(ACT)-based workbook filled with assessments and exercises designed to help those with social anxiety or shyness.

"The authors bring their expertise and caring approach to each of the well-thought-out steps that lead to reducing anxiety over a wide range of situations. The specific therapeutic techniques of acceptance and commitment therapy and mindfulness are translated very skillfully into exercises that lead the reader gradually, step by step, to being able to look at their own anxiety in new ways." --Richard P. Swinson, MD, FRCPC, professor emeritus at Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, and author of The Shyness and Social Anxiety Workbook

Think of this book as a great skating instructor. Shyness and social anxiety push us to stay at the edge of the social skating rink, grasping tightly to a safety bar. Vitality and involvement cannot happen there. This book takes you by the hand and teaches you how to maintain your balance and choose your direction while in the open rink of full social participation. Are you fed up with living at the anxious edge of life? Release your grip on the safety bar and grab this book instead-it's time to go for it."-Steven C. Hayes, PhD, foundation professor of psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno and author of Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life

Jan H. Fleming, MD, is a psychiatrist who divides her time between a private practice devoted to individuals suffering with social anxiety and her work as consultant in a hospital-based anxiety disorders clinic. Along with Nancy Kocovski, she developed and piloted a mindfulness and acceptance group treatment for social anxiety disorder. She is associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, adjunct professor of psychology at Ryerson University, and part-time psychiatrist at the anxiety disorders clinic at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Nancy L. Kocovski, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and associate professor in the department of psychology at Wilfred Laurier University. She and her students are actively engaged in research on mindfulness and acceptance processes and interventions in social anxiety. She has received research funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Ontario Mental Health Foundation (New Investigator Fellowship) and had published widely in the area of social anxiety. She has adjunct appointments at Ryerson University and the University of Waterloo, and maintains a part-time private practice largely devoted to the treatment of social anxiety.