The effectiveness of hypnotherapy varies significantly from one person to another; some people it does no good for at all, others it works brilliantly, in other cases benefit may be gained from a placebo effect. That said, potentially -- yes, it could do exactly what you want.

Hypnosis is *serious* -- brain hacking *works*.

Before you get anywhere near a hypnotherapist speak to your GP, have him discuss the pros and cons with you, and if appropriate then have him reccomend a hypnotherapist. There are a variety of ways of dealing with social phobia, and hypnotherapy is only one of them, and one at that that should certainly not be the first course of action. Therapy may be viable (in particular cognitive therapy), or drugs (as with everything it's seratonin's fault so the main pharm suspects are the standard set of anti-ds, I seem to recall though that MAOIs are more effective here than SSRIs).

So in short -- yeah it could well work, hypnosis in general can be scarily effective, talk to your GP.

i've had hypnotherapy but it didn't work too well for me. But, as callum said, it varies very much from one person to the next. Saying that, it did help me relax much much more

I was given hypnotherapy once, but it didn't really work. I think my brain must not be susceptible to it or something. It wasn't me blocking it out either consiously or subconsiously cos I really wanted it to work, but hey-ho...

It's not really anything to be scared of though, and it's nothing like stage hypnosis. It's basically just someone talking to you in a calm, relaxed voice, telling you to imagine certain things and talking you through some scenarios. That kinda thing anyway. Like I say I've only had it once so there may be different methods and styles.


Anyhoo, whatever you choose to do I hope it helps you. Low self-esteem is a real bitca.