overcome social anxiety « The AI-Therapy Blog

By Fjóla Dögg Helgadóttir, PhD, R.Psych.

When I started my PhD in 2007 at the University of Sydney, I was lucky enough to have Professor Ross Menzies as my supervisor. I had already completed 2 university degrees in psychology (I now have 4), but my scholarship did not come with a budget for technical development, so I decided to learn PHP and MySQL and code the program myself. That meant I could write both the clinical content and the technical architecture from the ground up. During my PhD, I built an online program for stuttering, drawing on Dr. Menzies’ existing group-based CBT work in that area. That experience taught me how to think about translating structured clinical content into adaptive, individualised delivery online, and it planted the seed for what I would go on to build independently. In 2012, I co-founded AI-Therapy with Dr. Neil Yager, and Neil and I own the company. Together we built Overcome Social Anxiety entirely from scratch, with Professor Ross Menzies co-authoring and owning 50% of the clinical content in that program.

At the time the term “artificial intelligence” still evoked chess-playing computers and academic papers more than existential dread. We called the program AI-Therapy because it genuinely described what we had built: a system that used the logic of artificial intelligence, adapting dynamically to each user, to deliver evidence-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. The name felt accurate, a little futuristic, and kind of exciting.

That was then.

What AI-Therapy Actually Is

Let me be specific, because specificity matters more than ever right now.

AI-Therapy is a pre-written, clinician-developed CBT program. Every word of therapeutic content was written by us, researchers and clinicians with decades of combined expertise in anxiety treatment. There are no words generated on the fly. There is no large language model producing responses. There is no chatbot waiting to say something reassuring (or, as has been widely reported with other AI tools, something harmful).

What makes it “AI,” in the original sense of that word, is the adaptive logic underneath. The program responds to what you tell it about yourself: your specific feared situations, your avoidance patterns, your safety behaviours. It selects, sequences, and tailors the therapeutic content accordingly. You and the person sitting next to you could both complete AI-Therapy for social anxiety and have meaningfully different experiences, because the program is responding to each of you individually.

This is what personalised, algorithmic delivery of therapy looked like before anyone was talking about chatGPT. It is also, I would argue, what responsible digital mental health looks like: structured, grounded in clinical theory, pre-approved by the people whose names are on it, and unchanging in a way that can actually be studied.

The Evidence Base

After more than a decade, we can now say with confidence: this approach works.

AI-Therapy has 14 peer-reviewed publications behind it, including a randomized controlled trials. The program has demonstrated an effect size of approximately 2.7, which is not a typo. For context, most face-to-face CBT programs for social anxiety show effect sizes in the range of 1.0 to 1.5. The effect size we see reflects both the potency of the underlying CBT protocol, developed by Ross and I building on decades of clinical research.

Since launching Overcome Social Anxiety in 2012, the platform has grown. Overcome Fertility Stress followed in 2015, offering structured CBT support for people navigating the psychological weight of infertility. Overcome Death Anxiety launched in 2019 and is currently being studied in a formal research program at the University of Sydney, led by Dr. Rachel Menzies.

Each program follows the same philosophy: pre-written, clinician-developed content, delivered adaptively. Each has been built to be studied, not just used right away.

What AI-Therapy Is Not

I want to be clear about this, because the landscape has changed so dramatically.

AI-Therapy is not a large language model. It does not generate text. It cannot say anything I have not already written and approved. It does not learn from your data in the way that modern AI systems do. It does not have plans to add a conversational AI layer in any way that compromises clinical integrity. What we are actively exploring is how to increase adherence, keeping people engaged with the structured content that we know works. It is not a wellness app. It is not a chatbot with a calming colour palette. It is a treatment tool.

This distinction matters, both clinically and ethically. One of the most significant concerns raised about LLM-based mental health tools is the risk of unpredictable outputs: a system that might say something clinically contraindicated or respond to a disclosure of suicidality in a way that no responsible clinician would endorse. That risk simply does not exist in a pre-written system. What you read is what we wrote. We stand behind every word of it.

