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Stop Being One Of Those 11% Who Worry Too Much About What People Think Of Them
Hi, I am John Dunlop, and I specialise in social anxiety and low self-esteem issues. I can help you overcome your shame and worries in all types of social situations. I've already treated hundreds of people, and my success rate is over 80%. You can free yourself from feelings of inadequacy, embarrassment, humiliation, and depression with the state-of-the-art Cognitive Behavioural techniques I use.
If you worry excessively about what people think of you at work or at a personal level, and it's affecting your life, you may be suffering from SOCIAL ANXIETY DISORDER.
Social Anxiety or Social Phobia has, at the core, the fear of being judged and evaluated negatively by other people.
Don't wait any longer, and make an appointment to start feeling good about yourself. Usually, most people overcome this problem in around 12 to 16 sessions.
What Is Social Anxiety Disorder And What Are The Symptoms?
What is Social Anxiety Disorder?
Social anxiety is the fear of social situations and the interaction with other people that can automatically bring on feelings of self-consciousness, judgment, evaluation, and inferiority.
Put another way; social anxiety is the fear and anxiety of being judged and evaluated negatively by other people, leading to feelings of inadequacy, embarrassment, humiliation, and depression.
The anxiety becomes worse when the person fears that they are going to be singled out, ridiculed, criticised, embarrassed, or belittled. On occasion, the anxiety is so high that panic attacks may develop in response to some specific social event (e.g., giving a speech).
People with social anxiety realise that their fear is exaggerated, but they still cannot control it. They tend to avoid situations in which they need to perform in front of others, and this tends to interfere with life adjustment in some way. As you would expect, people with social anxiety disorder have an elevated rate of relationship difficulties and substance abuse. They also feel their self-worth is low, feel inadequate, and have trouble being assertive.
As many as 11% of the population may experience social anxiety to some degree, although not all seek treatment. Many people are fearful of public speaking, but manage to avoid it and cope well within a slightly more limited life sphere. Some individuals have more severe social anxiety and are even fearful of talking to people in any capacity. These people have more serious adjustment problems and are more likely to seek treatment. Social anxiety tends to develop during the teen years but often surfaces in children described as excessively shy.
Symptoms of Social Anxiety
Physical symptoms often accompany the intense anxiety of social phobia and include blushing, profuse sweating, palpitations, intense fear, dry mouth, panic attacks, and trembling. Other symptoms of anxiety include difficulty speaking, nausea, and other types of stomach discomfort. These visible symptoms heighten the fear of disapproval, and the symptoms themselves can become an additional focus of fear. This fear can create a vicious cycle because as people with social phobia or social anxiety worry about experiencing the symptoms, their chance of developing the symptoms increases.
People with social anxiety disorder usually experience significant emotional distress in the following situations:
* Being introduced to other people
* Being teased or criticised
* Being the center of attention
* Being watched while doing something e.g., eating, performing a task
* Meeting people in authority ("important people")
* Most social encounters, especially with strangers but it could be in the presence of relatives and family too.
* Going around the room (or table) in a circle and having to say something
* Fear of using public bathrooms or writing in public
* Interpersonal relationships, whether friendships or romantic
Please, contact me to make an appointment and stop worrying about what other people may think of you.
How We Treat Social Anxiety With CBT
In repeated trials, sponsored by the National Institutes of Mental Health, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has been confirmed as the most effective treatment for social anxiety.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy helps people deal with anxious situations. It involves understanding the problem and developing coping strategies such as changing thinking patterns in social situations and learning to focus attention on effective social behaviours.
The initial session usually begins with an assessment of the disorder, examining the situations that trigger the anxiety and the accompanying somatic symptoms. This educational process sets the understanding for training in skills to alleviate and eventually conquer social anxiety. These skills include assertiveness training, relaxation techniques, diaphragmatic breathing, the cognitive restructuring of distorted and negative thinking that contributes to social anxiety, and behavioural experiments to test the catastrophic predictions a person makes about a possible social situation.
Recent research indicates that approximately 70% of people who complete a short term treatment program (10 to 16 sessions) are judged to be much or very much improved. The amount of improvement appears to be related to the amount of time and energy the person devotes to developing new coping strategies. If avoidance is extreme and generalised to many and varied situations, you may require more sessions.
I specialise in the treatment of social anxiety, using techniques appropriate to the presenting symptoms. This depends on what triggers the anxiety, whether the individual has panic attacks and the severity of the symptoms. Most often, a combination of behavioural interventions is used with cognitive therapy. The behavioural treatment may include relaxation training, cognitive restructuring, surveys, assertiveness training, imaginal exposure, and behavioural experiments (e.g., through video feedback ...).
Cognitive therapy helps you to develop cognitive blocking mechanisms when the anxiety begins to build and also enables you to understand why social anxiety symptoms occur. This allows you to create different ways of coping by changing the way you perceive the social situations triggering your anxiety.
If you think you are suffering from Social anxiety or Social phobia, do not delay the decision to address this limiting problem, make an appointment, and start therapy now.
References:
American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition. Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Association, 1994.Hidalgo, R.B., Barnett, S.D., and Davidson, J.R.T. Social Anxiety Disorder in Review: Two Decades of Progress. Int J of Neuropsychopharm 2001, 4, 279-298.
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