Combat Your Social Phobia!

Phobias are intense fears that are either very specific in nature or more generalized. Some of these conditions, while disturbing, cause little discernable impact on your life, while others are crippling. Specific Phobias tend to be caused by specific triggering events. For example, your life long fear of elevators stems from being stuck on a rollercoaster for 10 minutes when you were 8.

Of course an elevator is not the same as a rollercoaster but your mind has made a connection between these two travelling, confined spaces and thus your fear is born. It is possible to control your reactions to this uncomfortable situation. You need to confront your body´s natural flight response with positive counter thoughts.

What is a phobia? There are a lot of anxiety conditions out there that people have to deal with daily. Some are common and things we´ve heard of like agoraphobia and social phobia and some are less common or less well known. These conditions arise when the preoccupation with worry has become so acute that you are no longer engaging in your normal routines.

Some of the common fears that can turn into angst driven nightmares are normal things that many people get nervous over but don´t avoid entirely. For example, many phobias center on the fear of going to the dentist, fear of thunder or lightning, fear of illness or fear of animals or elevators. Some of these fears don´t have a daily impact on our lives but they can have long term effects on our health or mental well being.

A phobia is simply an irrational fear that is intense and persistent. The fear is directed at a particular activity, situation or person. People with these problems will go to almost any length to avoid that which they fear. If you are worried about going to the dentist, decades may pass without a visit, you may ignore tooth pain, and try ways to self medicate or simply ignore the discomfort and hope it goes away.

This approach could of course leave you with a serious medical problem. These conditions make you avoid activities and people even if you know you should not.

More than 10% of the American population suffers from excessive fear at one time or another. Phobias also affect more women than men. Most specific disorders like fear of animals, fear of the elevator and fear of airplanes can usually be explained by some triggering or traumatic event that happened in your formative fears.

A close encounter with a dog, a dog bite or threat might lead to a lifetime fear or anxiousness around dogs. The triggering event doesn´t have to be that obvious though, it could be you were scared by a TV program and had bad dreams about that topic for a few nights and developed an intense fear.

Both specific phobias and more pervasive problems like social phobia and agoraphobia can be dealt with. You can stop avoiding the things that frighten you and tackle new experiences in your life. Don´t let worry control your life any longer. Go see your daughter´s play, talk to your boss about a raise, and ask out the cute receptionist you´ve been in love with for years.

There are solutions for every problem; you just have to find them. A good starting point in conquering your fear is to rationalize the apprehension. You have to convince yourself that there really is no reason for the intense dread you feel. You may have been bitten by a dog when you were young but that doesn´t mean every dog will bite you. Some dogs are very nice, think Lassie.

While you may not be eager to adopt a furry four legged friend from the animal shelter, you also don´t need to cross the street every time you see a dog or avoid going to people´s houses that have dogs. When you encounter uncomfortable things, like a dog, be armed with some positive thoughts to counteract your body´s adrenaline surge and the temptation to flee as quickly as possible.

The two most common phobias are agoraphobia and social anxiety disorder. These two conditions can detrimentally affect a person´s ability to live a normal and productive life. Dealing with excessive worry like this can lead to physical and emotional complications as well because you are cut off from interacting with others and engaging in activities.

The source of fear is usually caused by a combination of hereditary, biological and environmental factors. These contributing factors lead to a confused an inappropriate response to certain situations, people and activities. For them, their fight or flight response is triggered unnecessarily and the struggle to restore their body and mind to order is usually debilitating.

The fight or flight response is our body´s natural way of protecting itself from the dangers of this world. If a wild grizzly bear is chasing you, you run. Your body does it automatically. If your child is drowning, you jump in after them. You don´t think about it, your body just goes into action.

Your body determines whether it´s best to fight or react or run. For people who have this adrenaline surge triggered, it is normally in response to appropriate situations. For phobia sufferers, this response kicks into action inappropriately, triggering panic attacks. The anxiety episodes are so upsetting, that many people strive, regardless of the consequences, to avoid a repeat performance.

This is what keeps phobic´s from engaging in life; the fear. The extreme, unchecked and inappropriate response of their bodies is upsetting and humiliating and very few people want to knowingly expose themselves to an increased chance of a panic attack. Therefore, caution, no matter how silly or intrusive, is usually the most common path taken when confronting this problem.

Social phobia which is also referred to as social anxiety disorder limits a person´s social interactions and causes intense, uncomfortable sensations when a person is exposed to social situations. This problem can prevent you from speaking in front of others, attending cocktail parties or receptions or even eating in front of other people.