The Name Problem

Here is the uncomfortable part.

We are living through a period of significant, and in many ways justified, scepticism about AI. People are worried about job displacement, about misinformation, about companies rushing products to market without adequate safety testing. Mental health is a particularly sensitive domain, and the news has not been short of stories about AI therapy tools behaving in troubling ways.

Into this climate walks a program called “AI-Therapy,” which has been around since 2012 and has nothing to do with any of those concerns, but whose name now lands very differently than it once did.

I will be honest: if we were naming this program today, we might choose differently. Not because we are ashamed of the technology, but because the word “AI” now carries associations that do not describe what we built. When someone hears “AI therapy” in 2026, they are almost certainly picturing a chatbot, a generated response, something that a tech company spun up last quarter. They are not picturing anxiety researchers at the University of Sydney writing careful, structured CBT modules over many years and then building adaptive logic to deliver them.

The irony is that the name was always accurate. We used artificial intelligence, in the classical sense, to personalise therapy. We were doing this before it was fashionable, and arguably we were doing it more carefully than most of what has come since. The name was ahead of its time. Now it is, in a different way, out of step with its time.

Why I Am Not Changing It

I have thought about this more than once. And I keep coming back to the same conclusion: the answer is not to retreat from the name, but to explain it.

Changing the name would feel like a concession to a misunderstanding. It would suggest that there is something about AI-Therapy that should concern you, when in fact the opposite is true. This program represents what careful, evidence-based digital mental health intervention looks like. It was built by clinicians, tested in randomised controlled trials, and refined over nearly two decades. It uses technology to extend access to effective CBT, not to replace clinical judgment with a system that cannot be held accountable.

The conversation worth having is not “should we distance ourselves from AI?” It is “what does responsible use of technology in mental health actually look like?” And I think AI-Therapy, the original one, the pre-written, personalised, evidence-based one, has always been a reasonable answer to that question.

If you have questions about how the program works or want to understand more about what makes it different from the wave of AI-powered mental health tools making headlines, I am genuinely glad to talk about it. The nuances matter, especially here.

Fjóla Dögg Helgadóttir, PhD, R.Psych., runs a practice in Vancouver, BC, where she practices evidence based psychology for variety of psychological problems www.drfjola.com and is a co-creator of AI-Therapy (www.ai-therapy.com). The platform includes Overcome Social Anxiety (2012), Overcome Fertility Stress (2015), and Overcome Death Anxiety (2019), the latter currently under research at the University of Sydney led by Dr. Rachel Menzies. Dr. Fjóla is an active CBT researcher who collaborates with universities around the globe and has published extensively in the field, and is Past President of the Canadian Association of Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies.

Garrett T. Taylor MPA and Diane Taylor MA at the Power of U, Inc have partnered with Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) to provide enhanced social anxiety prevention for students affected by the covid-19 pandemic. This is a particularly stressful time for young people so their goal is to prevent risky behaviors such as binge drinking and help reduce mental health stigma by targetting social anxiety.

Uplift Comprehensive Services’ mission is to ensure healthy development and improve the quality of life of individuals in economically and socially deprived areas by promoting supportive services and healthy relationships between family members, community leaders, and peers.

We are very excited about this collaboration starting in July this year!

Emma Watson did a wonderful speech for the UN recently, and if you haven’t seen it yet you should really check it out:

She launched a campaign called “HeForShe”, where men around the world are asked to join the gender equality agenda. The speech has gone viral (when I opened my Facebook this morning it seemed like half of my friends were raving about it). I came across some coverage of it with the headline “Her Voice Might Tremble, But Emma Watson’s Message Is Strong and Clear.” In my opinion, I found her voice to be very human and down to earth. I think her message was stronger because of this touch of tremble, which highlighted the fact that the speech wasn’t easy for her. Remember, this is a famous actress whose career is performing. She was nervous because nobody feels confident all of the time, and stepping outside of our comfort zone is when we grow.

