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Stop Agonizing About Presenting Yourself to Others ... NOW!

  
   Dr. Signe A. Dayhoff
Social Effectiveness Guru

                INTRODUCTION

Dear Social Anxiety Sufferers (Your Friends and Family),

    Everyone has experienced fleeting anxiety in social situations. But what you suffer
from is probably more severe and debilitating.  It likely insinuates itself into one or 
more important aspects of your life. Perhaps you suffer from the agonizing pangs of self-consciousness  about being on public view or the center of attention  and making a mistake, leaving you humiliated. 

    Perhaps you dread meeting people, giving a speech, using a public restroom, eating in public, talking to your boss, or having your social skills  or work observed or your competence  assessed.  Or perhaps you feel threatened in a new social situation where you don’t know the rules, avoid such situations altogether, or just want to escape. We all experience social anxiety a little differently yet we’re all riding the same skittish horse.

    When your social fears are intense and persistent, you have social anxiety disorder/social phobia (SA/SP - “sasp” for short). This means every day you’re forced to confront the pain of being in the spotlight, evaluated, or being embarrassed by the very social situations you long to embrace. Socially you find yourselfs on the periphery of life’s dance, trying to follow the choreographed patterns and rhythm, but usually seeming to be one beat out of synch, zigging when you should zag.  

    Often feeling like the butt of a cosmic joke, you see yourself as the ball in a pinball machine, bouncing from bumper to bumper, missing targets, and always on the verge of “tilt.” This is being diagonally-parked in a parallel universe.

    Clinically, too, having SA/SP puts you in another dimension. Even though SA/SP is the most common anxiety disorder and the third most common psychiatric disorder after depression and alcoholism, it is still the least diagnosed, least-widely understood, and most under-treated. Few mental health professionals are truly well-versed in the condition or its treatment even as the number of sufferers continues to increase.

    Making your situation worse, most of you with SA/SP don’t know you have a treatable disorder, that you’re not “just shy,” and that you can and need to get help. But even when you understand this, you’re often reluctant to seek professional help  because you’re ashamed of the fear  and worried that your complaints won’t be taken seriously.

     Then, when you finally do muster the courage to do it, you’re often hobbled by the very anxiety for which you seek help: Talking with and being evaluated by others. Together, these factors help keep this major health problem nearly invisible.

    This comprehensive book was written to show you how you can

· Significantly and effectively alleviate your SA/SP pain;

· Significantly improve your daily functioning; and

· Effectively work toward your potential.

    You benefit from the uniqueness of my perspective.  I’m both a social psychologist working in the areas of social and personal effectiveness, interpersonal and presentation  skills, and anxiety management and someone who struggled for 22 years to successfully overcome SA/SP. 

    I used to worry  endlessly about what others might think about me and my not meeting their expectations . As a result, I understand how it feels to be living- and working through this often-incapacitating disorder and where SA/SPers need to specifically concentrate your efforts to improve your lives.

    You benefit from my knowledge of SA/SPers’ concerns, issues, and desires - the result of my several years of talking with and listening  to SA/SPers online  via lists, news groups , and chats .  You benefit from my research, teaching, consulting, training, and coaching experience, as well as my association with clinical-research professionals in the SA/SP trenches.

    To make your SA/SP more understandable and amenable to change , this book provides you with not only the theories and salient research on its origin, triggers, and maintaining mechanisms, but also a broad range of standard and alternative clinical approaches, life strategies, motivational exercises, and empathy . 

    And because I know from extensive experience that your having exercises just thrown at you isn’t likely to help you empower yourself and succeed, this book takes you back to square-one.  It gives you the psychological preparation you need to jump-start, enable, and maintain your recovery  process.

    Because SA/SPers tend to have difficulties with clinicians, this book takes the mystery and risk  out of locating and talking to them and guides you through the process: From initiating your search to surviving your first appointment.  It tells you what to expect and how to prepare for it.

    Because SA/SPers struggle with presenting yourselves socially (whether communicating, socializing, dating , or finding a job), this book addresses each significant life activity, breaks it down into sequential, digestible chunks so you can absorb, assimilate, and achieve it.  

    And, because the Internet  has great importance and value  for SA/SPers as one of the few means of establishing relationships and comfortable communication  you have, the book pinpoints the services and resources available for those with SA/SP.

