Experiential Avoidance: The Hidden Driver Behind Social Anxiety
A Shame-Informed, ACT-Based Guide for Therapists
If you sit with socially anxious clients long enough, you begin to see a pattern that cuts deeper than fear of judgment, deeper than negative thoughts, and often deeper than the client’s awareness:
They are terrified of what they feel.
Not just afraid of social situations.
Not just afraid of evaluation.
But afraid of:
the spike of anxiety
the internal collapse of shame
the heat of embarrassment
the tightness in their chest
the sense of “I am not enough”
This fear of internal experience is what Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) calls:
Experiential avoidance.
And in social anxiety, experiential avoidance is not just a feature, it’s the primary driver (Kashdan et al., 2011; Mahaffey et al., 2013).
Let’s unpack why this matters.
What Experiential Avoidance Really Is
Experiential avoidance is the attempt to control, suppress, or escape from unwanted internal experiences, such as:
anxiety
shame
intrusive self-talk
physical sensations
self-consciousness
emotional memories
bodily discomfort
Clients try to avoid what’s happening inside, not just what’s happening around them.
They say things like:
“I can’t handle the feeling.”
“I don’t want to feel embarrassed.”
“I don’t want to get anxious in front of people.”
“If I feel shame, I won’t recover.”
“If I get nervous, everyone will know something’s wrong with me.”
Their strategies to avoid those internal states are the very behaviors that maintain social anxiety.
Why Experiential Avoidance Is So Strong in Social Anxiety
Research consistently shows that avoidance of internal experiences, especially shame, is one of the strongest predictors of social anxiety severity (Mahaffey et al., 2013; Kashdan et al., 2011).
Here’s why:
1. Shame feels like an identity threat
Shame says:
“Something is wrong with me, and others can see it.”
No other emotion convinces clients so deeply that they are fundamentally flawed.
2. Social emotions are embodied
They involve:
heat in the chest
constriction
collapse
flushing
trembling
These sensations can feel intolerable for sensitive nervous systems.
3. Social anxiety is future-oriented pain prevention
Clients avoid internal discomfort before it even arises.
4. Avoidance produces immediate relief
Which reinforces the behavior instantly.
5. Avoidance blocks learning
If clients never feel what they fear, they never learn they can survive it.
This is why avoidance patterns persist for years.
The Loop: Experiential Avoidance → Shame → More Avoidance
Here’s the loop clinicians need to name out loud:
Anticipating internal discomfort
Shame activates
Experiential avoidance kicks in
Clients avoid people, situations, or feelings
Anxiety spikes again
Shame deepens
Avoidance becomes the default coping strategy
This loop is supported by research showing that socially anxious individuals who engage in greater emotional suppression, avoidance, and self-focused attention report higher anxiety and lower social engagement (Spinhoven et al., 2014).
Your job is not to push clients through fear.
Your job is to compassionately teach them how to allow the human experience to unfold during a stressful experience.
How ACT Breaks the Avoidance Cycle
ACT works because it targets the function of avoidance, not just the behavior.
Clients don’t avoid parties.
They avoid the feeling of shame that might arise at the party.
They don’t avoid conversations.
They avoid the heat of anxiety moving through their chest.
They don’t avoid connection.
They avoid the vulnerability of being seen.
ACT gives them tools to:
defuse from thoughts
expand their capacity for internal sensations
move toward values
stop treating emotions as facts or threats
build identity flexibility
respond with self-compassion
These skills allow clients to do hard things without avoiding themselves.
Using the Shame Lens to Reduce Experiential Avoidance
The Shame Lens framework makes this even more precise.
You help clients explore:
What internal experiences feel most dangerous
What shame predicts will happen
How they learned to fear their inner world
What they believe these sensations “mean” about them
How these meanings drive avoidance
What would be possible if they could let shame be present without obeying it
The goal is not to eliminate shame;
it’s to unpair shame from avoidance.
This is the doorway to healing.
The Flexible Exposure Method™: Exposure Without Emotional Escape Hatches
Traditional exposure often fails in social anxiety because clients do the exposure while avoiding their internal world.
The Flexible Exposure Method™ directly addresses this:
The goal is willingness, not competency
The exposure is values-driven, not “prove-you-can-do-it”
Clients learn to feel feelings instead of fight them
Shame is invited, not avoided
Emotional capacity is built through compassionate reflection afterward
This is exposure that heals identity-level wounds and focuses on confidence coming after action and integration.
Signs Your Client Is Doing Experiential Avoidance (Even If They Think They Aren’t)
They keep conversations surface-level
They talk fast to outrun their emotions
They rehearse internally
They numb out or detach
They avoid eye contact
They suppress natural gestures or vocal tone
They shift the spotlight away from themselves constantly
They self-monitor the entire time
These are emotional escape hatches.
And they block therapeutic change.
A Micro-Intervention That May Work Immediately
Try this in session:
Therapist:
“I’m curious, what part of this experience are you trying hardest not to feel right now?”
Let the client name the sensation.
Then:
Therapist:
“I wonder what happens if we allow one moment of willingness toward that feeling?”
This tiny moment breaks the avoidance reflex.
Therapist:
”What was that like to hold space for that? What are your thoughts on how you held space for this experience, and in this moment, nothing has changed?”
Repeated consistently, it rewires the system so that it is no longer feared that exposure to emotions is going to cause harm. These emotions will pass. Bonus step to ask them “what they’re noticing now” after that intervention to show their feelings pass over time, they’re not permanent experiences.
So What Does This Mean for Treatment?
It means:
Fear isn’t the main problem. Avoidance is.
Avoidance isn’t behavioral. It’s emotional.
Shame drives the avoidance.
Values-based exposure may heal the avoidance.
Self-compassion often builds the capacity to stay with the experience.
When clients learn to let themselves feel, they learn to let themselves live.
I hope you found this clarifying and helpful.
If you want a deeper dive, I go into much more detail with handouts and all that jazz in my 2-hour CEU “Master the Shame Lens: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Treating Social Anxiety Using ACT.”
References
Kashdan, T. B., Weeks, J. W., & Savostyanova, A. A. (2011). Whether, how, and when social anxiety shapes positive experiences and perceptions of close relationships. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 25(3), 331–338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2010.12.003
Mahaffey, B. L., Watson-Singleton, N. N., & Clark, M. S. (2013). Shame-proneness, experiential avoidance, and social anxiety. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 32(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2013.32.1.1
Spinhoven, P., Drost, J., de Rooij, M., van Hemert, A. M., & Penninx, B. W. (2014). Emotional avoidance and social anxiety: A prospective study. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 28(5), 523–530. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2014.05.002
Hayes, S. C., Wilson, K. G., Gifford, E. V., Follette, V. M., & Strosahl, K. (1996). Experiential avoidance and behavioral disorders: A functional dimensional approach. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64(6), 1152–1168. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.64.6.1152
Cândea, D.-M., & Szentagotai-Tătar, A. (2018). The impact of self-compassion on shame-proneness in social anxiety. Mindfulness, 9(6), 1816–1824. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-018-0924-1