Social Anxiety: Challenge Your Negative Observer

To improve your comfort level in social situations you must first change your thoughts. There is little point of you entering fearful encounters and simply tolerating them. There is no learning in such an approach. So start with your thinking process -- before, during and after any anxiety-producing social events. To take control of your thoughts, you need to identify your Negative Observer comments and to challenge them. The central focus of your attention will be on your distorted evaluation of your performance.

Listen for your self-talk in these four major areas.

1. That you are likely to perform poorly:

• I'll never think of anything to say. My mind always goes blank.
• I'm sure my hands will shake, and they'll notice.
• I'm so nervous. I just know I'm going to mess up.
• I'm going to talk too much.

2. That others will disapprove of your performance and their disapproval will be harsh.

• If I raise my hand and she calls on me, then everyone will know how nervous I am and they will reject me.
• I can't just start talking. He'll think I'm superficial.
• He'll never like me after he sees how I act.
• They will think I'm obviously incapable.

3. That the consequences of their disapproval will be severe.

• He won't want to go out with me again.
• I'll never get this job.
• I'll never meet anyone, go on a date, get married.
• He'll fire me if I do that again.
• I'll be alone for the rest of my life.

4. That your performance reflects your basic inadequacy and worthlessness.

• This proves that I'm a social incompetent.
• I'm so stupid!
• Who'd want to be with someone like me, anyway?
• I'm a born loser, a jerk, so boring.
• No one would ever want to go out with me.

Handling negative thoughts

We do not yet know to what degree social anxieties are biologically based problems. But let's assume that your social inhibitions are genetic -- that you are preprogrammed to automatically think in this negative fashion. If this is true, it's not bad news. Please understand that most people suffering from any anxiety disorder -- who get the proper cognitive-behavioral treatment -- are able to improve. Thousands have recovered fully. So even though you may be biologically vulnerable to anxiety, you can change your future using psychological techniques. You don't have to live your life in pain and with the fear of humiliation.

If it is the nature of your disorder that your mind automatically generates fearful thoughts -- without the benefits of logic or conscious reasoning -- should you believe those thoughts? Certainly not! But when your initial, spontaneous thought is negative, your body tends to react to it instinctually, by generating symptoms of anxiety. As your anxious symptoms arise, you use them as a sign of how poorly you are going to perform. In essence, you say, "This proves that I'm going to fail."

It is very hard to perform while simultaneously listening to that critic or that hopeless worrier: that you are going to fail, that others will be harshly disapproving, that the consequences of their disapproval will be severe, and that all this shows how worthless you are. Your challenge is to stop taking those thoughts at face value. Recognize them as your automatic and impulsive Negative Observer comments. Even think of them as genetically preprogrammed if you want. Just stop viewing them as reflective of reality!