The fear for a sufferer is that they will be perceived as strange, stupid or completely crazy. These fears are often completely unfounded but still overwhelming and profound.

Social phobia can be generalized and extend to a wide array of social situations or it can be specific. A specific problem, that is fairly common, is paruresis. These sufferers find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to go to the bathroom in front of others or within earshot of anyone else.

Agoraphobia is another common and potentially very serious condition. Agoraphobia is technically the fear of open spaces but it really is the fear of having a panic attack in a place or situation where you do not have help or assistance readily available. Agoraphobia is a condition that frequently develops in panic attack sufferers because they are worried about going places or doing things where they will have an anxiety attack.

Agoraphobia sufferers fear leaving home or the places they are familiar with. They don´t want to be alone in tunnels, on bridges or in any exposed venue where help will be hard or humiliating to attain. In its most extreme form, agoraphobia sufferers will refuse leaving their home, terrified of what will happen to them if they do.

The subjects that social phobia and agoraphobia suffers fear are common in a lot of people. Many people would prefer not speaking in front of a crowd; many people are afraid of bridges and tunnels and get nervous in these places. For most people these feelings are transitory and also easily conquered.

They push those feelings aside and go on with their lives. They stumble through the presentation, the speech in front of the crowd, the drive across the bridge. What separates these people from anxiety sufferers is the intense desire and need to avoid these situations at all costs.

Taken to the extreme, avoidance can lead to loss of your job, disruptions in your family life and leading an unfulfilled and scared life. This is not an appealing way to live and every effort should be taken to address your fears. Finding relaxation outlets for your stress will be one great step forward in addressing the needs of your body and mind and ending your battle with apprehension, angst and depression.

Social phobia can develop for a variety of reasons. The disorder starts in childhood or young adulthood and may grow by slow degrees as time passes. While this phobia often presents itself at a young age, it can stay with a person for years or decades and can snowball into an even greater problem.

Some of the reasons that the phobia occurs include:

1. In some people, the phobia develops from a long-term history of shyness or social inhibition.

2. In other young people, it crops up after a change in situation, such as a move to a new school. For adults, this change in circumstances could be a change of jobs, a promotion, a public speaking job or even a new relationship.

3. A lot of people experience a sudden onset of social phobia following a particularly humiliating or frightening experience.

Social phobia is caused by a combination of environmental and physical factors. As with panic disorder, a person´s natural temperament may be an important factor in determining why they develop panic attacks and phobia when others do not.

If as a child, you were behaviorally inhibited, you are more likely to develop an anxiety disorder in adulthood. You can recognize behavioral inhibition by reflecting on your experiences as a child or asking people who knew you as a child.

The behaviors you are looking for include nervous moving around, crying, and general irritability, followed by withdrawing and seeking comfort from familiar people when confronted with a new person or situation.

Also stopping what you are doing when noticing a new person or situation is another indication. While these manifestations are important determinants, it is also important not to obsess over every little indication. Factors should be taken as a whole and examined in terms of frequency and severity.

The sufferers should also examine their interactions with their parents. If your parent struggled with major depression, panic attacks, or other anxiety problems, you are at an increased risk of developing social phobia. This family pattern of phobia is more likely in cases of generalized, not specific phobia.

For children of parents who struggled with depression, it is more likely that they acquired certain attitudes and behaviors from their parents that make them more susceptible to developing the phobia.

People with parents who suffered from depression often see the negative in any given situation. They overestimate the threats and dangers in life and underestimate their strength, intelligence, and other resources for coping with these situations. The social modeling they are taking from their parent´s influence how they react and interact with the world and thus, may make people with these types of parental relationships more susceptible to social phobia than those that do not.

Another reason for the development of this phobia in children and adolescents is the deterioration of the social network of family and friends that surrounds young people. We live in a culture where the nuclear family has become the norm, social gatherings limited and general interaction with the television set more common than friends.

Children are exposed to more adult situations, more aggressive behavior, more foul language and more unpleasant situations whether through real life or television than ever before. The world is rougher and people meaner and many people that may have made it in a kinder, gentler world have been overwhelmed with the requirements of modern society and have developed phobias such as social phobia to cope.

Social phobia or social anxiety disorder is a common anxiety disorder that millions of Americans struggle with everyday. It is a fear of embarrassment or humiliation in situations where other people are scrutinizing your actions or statements.

