids Help Phone (for young people): 1-800-668-6868, or text CONNECT to 686868
- · Hope for Wellness Help Line: 1-855-242-3310 (24/7)
If you are in immediate danger, please call 911.
Book a free 15-minute consultation
Booked online; held on a video call or a scheduled phone call. A short conversation to see whether this is the right fit — and a straight answer if something else would serve you better.
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