Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
Dissociation: Step Out of the Bullseye
Unhealthy or negative coping mechanisms are called defense mechanisms – temporary safeguards against situations we find difficult to manage. Defense mechanisms are mostly unconscious psychological responses that protect us from our fears and anxieties. At one time or another, we all use defense mechanisms. Dissociation, or stepping out of the bullseye, is a useful defense mechanism in recovery.
Coping Mechanisms
Coping mechanisms are tools and techniques that we utilize to moderate stress and reduce the neurotransmissions of our fear and anxiety-provoking hormones, cortisol, adrenaline, norepinephrine and other stress hormones. There are recovery coping mechanisms we employ when exposing ourselves to a feared situation, including distractions, and projected positive outcomes. There are those we turn to when confronted by sudden unexpected stress – controlled breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and slow talk.
There are hundreds of coping mechanisms that make stressful situations in life easier to handle, including yoga, dancing, meditation, painting, writing, and streaming a movie. These activities moderate the anxiety of the moment and reduce the flow of those pesky chemical hormones. Coping mechanisms are as varied as individual experience and imagination.
It is important to remain mindful, however, coping and defense mechanisms do not address the unresolved issues of our fears and anxieties. They are temporary ways to moderate stress and the influx of cortisol and adrenaline. Like an analgesic to relieve the pain of a physical condition, they do not address the cause and remedy of the ailment. Notwithstanding, even a temporary emotional balm has a positive impact on our emotional well-being and helps regenerate our self-esteem.
Defense Mechanisms
Any unconscious mental process that protects us from threats to our emotional well-being and sense of self is a defense mechanism. Cognitive distortions are defense mechanisms. Some, like avoidance, humor, isolation, and intellectualization need no explanation. Other defense mechanisms have positive benefits as well when used appropriately. Accordingly, they become tools in our recovery.
Compensation is one example: We compensate for our negative thoughts and behaviors by replacing them with healthy, productive ones. We compensate for our low self-esteem by becoming mindful of our character strengths, virtues, and achievements.
Ritual and undoing is subjectively undoing negative behaviors or impulses by performing rituals or actions designed to offset them. For example, a person might donate to a homeless shelter to make up for evicting low-income tenants to build a condominium. Substance abuse is a common but extreme example of ritual and undoing.
Utilized appropriately, ritual and undoing is a valuable coping mechanism. It supports negative to positive neural restructuring (ritual) by replacing (undoing) our negative thoughts and behaviors with positive ones.
Most defense mechanisms can be converted to coping mechanisms once we begin to recognize them when they materialize. This allows us to respond rationally, adapting them to support healthy behaviors. Projection and rationalization are two examples of this adaptation. Rationalizing to justify bad behavior is a defense mechanism that, when utilized to logically respond to our SAD-provoked fears, becomes a coping mechanism. Projecting our irrational behaviors onto others is a good way to observe ourselves as others see us. Some, like cognitive distortions, are generally detrimental to our emotional integrity and less adaptable to positive reconstruction. Dissociation, on the other hand, is a prime example of a defense mechanism that is useful in recovery.
In standard psychological terms, dissociation is a disconnect from reality to shield us from traumatic experiences. In theory, our mind unconsciously shuts down or represses emotionally conflicting thoughts, memories, or experiences. Daydreaming or streaming television to block discord in the next room is a harmless form of dissociation. Creating multiple personalities (DID) is at the other end of the spectrum.
While some experts may find fault with my use of the objective, its definition supports our utilization. Dissociation is a disconnection between a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of self. When our sense of self is that of a SAD person, then deliberate and voluntary disconnecting or severing from that sense is positively functional. Furthermore, the broad spectrum of dissociation encompasses both daydreaming and a disconnect from reality, so the concept is interpretational.
