The Most Advanced Form of Psychotherapy for Social Anxiety Disorder and Excessive Shyness
There’s a new kid on the block. It’s called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and it’s making waves in the field of psychology that focuses on clinical application of research methods to help people who are actually suffering from social anxiety and excessive shyness. In the past decade, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been the most powerful and widely used method for doctors and other therapists who help patients with symptoms of social anxiety and excessive shyness. That is beginning to change as the powerful impact of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT ) becomes more widely understood.
Steven Hayes, Ph.D. is the psychologist who has been the primary force behind the development of ACT. He considers ACT to be a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. He says it’s the most advanced form of CBT (and I agree). What makes ACT so powerful is the emphasis it places on living life to the fullest in place of spending the majority of our energy on fighting our psychological problems. That sounds pretty good and pretty simple until you try to apply the idea to something that virtually takes over you mind like social anxiety can do in a matter of seconds in the wrong environment. The ACT methods are designed to gradually increase a person’s skills for overcoming the instinct to resist what we don’t want. As a result of the purposeful training of the mind (using the ACT methods), people are getting better faster, with less focus on their emotional or psychological pain and more focus on what are called “valued directions” in the lingo of ACT practitioners.
If you have experienced symptoms of social anxiety or excessive shyness, such as the fear that others will think you look…(fill in the blank with your particular fear)…then you know that one of the worst things about social anxiety is how it tends to get worse the more you become aware of it. As soon as you have a thought like, “I hope I don’t start shaking when I try to sign my name in front of them,” you know you are more likely to start shaking. That’s why I believe the ACT methods have been successful in helping people with intense social anxiety and shyness in ways that go far beyond other methods that have been used in the past. The power of these methods to get a person’s mind onto the moment-by-moment experience of the present moment ends up decreasing the fear of what is coming next. This, in turn, leads to decreased fight-or-flight reactions in the body, which leads to a general sense of calm relative to your usual experience in a high-stress situation.
Learning this method is usually done with a trained psychotherapist. But it’s hard to find therapists with adequate training in the ACT methods. It’s even harder to find a therapist who has an advanced understanding of the unique issues that need to be addressed for successful treatment of social anxiety. That’s why I developed the Social Anxiety Secrets System. I figure that most people doing their own research on the internet are going to be smart enough to apply the most powerful aspects of the ACT method themselves, if given the right tools and specific guidance as it applies to social anxiety and shyness. I added in my secret ingredient that allows powerful changes in motivation and momentum, and the Social Anxiety Secrets method was born.
The problem that many social anxiety sufferers have told me (once they finally find me) is that other therapists work from the assumption that everyone has the same physiology and brain chemistry. That simply isn’t true. Regardless of where you fall on the nurture verse nature debate, you need to understand that having even slight temperamental shyness leads to powerful changes in your brain over time. I explain all that in the Social Anxiety Secrets system, but for now, just know that you need an approach that takes the hyperactive fight-or-flight reaction into consideration when you are dealing with social anxiety. Attacking the anxiety at a purely cognitive level simply isn’t enough. You have to learn methods for breaking the entrenched neurophysiological response to anxiety-provoking social situations. I would encourage you to learn more about the physical symptoms of social anxiety here.
Be Courageous!
Dr. Todd Snyder
