Therapy helps but you need to find the right therapist with the appropriate therapy. The problem is that even though SA is the most common of all the anxiety disorders, it is the LEAST understood by the public as well as with docs, even with some that say they treat SA. Alot of docs still just see as being shy and if we just make our negative thoughts positive, do a couple of forced exposures, and give us a relaxation tape to listen to we won't have SA anymore.
CBT specialized for SA is the key. That means that the doc gives you specific strategies, methods, and little steps in between that are specific for the recovery of SA. They don't just tell you to think positive. Instead they show you how to catch your negative thinking, remind you why your thoughts and feelings are irrational, have you go neutral on your thoughts, and then start moving up into positive thoughts when you feel your brain is ready to believe it. They should also target specific topics such as acceptance, perfectionism, pressuring, negative perception of the world, pain from the past, anticipatory anxiety, and ways to distract yourself from negative thoughts and emotions.
They should also teach you lots of different techniques for relaxation and negative thought stopping, not just one way. This is because you have lots of different strategies to fall back on, certain techniques will work better for certain individuals, and some techniques will work better in certain situations.
Last but not least, the doc should be capable, knowledgeable about SA and how to treat it, and should know how to act around and work with people with SA such as not waiting in silence waiting for you to talk more, staring (I don't mean simple eye contact) at you, disregarding or belittling your SA, not placing too much attention on you, especially in the beginning, or being too cold and clinical.
Some other little tidbits:
They should NEVER force you to do anything. The reason is because forcing or pressuring just makes you more anxious and reinforces those negative feelings. We want to build up our positive emotions and no longer associate negativity with things that make us anxious. The other reason is because when we decide what we are going to do and when, we learn to become assertive and feel more in control of ourselves and our lives.
If you have other disorders you may not get as much out of therapy, no matter how great the doc and program is. This is why meds are important. If you find a med that works for you, you can focus on the therapy much more and start recovery.
I find that talk therapy where you just talk about past experiences and analyzing to death why you have SA doesn't help but actually makes you worse in the long run because the more you run those old memories through your mind remembering all the negative emotions you felt, you're re-tramautizing yourself all over again. I also don't think finding out why you have SA is important to recovery. Plus talking about anxiety over and over again without any positive solutions just reinforces the anxiety and makes it stronger.
Hold on to that hope you have even when you experience setbacks (because you will), or encounter docs that are inadequate for your treatment. Maybe the first, second, or tenth doc you meet won't be able to help you but at least you're taking that chance of getting better. Just sitting back and passively waiting for SA to go away isn't ideal because most likely your SA won't go away and might even get worse.