The fear that social phobics experience is above and beyond the normal unease that people might feel before speaking in front of an audience, performing a play or going to a cocktail party filled with strangers. The fear and anxiety are so strong that they cause you to obsess over the event or avoid the situation altogether.

Your concern will be out of proportion to the situation, you will recognize it is excessive but will be unable to avoid thinking that you will say or do something that others will judge to be stupid, weak, anxious or just plain crazy. The detrimental impact that this phobia can have on the lives of sufferers is limitless.

The most common manifestation of social phobia is a problem with public speaking. This fear affects actors, lawyers, people who have to give speeches, presentations and performances in front of others and students who have to speak in front of the class.

Other common manifestations include:

- Fear of blushing in public

- Fear of choking on or spilling food while eating in public

- Fear of being watched at work

- Fear of using public bathrooms

- Fear or writing or signing documents in front of others

- Fear of crowds

- Fear of taking tests

Social phobia doesn´t have to be so specific though. In many cases, it will just be a generalized anxiety about any social or group interaction where you feel you are being watched or evaluated.

If your fear covers a broad range of situations such as starting conversations, chatting in small groups, speaking to authority figures, dating, going to parties and other social interactions then you have generalized social phobia.

Social anxiety and nervousness are present in most people and part of normal life. You would only be diagnosed as phobic if your avoidance tactics interfere with work, social activities or important relationships, or cause you considerable distress.

You can have panic attacks when you have social phobia although that is not a necessary component. The panic attacks are related to being embarrassed or humiliated not necessarily being trapped or confined as with agoraphobia. Social anxiety also crops up at an earlier age than agoraphobia.

For children, the condition is often diagnosed in late childhood or early adolescence and becomes a problem when children start facing peer pressure at school. Like other anxieties and fear, this phobia can be dealt with. Like most fears, you need to gradually face your fears head on and work to overcome the fear of embarrassment and the worry of rejection.

Particularly effective techniques in battling this condition are imagery desensitization and real-life exposure. In addition, improving your assertiveness and self-esteem will also help in confronting and managing your social fears.

Social phobia or social anxiety disorder comes in many forms. For some people, it crops up in specific situations, most commonly public speaking. In other people, it may manifest as fear of dating or talking to an authority figure. For others, it is a more generalized fear of interacting with people you don´t know or aren´t comfortable with.

Social phobia should not be confused with shyness. Shy people can certainly be uncomfortable around others but they don´t suffer from extreme anxiety anticipating the event and they don´t necessarily avoid the situation that makes them anxious.

People with social phobia don´t have to be shy at all. In fact they can be completely at ease, even gregarious in many situations until they run into the situation they are phobic about. Walking down an aisle in public or making a speech can suddenly turn these previously at ease people into unrecognizable, nervous, agitated wrecks.

As with other anxiety disorders and phobias, social phobia hampers your life. A negative impact on your daily life is the key component in any phobia diagnosis. If you pass up a promotion because you can´t give public presentations then your phobia has interfered with your life and you have this disorder.

For people suffering from phobia the dread and anxiety can take over your life. If you know you need to go to a client´s Christmas party, you can dread that event for weeks beforehand and make yourself sick. The worry and anxiety are both physically and mentally debilitating.

People who suffer from social phobia know that their feelings are irrational or overblown. However, they can´t escape the immense dread and worry that preoccupies their lives before facing the feared social occasion. The anticipatory dread may lead to avoidance and certainly plagues the mind for a great deal of time beforehand.

If your phobia isn´t severe you may be able to face the feared social situation but the discomfort you feel during the event is overwhelming. What´s more, the feelings often remain after the event; as you obsess over the details of your interactions, wonder what people thought of you and what their comments might be about you now.

The preoccupation, extreme anxiety and potential panic attacks surrounding social interaction are not normal. Shyness is fine but when the feelings are so overwhelming that they cause anxiety for weeks or months or years then it has crossed over into a phobia.

The sufferers have their lives dictated by the need to avoid the specific type of situation they are phobic about. They will go to almost any length to avoid the fear of being judged or looked at by others. This is not a problem that will just go away; it is a situation that requires intervention on your part to retrain your mind to overcome the anxiousness that plagues it.

There are two different types of social phobia. The first is generalized, where anything and everything in the way of social interaction has the potential to send your nerves into overdrive. People who are only afraid of a few or a particular type of social interaction have non-generalized or specific social phobia.

To help determine if you are suffering from social phobia answer "yes" or "no" to the following three questions:

1. Is being embarrassed or looking stupid one of your worst fears?
2. Does fear of embarrassment cause you to avoid interacting with people or doing things?
3. Do you avoid activities where you are the focus or center of attention?