In recovery, we deliberately dissociate ourselves from the symptoms of our social anxiety disorder. We redefine ourselves by our character strengths, virtues, and attributes rather than by the adversities of our malfunction. Essentially, we subvert the disease model of mental health by adopting the wellness model. The disease or pathographic perspective focuses on the problem; the wellness or positive psychology model emphasizes the solution,defining health as a state of physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
To iterate the oft-used analogy: when we break out leg, we do not become the injured limb. We are simply someone experiencing a broken leg. The same concept is important to recovery from our emotional malfunction.
Stepping Out of the Bullseye
While we remain conjoined with our social anxiety disorder, we continue to view ourselves as helpless, hopeless, undesirable, and worthless. These core and intermediate beliefs are formed by childhood disturbance and sustained by our emotional malfunction. By dissociating ourselves from our condition, we remove ourselves from the bullseye allowing us to objectively analyze our thoughts or behaviors, and respond rationally and productively.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
Cognitive Distortion #6
Overgeneralization
When we overgeneralize, we draw broad conclusions or make statements about something or someone that are unsupported by evidence – arbitrary claims that can’t be proven or disproven. We can also overgeneralize if our conclusion is based on one or two pieces of evidence but ignore evidence to the contrary. We often base our conclusions on past events that are irrelevant to present situations.
Overgeneralization is especially prevalent in persons experiencing depression or anxiety. Similar to Filtering, where we ignore the positive and dwell on the negative, and Polarized Thinking, where we see things in black or white, Overgeneralization is based on our tendency to assume the worst in a situation. Keywords that support overgeneralization are negative words that impede recovery including all, every, none, never, always, everybody, and nobody.
Those of us experiencing social anxiety and other emotional malfunctions tend to personalize our overgeneralizations. We self-overgeneralize. Our condition makes us feel helpless, hopeless, undesirable, and worthless – obvious, self-destructive constructs. Our symptoms are overgeneralized reactions that support our negative self-beliefs and image. If someone rejects us, we assume everyone will reject us. If we fail a test, we conclude we are generally a failure.
Our automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) are overgeneralizations. “No one will like me.” “I’m a failure.” “She called me stupid.” “Everyone thinks I’m an idiot.” These self-defeating thoughts are based on our fears and anxieties rather than the available evidence.
Other-Overgeneralization
When we gossip, we tend to overgeneralize. When we make arbitrary statements, we overgeneralize, Consider the following: “Everyone knows the receptionist is a liar.” To assert that everyone believes the receptionist is a liar is an exaggeration without proven consensus. A few colleagues may share that opinion, but certainly not everyone.
Often our other-overgeneralizations are insecure reactions to our SAD symptomatic fears of criticism, ridicule, and rejection. They also rationalize our fears of interconnectivity and avoidance of social situations. We justify our prejudices by overgeneralizing. One bad apple in a group means everyone in the group is rotten. We make broad and inaccurate assumptions about that group based on this one person’s behavior. Overgeneralized thinking can cause us to wrongly judge entire groups of people, which is harmful to self and society.
Cognitive Solution
It is important to remain vigilant that cognitive distortions may help us avoid facing the harsh reality of our negative self-appraisal in the short term, but they perpetuate our anxiety and depression. The rational response to overgeneralization is to (1) consider the accuracy of the statement and consider the available evidence, and (2) identify the situation, fears, and ANTs that compel the need to cognitively distort in the first place.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI ‒ deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
Recovery: the action or process of regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost.
Empowerment: the process of becoming stronger and more confident in controlling one’s life and claiming one’s rights.
Neuroplasticity: our brain’s ability to form and reorganize synaptic connections in response to learning or experience.
Proactive: controlling a situation by causing something to happen rather than responding to it after it has happened.
Proactive Neuroplasticity: accelerated learning through DRNI – the deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information.
Dr. Robert F. Mullen’s years of researching and implementing programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives demonstrate the learning effectiveness of proactive neuroplasticity. DRNI – the deliberate, repetitive, neutral input of information dramatically accelerates and consolidates our pursuit of personal goals and objectives—eliminating a bad habit, self-transformation—harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living.