    Since how you think, feel, and behave determines how you interact with your environment (and conversely), this book focuses on your perceptions , emotions, beliefs , and self-presentation . Using real-life stories, typical problems, and their solutions, the user-friendly format takes you logically, incrementally, step-by-baby-step through the multiple-level processes of your recovery .  

    Through concise explanations, thought questions, self-quizzes, and exercises, you systematically develop and apply your cognitive and behavioral strategies to achieve your recovery goals .

    In this process you’ll assess your social anxiety, determine where you’re headed, how to get there, and how you’ll know when you’ve arrived.  You’ll act as a scientist doing experiments.  You’ll learn, practice, and apply new skills that will constructively change  the way you think about and cope with not only your SA/SP but also the world outside yourself.  You’ll see yourself make positive changes.

    Using this book’s clinically-proven methods, you can

reduce your

·  anxiety and fear

·  depression

·  negative thinking

·  anger

·  loneliness

·  procrastination

·  shame  and embarrassment , and

increase your

·  motivation  to make change

·  confidence  and self-esteem

·  ability to handle stress

·  initiating and maintaining conversations

·  problem solving

·  decision making

·  expressing yourself appropriately

·  patience

·  listening  to others

·  social effectiveness

·  dealing with criticism

·  dating

·  networking

·  creating your own job and career  opportunities

·  understanding  of social anxiety, yourself, and others

However, just reading this book isn’t likely to ameliorate your SA/SP any more than just watching others exercise will cause you to lose weight and tone your body (although awareness may provide important identification , hints, and hope ).  The book’s recovery  program is action-oriented, requiring your active, committed, persistent participation in order for you to alter all those factors contributing to your SA/SP:  Your Automatic Fear  Arousal , Negative Thoughts, Mistaken Beliefs  and Assumptions , Unrealistic Expectations , and Counter-Productive Behaviors. 

Note:  As much as we all may wish it to be true, there is no finger-snapping, lamp-rubbing, “Shazaam!” magical solution to SA/SP.  It took many factors interacting over many years to bring you to your present state.  So recovery  will not be instantaneous.  But if you take the time to make the necessary structured effort  toward recovery (whether that includes therapy , medication, or both), you will quickly begin to experience small but significant changes in your thoughts, feelings, and behavior -  glimpsing what it’ll be like “without SA/SP.”

Essential to your SA/SP recovery  will be empathy , patience, and your acceptance  of yourself as you are.  You must believe and feel that you’re worthy of becoming better.  You must believe that you’re not to blame  for this problem but that you are responsible for its solution.

The goal of this book is not to make you wildly extroverted or a party animal.  Unless you’re an extrovert lurking under the heavy cloak of SA/SP, that’s not likely to happen.  What is likely is when that leaden mantle is slipped from your shoulders, your submerged personality, whatever that may be, will be liberated to fly and soar.

The goal of this book is not to make you “successful” at everything you try.  It can’t and you won’t be. That’s unrealistic.  But it will facilitate that happy juncture of the knowledge you’ve gained through the book, the opportunity to use it, and your careful and focused use of it. 

In other words, it gives you a tool bag of strategies and tools and shows you haw to create the opportunities to use them to get what you want.

The goal IS your significantly and effectively alleviating your SA/SP pain, your significantly improving your daily functioning, and your effectively and successfully working toward meeting your potential - in a word, recovery .

Your actions toward recovery  will give you the necessary experience, confidence , and problem-solving strategies you’ll need for your new life.  Your actions will give you coping , interpersonal, and social effectiveness  skills.  Your actions will give you a new perspective on yourself, others, and social interaction. Whether you use this book as a guide to work on your SA/SP on your own or as an adjunct to therapy , the following chapters will provide you with everything you need to spark your action, accomplish your goals , and relieve your anxiety.

Always remember, your social anxiety is merely a dysfunctional over-expression of your sensitivity , empathy , and imagination. These are special gifts to be valued, cultivated, and nurtured. Yes, you CAN learn how to delight in these gifts and share them with others. I invite you to join me and enjoy finally being “parallel-parked in a parallel universe.”

Your recovered friend and advisor,

Placitas , New Mexico

  August 2007