Posts Tagged ‘Social’

Specific Phobia – Social Phobia Should Not Be Confused With Shyness!

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.

Overcoming Social Phobia

Everybody experiences an irrational and strong aversion or fear of a particular thing, individual, or situation. This condition is generally referred to as phobia. There are numerous types of phobia, and one of the most common is the social phobia. This type of phobic condition hinders some individuals from totally socializing or mingling with others.

It is quite innate for a person to feel shy or nervous when dealing with other people. While some are not self-conscious when speaking in front of a huge crowd, there are those who are literally afraid of doing so. Even having a simple conversion with peers is oftentimes a struggle for individuals who have social phobia.

Generally, people with social phobia have no problems interacting with close friends, relatives, and family members. However, intense self-consciousness and fear of rejection or embarrassment enter when these individuals meet new people who are outside their comfort zones.

Moreover, the case of social phobia focuses on an individual’s concerns and anxieties on their performance and image in their social circle. A normal person never has to spend so much time worrying about criticisms or how other people might see or judge them. But for those dealing with social phobia, they are always troubled and conscious on what others notice and feel about them.

Overcoming and dealing with social phobia

Just like other people with different types of phobia, individuals who are suffering from social stigma can definitely control and manage their fear and anxiety of being around or mingling with other people. Below are some ways on how one can overcome and deal with this type of phobia:

1. Get support from family and friends

It is extremely essential for those with social phobia to have support from the people who are very close to them – family and friends. These people can help strengthen one’s morale, thus, further encouraging that person to go out of his shell, socialize with others, and develop relationships outside his comfort zone.

2. Seek help from a therapist

Aside from family and friends, therapists are also the best ones to seek help from by those who have social phobia. These experts can help establish one’s self-esteem and confidence. They are also good at counseling and creating programs that can aid one in facing social concerns and fears. Although there are some therapists who prescribe medications to patients, majority of treatments only include social development programs or plans.

3. Maintain one’s willingness and commitment to become better

The success of overcoming and dealing with social phobia basically relies on the individual’s willingness and commitment to improve his phobic condition. Being patient is important since the process requires one to deal with his greatest fears on facing other people and becoming open to things that are not within his comfort zone.

As a social phobic continuous to seek improvement on his condition, he will eventually overcome his fears and become more and more comfortable dealing with new people, accepting criticisms, and welcoming things that are new to him.

Use Hypnotherapy to Release the Hold of a Social Phobia

Social phobia is one of the most common anxiety disorders in which a person is scared of being in a social situation. An individual with social phobia experiences devastating anxiety that impacts all aspects of their life.  

People with social phobia are extremely self-conscious and concerned about what others may say or think about them. They are usually afraid of speaking up, out of fear that they will be judged or criticized. People with social anxiety tend to look down on themselves or suffer from low self-esteem. They are worried about being seen by others and find socializing to be very terrifying.

A person with social anxieties may seem “shy,” but in the case of a phobia, this is taken to extremes. For example, if you suffer from social phobia, you may be reluctant to make a crucial call because you’re nervous about talking on the telephone. You dial the number, but you’re so anxious that you “lock up” or forget why you called. Although it happens to everyone once in awhile, for someone with social phobia it may happen every single time, until they find it difficult to make any calls.

Perhaps it is the evening before an important meeting at work and you find yourself worried sick. You dread the thought of being in front of your boss and all your colleagues watching as you present a project or new idea. You can’t stop yourself from feeling extremely embarrassed and self-conscious. Even after the meeting ends, you can’t stop overanalyzing everything you said and did. You are afraid that you embarrassed yourself in front of your colleagues by stuttering or saying the wrong thing.

Or maybe you want to go to parties and make new friends, but you avoid socializing because you’re nervous about meeting someone new. You find crowded parties intimidating and the thought of meeting someone new frightens you. You worry about what you will say, or that you will get laughed at. You might stay at home a lot because you’re too worried about going out. These are only some of the ways social phobias can influence us.

Social phobias are overblown fears that can prevent you from achieving your career goals or fully enjoying life. But even people who realize their fears are irrational may not know how to rid themselves of their fears. People with social phobia would like to be more social and feel confident around others, but are too scared to do so. Despite their conscious desires and efforts, they cannot completely control their fears because all phobias are seated in the unconscious mind. Ericksonian hypnotherapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques are the most successful phobia treatments because they work at this unconscious level.

It is often difficult for those afflicted with social anxiety to get cured because they are reluctant to visit a counselor or discuss their fear. This is why hypnosis therapy programs work well for them. The programs foster a tranquil and confidence-boosting mind frame in a privacy, without being overwhelming or intimidating.

The first part of a proper phobia program is stress relief. Hypnosis therapy is a powerful tool for eliminating your stress and anxiety. Once you are de-stressed, hypnosis techniques will form positive thoughts in your unconscious and end your fears. NLP techniques will relieve your fears by specifically targeting the thought process that causes a phobia.

In conventional hypnotherapy, specifically worded post-hypnotic suggestions are used to treat one unique phobia. Unfortunately, people have a tendency to ignore being directly told what to think or do, so conventional hypnotherapy doesn’t work very well. A deeply rooted phobia calls for a combination of NLP and Ericksonian Hypnotherapy.

Ericksonian hypnosis therapy techniques work better than conventional hypnotherapy because they use suggestions that aren’t apparent to your conscious mind, instead of direct suggestions. These suggestions are placed in discussion, in different stories and metaphors, to convince your unconscious to adopt a different line of thinking. For this reason, Ericksonian hypnosis therapy is far more sophisticated than conventional hypnotic therapy and much harder for the unconscious to reject.

A program that utilizes Ericksonian hypnosis therapy and NLP techniques can treat any phobia, in any individual. This is because multiple techniques are used together to maximize their effectiveness. People are often in awe of the seemingly miraculous changes they get through hypnotherapy. Ericksonian hypnotherapy and NLP are ideal tools to help you build confidence and overcome social anxiety so you can fully enjoy your life.