| Many physical ailments get worse over time. What | | | | when the paradoxical intent is too difficult for them to |
| about mental health problems like social anxiety? Does | | | | maintain. |
| it get better or worse over time? | | | | The solution? Slow and steady progress toward |
| The answer seems to lie deep within the motivations | | | | building your confidence in the paradoxical intent is the |
| of your life. Your primary motivational streams may | | | | solution. People who fail to apply the method usually |
| change over time. Right now your primary motivation | | | | rush past what we psychologists call a hierarchy of |
| may be oriented around finding a mate or getting a | | | | anxiety provoking events (meaning an easy-to-hard list |
| promotion, or avoiding negative evaluations from | | | | of situations that trigger the anxiety). If you are going to |
| people you care about. If that's the case, your social | | | | succeed in maintaining the paradoxical intent in your |
| anxiety symptoms will likely be stronger now than they | | | | mind, you must have powerful confidence built slowly |
| will be at a time in your life when your primary | | | | over time. Moving slowly up a hierarchy of increasingly |
| motivations are spending time with your grandkids, | | | | anxiety-provoking situations will allow you to have a |
| giving back to your community through volunteering, or | | | | natural confidence in your new ability to maintain a |
| keeping your backyard garden looking beautiful. But | | | | proper focus instead of a fake, forced confidence that |
| what if you don't want to wait for your primary | | | | breaks down at the big event. |
| motivations to change? | | | | So the real answer to the question about whether |
| The best approach to dealing with social anxiety IS to | | | | social anxiety gets worse over time is: "It depends on |
| change your primary motivations. This may sound | | | | whether you keep running from your anxiety and trying |
| counter-intuitive, but if you can find a way to care less | | | | to control it and avoid it." I'd encourage you to take a |
| about looking good to others (or even care less about | | | | stand against running from your social anxiety. This |
| looking dumb to others) you will find success. How in | | | | doesn't mean that you go out and plan a public speech |
| the world do you do that? | | | | in front of 200 people. It means you make a strategy |
| Psychologists have been working hard on answering | | | | to work against the natural inclination to avoid the |
| this very question because of recent findings that | | | | sensations of fear about what others are thinking |
| have revealed the enormous power of what might be | | | | about you. |
| called the "paradoxical effect" on social anxiety. The | | | | For a person with a fear about someone seeing a |
| paradoxical effect is just what it sounds like. It's a | | | | physical symptom of anxiety that you can't control (like |
| powerful tendency for anxiety to vanish when you | | | | shaking or sweating) the paradoxical effect is even |
| adopt a mental position of wanting the anxiety (or the | | | | more important. In those cases, you still need a |
| outcome you fear) to get worse instead of better. | | | | hierarchy of uncomfortable situations that trigger the |
| Getting people to do this is the tricky part. My patients | | | | symptoms, but you will want to start your hierarchy |
| tend to say the idea sounds like it is worth a try. | | | | with situations that don't actually cause the |
| Sometimes they begin to make some progress and | | | | manifestation of the symptoms even though they |
| build some momentum, only to be crushed by what | | | | make you more anxious than you would be at home |
| they perceive to be a "failure" of the system when it | | | | alone watching TV. Whatever you do, don't give up. |
| came to "the big test" when it really had to work. | | | | Social anxiety holds you back in life and robs you of |
| That's right...you have seen the pattern...The system | | | | the joy of just being yourself. It's worth the fight to |
| works, but the person stops working on the system | | | | reach for a better quality of life. |