Affirmative answers to these questions are a good indication that you may be struggling with the disorder. However, there are also physical symptoms and mental attitudes and behaviors that can help clue you in to social phobia.

Some of the physical symptoms that you might be struggling with include:

- blushing
- sweating
- nausea
- dry mouth
- tremors
- diarrhea

Some of the mental and behavioral attitudes that you might be struggling with include:

1. You have an extreme and persistent fear of one or more social situations where you need to perform, interact or are exposed to unfamiliar people or scrutiny by others. You are afraid that you will humiliate or embarrass yourself by showing anxiety symptoms.

2. You experience terrible anxiety or a panic attack when being exposed to the feared social situation.

3. You know your fear is excessive or unreasonable.

4. You either suffer intense anxiety or distress about or avoid situations where social performance is required.

5. Your normal routine, work, social activities, or relationships suffer distress or deterioration as a result of fear avoidance.

6. You have trouble asserting yourself.

7. You obsess over the reactions and responses of others to what you say and do.

8. You are especially sensitive to critiques, evaluations, criticism or rejection.

While this list of symptoms, behavior and attitudes is a good start, it is not exhaustive and you certainly don´t need to encounter all of these problems to have this disorder. Unfortunately, many of the symptoms of the phobia are similar to panic disorder and agoraphobia so the phobia can often be confused with one of these other problems.

It is important to try to pinpoint the particular anxiety disorder you are struggling with. A doctor may need to assist you and should certainly be consulted if you have immediate concerns about your health or well being.

While many of the suggested tactics are similar for dealing with all three conditions, there are some important differences and the focus is different so it is important to define what you are struggling with.

Since social phobia is an anxiety disorder that frequently strikes children or begins in early adolescence and continues into and through adulthood, it is important to consider the manifestation of symptoms in childhood. Many of the physical reactions will be similar but for children they may also include:

- tantrums
- crying
- clinging to parents or other trusted and familiar people
- freezing or lack of talking

Many of the behavioral and attitude symptoms will be the same but should be adjusted for the age of the child. Children will also struggle with expressing and understanding their fears. For children and adolescents it is important to distinguish between phobia symptoms and general adolescent growing pains.

The symptoms of this phobia often work in a vicious circle. The symptoms lead to actual or perceived poor performances, which in turn increase the anxiety and avoidance. Understanding the origins or causes of your social phobia will help with treatment and give you further insight into how to battle these feelings and the difficulties they present.

Phobias are fears pure and simple. You are afraid of small spaces, confined spaces, high places, dogs, elevators, or alligators. A fear becomes a phobia when it irrationally interferes with your life and causes you to avoid people, places and things because of that fear.

You don´t go to work because you have to ride the elevator; you won´t drive your children to their friend´s house because you´re afraid of your car. A great way to stop these fears from interfering with your lifestyle is to desensitize yourself to the feelings these situations create with real life desensitization.

Real life desensitization or exposure therapy is a great way to confront the phobias or other anxiety problems that may be hampering your life. While this process is effective it can be very uncomfortable because you are gradually exposing yourself to that which you fear.

However, if you are able to endure the stages of discomfort, you will find you will no longer experience the uncontrollable dread you once did when getting on a bridge. Getting into a car or interacting with others.

It´s important to understand that real life desensitization or exposure therapy is a gradual process that can take years to complete. You need to set goals for yourself, baby steps that you can accomplish in conquering your fear. Before you begin desensitizing yourself with real life situations and scenes, you will want to practice using your imagination first. It´s important that when you are exposing yourself either through your imagination or in real life to that which you fear that you take gradual steps.

For example, if you are afraid of the elevator, try breaking down your imagery desensitization and exposure therapy into the following steps. You can break any fear down into gradual steps that you can work on over the course of time.

1. Look at the elevator as it comes and goes on the first floor. Watch the doors open, watch them close, watch the elevator rise and return.

2. Stand in the elevator with someone you trust, keeping the doors open.

3. Stand in the elevator by yourself with the doors open.

4. Travel one floor up with your support person.

5. Travel in the elevator alone one floor but have someone you trust waiting where you will get off.

6. Travel two floors with someone you trust.

7. Travel two floors alone but have someone you trust waiting at the arrival floor.

8. Keep increasing the number of floors and repeating the process.

9. Travel up and down on the elevator by yourself.

You won´t be able to accomplish all of this in one day, one week, or even one month. Your psyche probably won´t let you. It´s taken a long time to foster and nurture the anxiety, so it will probably take a little while to break it down.

