Social Phobia / Social Anxiety / Social Anxiety Disorder

Hypnotherapy notes This type of phobia responds well to hypnotherapy especially when a desensitisation approach is adopted. EMDR can be particularly beneficial to change limiting beliefs and to understand past responses in new ways. Self hypnosis and "on the spot" NLP coping methods are also beneficial. Timeline techniques that rehearse future events desensitise to old triggers and install new ways of behaving can also be helpful. 📄 This free FQ Fear Questionnaire can help assess the severity and spread of phobic avoidance across social situations, agoraphobic situations and blood or injury fears. 📄 Social Phobia can result in or enhance Rejection Sensitivity. This free RSQ Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire explores how strongly you respond to rejection within everyday relationships and social situations. If you have issues with social noise try our desensitisation audio CD... ... or perhaps increase your confidence in social situations with our Banish Anxiety or Social Confidence CDs

Because few socially-anxious people have heard of their own problem, and have never seen it discussed on any media, such as the television talk shows, they think they are the only ones in the whole world who have these terrible symptoms. Therefore, they must keep quiet about them. It would be awful if everyone realized how much anxiety they experienced in daily life. Then what would people think about them? Unfortunately, without some kind of education, knowledge, and appropriate treatment, social phobia/social anxiety continues to wreak havoc.

Making the situation more difficult is that social anxiety does not come and go like some other physical and psychological problems. If you have social anxiety one day...... you have it every day.....

As with all problems, everyone with social anxiety has slightly different secondary symptoms. Some people, for example, cannot write in public because they fear people are watching and their hand will shake. Others are very introverted and they find it too difficult to hold down a job. Still others have severe anxiety about eating or drinking in the presence of other people. Some people with social anxiety feel that a certain part of their body (such as the face or neck) are particularly "strange looking" and vulnerable to being stared at.

Others experience a muscle spasm (usually around the neck and shoulders) and it becomes the center of their focus. (See also Dystonia / Tics).

When excessive blushing or sweating is involved and becomes the main focus of the phobic response social phobia can evolve into erythrophobia.

One thing that all socially anxious people share is the knowledge that their thoughts and fears are basically irrational. That is, people with social anxiety know that others are really not critically judging or evaluating them all the time. They understand that people are not trying to embarrass or humiliate them. They realize that their thoughts and feelings are somewhat exaggerated and irrational. Yet, despite this rational knowledge, they still continue to feel differently.

It is these automatic "feelings" and thoughts that occur around social situations that must be met and conquered in therapy. Usually these anxious feelings are tied to thoughts that are entwined in a vicious cycle of negative expectations and negative appraisals. It is a catch-22 situation: there is no way out without the appropriate therapy.

Note: In some respects the concept of social anxiety is "new", to be more precise the label is "new". Some would argue that social anxiety is simply what is experienced by those that are introverted when in situations were society forces extroversion upon them.

Who says that you have to like going to dinner parties or being a socialite? Who says for that matter that you even need to like other people at all?

If you're OK with who you are and how you are then that's fine. If you don't really have a choice and you have to play along with society then therapy is a good starting point - you may not become the "life of the party" figure but at least you will be able to play their game and feel OK about it.

Social Phobia / Social Anxiety / Social Anxiety Disorder testimonials

• "My Sessions with Bill helped me relax and take control of my thinking patterns with far greater ease and insight than ever before. He has a relaxed, personable manner which makes you feel comfortable and quickly at ease. For me the sessions were successful and I recommend Bill wholeheartedly. Cheers." {Social anxiety}*

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• "Bill's therapy has been invaluable to me in overcoming the physical and emotional pain of a miscarriage. He has refocused my career and helped me find the strength within myself to make the right personal and professional changes. The EMDR removed the nightmares reoccuring for 10 years and the Timeline therapy placed the incident in my past desensitising the pain of the miscarriage and an abusive relationship. The dirty feeling/grittyness and poor self image I had gradually dispelled as I practised the meditation techniques dispelling the binge comfort eating and self harm destructive patterns. Bill taught me to come to terms with my bi-polar depression triggered by the miscarriage-reactive depression. Within mid therapy session (session 2) I made the move to come off the anti depressants, sedatives and sleeping pills all within the period of 2 weeks while he taught me depression was merely a body's reactive mechanism that could be changed and monitored useing his Time-line and stress management discs and CD's as well as controlled meditative breathing and mind exercises to control emotional pain.
  