This made me think of social anxiety and how we treat it. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for social anxiety challenges people by moving them out of their comfort zones. We learn the most when we “put ourselves out there”. It is about experimenting with your thoughts and behaviors, and helping you live your life without fears.

I think a lot of social anxiety behavior in women is linked to gender equality. Sometimes we fear that by speaking our mind we will be labelled as “bossy”, whereas a man in the same situation could be called a “leader”. This is something we need to move past. For women, overcoming social anxiety can have a fantastic impact on their careers and self-confidence.

Fjola Helgadottir, PhD, CPsychol, is a clinical psychologist, who has trained all over the world. She has worked in Australia and at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. She is AI-Therapy’s director and co-creator of AI-Therapy’s Overcome Social Anxiety program.

The shame and embarrassment that lie at the heart of social phobia are two of the reasons why those who struggle with social anxiety never seek treatment. In fact, studies have shown that a social anxiety diagnosis is usually missed in primary care since people are reluctant to report their symptoms to their GP. Furthermore, a 2008 study found that the more severe the social anxiety, the less likely individuals are to seek treatment. Finally, studies have shown that once a diagnosis has been made, the average length of time before initiating treatment is 17 years. Think about this for a minute.

17 years. Think about all the minutes, seconds, hours and years wasted. Consider the time spent worrying about what you said, worried that someone is upset with you, not asking people to meet up, not catching up with old friends, tormenting yourself after social events about something you feel you said or did wrong. All of these are symptoms of social anxiety, and since there are effective treatments available, there is absolutely no reason to loose 17 years of your life. I urge you to take action today. Contact a qualified clinical psychologist, or try an online solution like AI-Therapy’s Overcome Social Anxiety.

Fjola Helgadottir, PhD, CPsychol, is a clinical psychologist, a senior research clinician at the University of Oxford, and is a co-creator of AI-Therapy.com, an online CBT treatment program for overcoming social anxiety

It seems like every time I open Facebook or LinkedIn I see some tips from celebrities or entrepreneurs how to be more confident or successful. In reality, a little talent, a lot of hard work, and some lucky breaks are the key ingredients to success. Yet, successful people have a tendency to attribute their trajectories to a handful of tricks people “must do” in order to succeed. Unfortunately, these tips aren’t always as helpful as they seem. In fact, they can even lead to safety behaviors. If social anxiety is a problem for you, it is important to learn about the role of safety behaviors, and see if you are using them to “play it safe” socially.

This blog post is the first in a series where I will give some common tips, and explain why they are actually counterproductive.

Tip 1. Pretend to be interested in other people

The self-improvement writer Dale Carnegie recommends that people pretend to be interested in what others are saying during conversation. While this may sound reasonable when we are trying to impress someone, it can actually backfire. First, the other person might sense a lack of genuine interest in the topic, and find it uncomfortable that the listener is pretending to be interested. Second, if the social interaction results in a positive response, the pretender is likely to attribute the success to their pretense of being interested, not that they were liked for who they are. Third, this sort of behavior can maintain unhelpful thoughts people have about themselves, such as “I’m so plain and boring”. Every social interaction is an opportunity for people to disconfirm these types of unhelpful thoughts. However, every time safety behaviors are used, an opportunity is missed.

Tip 2. Read over your emails at least 5 times

Many of us overemphasize the importance of wording in our emails. Whilst this may seem reasonable, it simply isn’t always helpful. In fact, some of the most successful people I have corresponded with send me emails full of spelling mistakes (probably due to auto spelling) and no formal structure. Life is too short to read emails more than a couple of times. Try sending emails without proofing them: it’s difficult at first, but then it becomes liberating. It becomes easier to respond from your phone or tablet, and can save you from thinking about the emails when you are doing something else!

In other news, I just had a peer reviewed paper on safety behaviors accepted in the Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research. Once it is in press, I will blog about this as well!

Fjola Helgadottir, PhD, MClinPsych, is a clinical psychologist, a senior research clinician at the University of Oxford, and is a co-creator of AI-Therapy.com, an online CBT treatment program for overcoming social anxiety