Neuroplasticity is evidence of our brain’s constant adaptation to learning. Scientists refer to the process as structural remodeling of the brain. It is what makes learning and registering new experiences possible. All information notifies our neural network to realign, generating a correlated change in behavior and perspective.
“I have never encountered such an efficient professional … His work transpires dedication, care, and love for what he does.” – Jose Garcia Silva, PhD, Composer Cosmos
What is significant is our ability to dramatically accelerate learning by consciously compelling our brain to repattern its neural circuitry. Deliberate, repetitive, neural information (DRNI) empowers us to proactively transform our thoughts and behaviors, creating healthy new mindsets, skills, and abilities.
Reactive neuroplasticity is our brain’s natural adaption to information. Information includes all thought, behavior, experience, and sensation. Active neuroplasticity is cognitive pursuits such as engaging in social interaction, teaching, aerobics, and creating. Proactive neuroplasticity is the most effective means of learning and unlearning because the regimen of deliberate, repetitive neural input of information accelerates and consolidates restructuring.
Our Online Self-Empowerment Workshops
The ultimate objectives of our Self-Empowerment Workshops are to:
Provide the tools and techniques of proactive neuroplasticity to accelerate and consolidate goals and objectives.
Recognize and utilize our character strengths, virtues, and achievements.
Design a targeted process to regenerate our self-esteem and motivation.
Replace adverse habits with healthy new ones that underscore our potential.
Logistics. Individually target workshops are most effective with a maximum of ten on-site participants, and eight participants for the current online workshops.
Hebbian Learning
Today, we recognize that our neural pathways are not fixed but dynamic and malleable. The human brain retains the capacity to continually reorganize pathways and create new connections and neurons to expedite learning.
Neurons do not act by themselves but through neural circuits that strengthen or weaken their connections based on electrical activity. The deliberate, repetitious, input of information impels neurons to fire repeatedly, causing them to wire together. The more repetitions, the more robust the new connection. This is Hebbian Learning. DRNI is the most effective way to promote and retain learning and unlearning.
We not only prompt our neural network to restructure by deliberately inputting information, but through repetition, we cause circuits to strengthen and realign, speeding up the process of learning and unlearning.
“I am simply in awe at the writing, your insights, your deep knowing of transcendence, your intuitive understanding of psychic-physical pain, your connection of the pain to healing … and above all, your innate compassion.” – Jan Parker, PhD
Accelerates and Consolidates Learning
What happens when multiple neurons wire together? Every input of information, intentional or otherwise, causes a receptor neuron to fire. Each time a neuron fires, it reshapes and strengthens the axon connection and the neural bond. Repeated neural input creates multiple connections between receptor, sensory, and relay neurons, attracting other neurons. An increase in learning efficacy arises from the sensory neuron’s repeated and persistent stimulation of the postsynaptic cell.
Postsynaptic neurons multiply, amplifying the positive or negative energy of the information. Energy is the size, amount, or degree of that which passes from one atom to another. The activity of the axon pathway heightens, urging the synapses to increase and accelerate the release of chemicals and hormones that generate the commitment, persistence, and perseverance useful to recovery or the pursuit of personal goals and objectives.
The consequence of DRNI over an extended period is obvious. Multiple firings substantially accelerate and consolidate learning. In addition, DRNI activates long-term potentiation, which increases the strength of the nerve impulses along the connecting pathways, generating more energy. Deliberate, repetitive, neural information generates higher levels of BDNF(brain-derived neurotrophic factors) proteins associated with improved cognitive functioning, mental health, and memory.
We know how challenging it is to change, remove ourselves from hostile environments, and break habits that interfere with our optimum functioning. We are physiologically hard-wired to resist anything that jeopardizes our status quo. Our brain’s inertia senses and repels changes, and our basal ganglia resist any modification in behavior patterns. DRNI empowers us to assume accountability for our emotional well-being and quality of life by proactively controlling the input of information.