Don´t get impatient; the most important part of exposure therapy or imagery desensitization is commitment. Each time you complete one of the steps you will have conquered a little bit of your fear.

You will have to struggle through anxiety, dread, worry and other negative thoughts and physical reactions. Push through it but never take it too far. If the fear is just too great, stick with the previous step until you are fully comfortable. You never want to push yourself too far, it will make completing the next step in your process that much more difficult.

Now think of your phobia. What are you anxious about? Now think about the steps you need to complete to conquer that fear. Write a list and start working on it. Step by step. You will have conquered your fear sooner than you think and you will be amazed by the results.

Dealing with phobias can be troubling! These little fears can cause big reactions, leading to extreme anxiety, panic attacks and total avoidance of particular people, places, things and activities. Common phobias include fear of flying, fear of driving, fear of animals such as dogs and fear of public speaking.

For many people, their fears and their anxieties don´t play a daily part in their lives but for phobia sufferers, their thoughts are always directed towards avoiding that which they fear. Exposure therapy is a great way to lessen the dread that so many phobia sufferers have to contend with but it needs to be approached effectively.

Exposure therapy is a great method for phobia sufferers to deal with the anxiety related to their fear. For people experiencing this type of problem, their worries can lead to panic attacks, avoidance and other problems. Eliminating the feelings related to their phobia is a great way to deal with the dread and this can be accomplished through desensitization or exposure therapy.

This type of treatment, simply involves exposing yourself in gradual steps to that which you fear. It sounds simple, but dealing with the emotions that flood your system when encountering your object of dread is of course another story.

Break down the object or situation you fear into gradual steps. If you are afraid of driving on the highway, start by driving on local streets. Then drive near the highway. Then look at others driving on the highway. Drive on the highway with someone you trust behind the wheel.

Then you drive on the highway with that same person in the passenger seat. Go for one exit. Then drive for two exits, then three and so forth. Gradually exposing yourself to longer lengths of time on the highway. You can then work on driving the highway during busier times of day and so forth until you have mastered the experience.

There are some important things you need to keep in mind while practicing exposure therapy. First, you need to perform each step gradually and persevere until your feeling of fear become too strong. Before they get too intense, retreat from the activity you are doing and recover.

Use some calming techniques to restore your mind and body to a state of calmness. Once you are recovered, proceed again until the fear becomes too much and then retreat. It´s important to push yourself but not to push yourself too far.

It´s important to find someone you trust, that you can rely on to help you while you are mastering your fear. This person can be a family member or trusted friend. It may not be the person you´re closest too, like your spouse, but rather someone you trust and feel comfortable talking to about your problems.

While you´re challenging phobias, learn more about it. If you are afraid of flying, what is it about flying that makes you so uncomfortable? Is it the size of the plane, the color or feel of the seats, the number of people on the plane, the place where you are sitting? Learning more about the nature of your fear will help you in dealing with the panic and anxious feelings that surround it.

As you are challenging your phobias, you will feel some panic, some anxiety. It´s important that you are able to counteract these feelings with positive coping techniques. Some of the great methods to soothe an overactive mind or body are abdominal breathing, meditation, positive self talk or positive thought redirection.

A small amount of discomfort is unfortunately part of exposure therapy but if you use your coping strategies and don´t push yourself too far, too fast, you will be able to conquer your fears in a reasonable amount of time. Good Luck!

Exposure therapy as treatment for Social Phobia is exactly what it sounds like, exposing your mind and body to that which you fear. By gradually exposing and training your mind that the feared event is not as horrible as you think it is, you are working to desensitize yourself to the stimulus.

A). During exposure therapy, you expose yourself to small doses of the feared event and increase the duration of exposure over time. If you are afraid of talking in groups, start by imagining yourself in front of groups, then speak in front of a couple of family members or close friends, then a couple of acquaintances and build up to a room full of strangers.

You don´t need to pay someone to help you; you can work on this at home.

1. Start off imagining an event that causes severe anxiety, talking to your boss, asking a girl out, talking in front of your class, whatever it may be. Feel the anxiety, nervousness and agitation wash over you. After a minute or two, withdraw your mind from that situation. You have endured it and you are still here to tell about it.

2. Increase your exposure time gradually and then work your way up to real life exposure to the situation.

B). Image desensitization is a great way and process to implement exposure therapy on your own or in a group setting.

