You may ask, why does my social phobia doesn’t go away? Why is it persistent? 
There are actually certain thoughts that tend to boil out in your mind when you enter a social situation and will make you anxious. These can be:

Predictions about the future – “If someone gets to know me, they will see how inadequate I am.”

Beliefs about yourself – “I’m boring”

Rules for yourself – “I always have to look clever and in control”

Our defense mechanism. These are things that you do to make yourself feel more in control in a social situation. They include:

Not saying anything personal about yourself
Drinking alcohol
Asking too many questions of the other person
Avoiding eye contact

What is wrong with this is that it doesn’t allow you to experience the fact that dreadful things don’t happen if you stop trying to control your behavior so much.

Talking about social phobia, you may want to know what triggers it. But the thing is, no one is really sure for certain. But it seems to affect people who: who have stammered as a child, or have particularly high standards for their behavior in public.

Some experts think that it might be due to people getting stuck at the normal stage of shyness that all children go through between the ages of three and seven.

What help there is available?

There are several ways of helping people who suffer from social phobia. These may be used on their own or together, depending on the situation there is. These self help can be: 
  
Start to stop using your ‘safety behaviors’, beginning with the easiest.

Learn some relaxation techniques – you can do this from books, tapes, CDs or DVDs. When you do find yourself getting anxious, you may be able to ‘nip it in the bud’ by using one of these techniques.

If you are naturally shy, you may find it helpful to join a local self-confidence or assertiveness course.

Try listening more to what other people are saying, rather than what you are saying to yourself in your mind.

Break down a worrying situation into a number of steps, right from the beginning. Then take the first step and learn to feel relaxed while doing it – it may take some practice. Then move on to the next step, and then the next.

Write down the automatic thoughts you have about yourself and the pictures of yourself these conjure up in your mind. Once you have done this, it can be easier to start changing them.