Neural Reciprocity
Our brain reciprocates our efforts in abundance because every viable input of information engages millions of neurons with their own energy transmission. DRNI plays a crucial role in reciprocity. The chain reaction generated by a single neural receptor involves millions of neurons that amplify energy on a massive scale. The reciprocating energy from DRNI is vastly more abundant because of the repeated firing by the neuron receptor. Positive energy in, positive energy multiplied millions of times, positive energy reciprocated in abundance.
Conversely, negative energy in, negative energy multiplied millions of times, negative energy reciprocated in abundance.
Our brain does not think; it is an organic reciprocator that provides the means for us to think. Its function is the maintenance of our heartbeat, nervous system, and blood flow. It tells us when to breathe, stimulates thirst, and controls our weight and digestion.
Hormonal Neurotransmissions
Because our brain does not distinguish healthy from toxic information, the natural neurotransmission of pleasurable and motivational hormones happens whether we feed it self-destructive or constructive information. That is one of the reasons breaking a habit, keeping to a resolution, or recovering is challenging. We receive neurotransmissions of GABA for relaxation, dopamine for pleasure and motivation, endorphins for euphoria, and serotonin for a sense of well-being. Acetylcholine supports our positivity, glutamate enhances our memory, and noradrenalin improves concentration. In addition, information impacts the fear and anxiety-provoking hormones, cortisol and adrenaline. When we input positive information, our brain naturally releases neurotransmitters that support that negativity.
Conversely, every time we provide positive information, our brain releases chemicals and hormones that make us feel viable and productive, subverting the negative energy channeled by the things that impede our potential.
The power of DRNI is that a regimen of positive, repetitive input can compensate for decades of irrational, self-destructive thoughts and behaviors, and provide the mental and emotional wherewithal to effectively pursue our personal goals and objectives.
Personal goals and objectives are those things we want to change about ourselves: eliminating a bad habit or behavior, improving life satisfaction, and revitalizing self-esteem and motivation. The deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information significantly improves the probability of recovery. Likewise, it empowers us to pursue those personal goals and objectives that make our lives more viable and productive.
ReChanneling targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration, utilizing an integration of science and east-west psychologies. Science gives us proactive neuroplasticity, CBT and positive psychologies are western-oriented, and eastern practices provide the therapeutic aspects of Abhidharma psychology and the overarching truths of ethical behavior.
The current workshops consist of ten online weekly sessions, meeting in the evening and lasting roughly 1-1/2 hours. There is minimal homework (approximately 1 hour weekly).
For low-income students, weekly tuition is less than the cost of a movie and popcorn.
The cost of the workshop is on a sliding scale:
$40 per session if income is $100,000+
$35 per session if income is $75,000 – $99,999
$30 per session if income is $50,000 – $74,999
$25 per session if income is less than $25,000 – $49,999
$20 per session if income is under $25,000.
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TO REGISTER OR REQUEST ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, PLEASE COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING
Applicants will be contacted to schedule an interview.
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WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, panic disorder, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
Why Do We Resist Recovery?
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War
We must declare war on our social anxiety disorder to defeat it. Make no mistake about it, SAD is a devious and manipulative enemy. To effectively challenge it, we educate ourselves on its symptoms and characteristics, and how they personally impact us. Roughly, forty million U.S. adults and adolescents find themselves caught up in SAD’s devasting and lonely chasm of fear and avoidance of social interconnectedness. Notwithstanding, we do not take up arms willingly. Our resistance to recovery is formidable.
SAD makes us feel helpless and hopeless, trapped in a vicious cycle of fear and anxiety, and restricted from living a ‘normal’ life. Our fear of disapproval is so severe we avoid the life-affirming experiences that connect us with others and the world. We fear the unknown and unexplored. We endure anxiety for weeks before a situation, anticipating the worst. We worry about how others perceive us and how we express ourselves.