A great place to find support while you are working to desensitize yourself to the social phobia inducing situations is to work in a group with other sufferers. By rehearsing stressful situations within a group, not only do you know you are in a safe place where you will not be judged but you might learn from other sufferer´s coping strategies.

The second part of the cognitive behavior approach involves retraining the thought process in your mind. For many anxiety sufferers, the immediate and instinctive thought reaction to stressful situations is negativity. Social phobic don´t see the glass as half full but rather half empty and dirty.

It is important to substitute positive thoughts for the negative ones and not to overestimate the dangers, reactions and thoughts in any given social situation. You have a surprising ability to cope with what the world throws at you; you just need to uncover those resources.

Cognitive restructuring is used to help social phobia sufferers uncover the thoughts that automatically flood their minds whenever they are in stressful situations.
The thoughts flooding in the head probably involve fears of messing up a story, sounding stupid, having people think you are an idiot or maybe they´ll just turn their backs and walk away, completely uninterested in anything that comes out of your mouth.

Are these fears realistic? You need to test these notions to see if they compare with what will happen in the real world. You have told funny stories before, so you can probably do it again. Even if the story is stupid or uninteresting, the listeners would surely never be so rude as to turn their backs and walk away and most if not all will at the very least pretend to be interested.

However, you could also tell an interesting and engaging story that starts you down the road towards new friendships and better interaction with colleagues. If you constantly look at and examine your beliefs and rationalize them it can chip away at the long-held, negative beliefs that are holding you back. You can train your mind not to react negatively in every circumstance and certainly not to overestimate or over exaggerate the negative.

Building your self esteem and confidence will help you achieve greater success when engaging in cognitive behavior techniques. You can begin to tackle the fears that are at the root of your social phobia through imagery desensitization and Positive-Thought-Redirection%u2122.

It´s probably asking too much to just jump head first into confronting the situation you most fear. It makes more sense to approach conquering your fears in a step by step process.

One of those situations can be giving a presentation in front of others, that´s what´s holding you back from seeking a promotion at work. You can desensitize yourself to this fear and work to conquer it.

Here is an example of a step-by-step approach to image desensitization:

1. Break down the ability to give a presentation into steps. These steps might include:

a. sitting with a small group of people for 10 minutes

b. sitting with a small group of people for a longer period

c. sitting in a large group for 10 minutes, then a longer period such as an hour.

d. introducing comments while sitting with this group of people

e. giving a short, 1 minute presentation in front of friends

f. giving a short, one minute presentation in front of a small group and then a larger group of people

g. building up that presentation into 5, then 10, then 15 minutes etc%u2026

h. giving that presentation in front of a large group for 5, 10, 15 minutes.

2. Once you think about the steps involved in achieving your goal and creating your list, it is time to imagine in your mind the situation for each component. Place yourself in the situation in your mind for each step and work through it and use positive thought redirection to desensitize yourself to the anxiety you feel.

3. After you have desensitized yourself in your mind, it is time to practice the steps in real life, with real people. Often, explaining your problem to your boss and explaining the steps you will be undertaking is met with both understanding and the offer of help.

If your work situation cannot accommodate this real life desensitization practice, try to duplicate the situation on your own time, using acquaintances and other people you know. This is where being a member of a support group could come in handy. If public speaking is your fear, try taking a class in it, it is a good place to work on desensitization and is safer environment than your work place.

For social phobia sufferers, often the most crucial step in resolving their problems or effectuating a recovery is real life desensitization. An important component to real life desensitization is the relaxation techniques and countering mistaken mental beliefs that helps in the desensitization process. A great way to combat those troublesome beliefs that everyone will think you are stupid, weird, awkward, or just plain dumb is Positive-Thought-Redirection%u2122.

Positive-Thought-Redirection%u2122 entails stopping and substituting positive thoughts for negative or intrusive thoughts. As negative thoughts pop up during your social interactions, whether in your mind with image desensitization or in real life exposure situations you issue a "stop" command.

The goal is to stop that negative, over exaggerated or inaccurate thought in its tracks. You then want to substitute a more positive thought for the one you just stopped. When using this technique it´s best to have a prepared list of positive thoughts that you can build yourself up with. By doing the thinking and preparation beforehand, you want add to the stress of the situation by having to redirect your thoughts unassisted at the spur of the moment.

Practicing positive thought redirection along with image desensitization will greatly assist you in combating your fears.

As you build up your self esteem, realize that you can confront the situations you fear and survive and even thrive you will see your assertiveness and confidence grow. Don´t let your social phobia stand in the way of the life you want any longer.