  Particularly effective was Time-line therapy which combined cleverly the first relaxation technique then the white light healing exercise combined with the reevaluation of the past via Time-line therapy repositioning and desensitising the pain of the past event and objectifying lessons learnt from the past. I have learnt through his leads through Buddhism to gain insight from suffering and am just begining to learn Buddhist meditation techniques to help me even at work to focus more clearly on my observation work with children and pinpoint social sensitivity. Thankyou Bill. You have opened the door that was my self made prison." {Bereavement / Trauma / Bipolar}*

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• "Bill helped me with a number of long standing problems. I had social anxiety all my life, hypnosis and NLP worked well for me especially for talking in group situations. I am now able to speak up in meetings and training events, before I would have had a panic attack when asked to introduce myself to a group of strangers. Recently I was able to take part in a presentation at a national conference to an audience of 20 people, which is great progress for me." {Social anxiety / Presentation anxiety}*

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• "Things have been going very well - I haven't bought chocolate since my first session, and have eaten sum total of 3 small chocolates (in social settings where refusal would be rude!) and two small chocolate half-covered biscuits in 3 weeks. Willpower lasting well, and weight reduced by 8lb as of this morning. Blood pressure also significantly reduced over the last month or so - probably due to ongoing exercise, and general improved diet (including lack of chocolate). Many thanks - terrific results to date, and am thrilled to bits!" {Weight control / Hypertension}*

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• "Developed almost phobic-like fear of my children screaming at me after years of abuse from the eldest who has Asperger's Syndrome. Therapy sessions with Bill relieved me of this extreme anxiety and I am very grateful for that." {Social noise phobia / Trauma}*

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• "I had one therapy session with Bill Frost and it's the best money I've ever spent! He's given me the tools to deal with going to business meetings and social situations in confidence, knowing I can control any anxiety." {Social Anxiety / Presentation anxiety}*

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• "Bill has assisted me at two separate very challenging times in my life, learning to cope with deep social anxiety, low self esteem and depression. From my first session I have felt a nearly immediate improvement to my symptoms when compared to other therapies such as CBT and talking therapies alone. Bill is highly qualified and personable, and I highly recommend." {Social anxiety / Confidence / Depression}*

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• "Extremely positive experience. Bill is very calm, reassuring and knowledgeable. I feel confident enough to be able to put my new coping techniques into practice." {Social Anxiety / IBS}*

*Disclaimer required by Google: We provide testimonials to help you gain confidence about how we work and results we achieve. However, please be aware that we whilst we bring 100% of our effort and skill to the process, as with all hypnotherapy / psychotherapy practices, results may vary between individuals.

We have included the first 10 only! There are many more Social Phobia / Social Anxiety / Social Anxiety Disorder related testimonials here

Research: Eisenburger, N & Lieberman, M (2004) Why rejection hurts: A common neural alarm system for physical and social pain. Trends in Cognitive Science Vol 8 (7): 294-300

Numerous languages characterize 'social pain', the feelings resulting from social estrangement, with words typically reserved for describing physical pain ('broken heart', 'broken bones') and perhaps for good reason. It has been suggested that, in mammalian species, the social-attachment system borrowed the computations of the pain system to prevent the potentially harmful consequences of social separation.

Mounting evidence from the animal lesion and human neuroimaging literatures suggests that physical and social pain overlap in their underlying neural circuitry and computational processes. We review evidence suggesting that the anterior cingulate cortex plays a key role in the physical-social pain overlap. We also suggest that the physical-social pain circuitry might share components of a broader neural alarm system.

Roth, D. et al (2001) Interpretations for anxiety symptoms in social phobia. Behaviour Research and Therapy. Vol 39 (2): 129-138

Examined the interpretations that people make for 4 visible symptoms typically associated with social anxiety (sweating, blushing, shaking, and shaky voice). Ss were 55 Canadians (mean age 35.51 yrs) with social phobia (SP; based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV (DSM-IV) criteria) and 54 Canadians without SP. Ss completed 1 of 2 versions of the Symptom Interpretation Scale (SIS; designed for this study), a scale asking Ss to rate the extent to which each of 8 interpretations is a likely explanation for the 4 anxiety symptoms (ASs). The Actor version asked Ss to judge how their own ASs are interpreted by others. The Observer version asked Ss to interpret ASs displayed by others. Two standard SP and anxiety scales were also completed by Ss as validation measures for the SIS. The results indicate that, when asked about ASs that they themselves exhibit, individuals with SPs are more likely to think that others interpret ASs as being indicative of intense anxiety or a psychiatric condition and are less likely to think that others interpret them as being indicative of a normal physical state. Data also suggests that those with SPs have a more flexible cognitive style when asked to interpret ASs exhibited by others than when asked about how others view their own.