Our unwillingness to accept or disclose our emotional malfunction is a major impediment to our recovery. Many of us deliberately choose to remain ignorant of the destructive capabilities of our malfunction or go to enormous lengths to remain oblivious to them, as if, by ignoring them, they do not exist or will somehow go away. Considering the following negative attributions, our reticence is justifiable.
Change is inherently difficult; we arehard-wired to resist it. Our bodies and brains are structured to attack anything that disrupts their equilibrium. A new diet or exercise regime produces physiological changes in our heart rate, metabolism, and respiration. Inertia senses and resists these changes, while our brain’s basal ganglia gang up against any modification in our patterns of behavior. Thus, habits like smoking or gambling are hard to break, and new undertakings like recovery are challenging to maintain.
Here are some compelling attributions to our resistance to disclosure.
Public Opinion
The heart of acceptability and tolerance lies in social acceptance. Our aversion to mental illness is hard-wired. We are conditioned to fear and ostracize anyone who does not fall within the societal parameters of normalcy. Our inherent revulsion stems from our tribal days when anything that limited productivity or procreation was valueless. Individuals perceived as weak or abnormal have been contemned since the dawn of humankind.
Thanks to history, misinformation, and the pathographic focus of the healthcare industry, those who experience emotional malfunction are identified as unpredictable, dangerous, and unable to fend for themselves. Even with the current enlightened perspective, mental disorder is culturally feared and scorned. Observed idiosyncrasies, peculiar mannerisms, self-talking, inarticulation, and unhealthy physical hygiene are considered undesirable and untenable behaviors.
Social distance describes the psychological gap between society and those experiencing emotional malfunction. Social distance is not a measurement but attitude, the scope determined by the perceived level of threat. Distancing is the expression of disgust for the behaviors of the abnormal. Social distancing is culturally specific and varies by perception and diagnosis. The prospect of social distancing reflects our willingness to disclose our condition.
We resist because we have been inundated by hostile and ignorant personal attacks.
Media Representation
From Psycho to today’s horror franchises, those experiencing emotional malfunction are stereotyped as hysterical, unpredictable, and violent. Nearly half of U.S. stories on mental disorders allude to violence. Ignorance and disinformation exploited by today’s social media and divisiveness aggravate assumptions. We are autistic, simple-minded, or homicidal maniacs who must be feared.
We resist because society identifies us as stereotypical aberrations.
Family Stigmatization
Families share responsibility for avoidance of disclosure and recovery. Parents and siblings hide their relationship with a family member experiencing emotional malfunction because they are ashamed. Throughout history, it was commonly accepted that it is either hereditary or the consequence of poor parenting. The implication of familial undesirability is potentially more emotionally disabling than the condition itself.
We resist because we cannot break the parental chain of emotional abuse and dissociation.
Diagnosis
Mental health stereotypes are driven by diagnosis. The pathographic or disease model of mental healthcare continues to be the overriding psychological perspective. Pathography focuses on a deficit, disease model of human behavior. Which disorder poses the most threat? What behaviors contribute to the disorder? Are we contagious? What sort of person has a mental illness?
Disparaging and condescending attitudes, misdiagnoses, and general therapeutic pessimism are compelling reasons to avoid disclosure. We are labeled by our diagnosis, and stereotyped by its symptoms and characteristics.
We resist because healthcare experts emphasize the problem rather than the solution.
Mental Health Stigma
MHS is the hostile expression of the abject undesirability of those of us experiencing social anxiety or some other emotional malfunction. It marks us as socially undesirable due to stereotype. Its implicit goal is to devalue us and separate us from society.Mental health stigma is facilitated by history and diagnosis and is supported by ignorance, prejudice, and discrimination.
We resist because MHS can negatively affect our employment, housing, social status, and emotional well-being if we disclose.
These are clear justifications for our unwillingness to disclose and seek recovery for our condition. The potential personal ramifications of these attributions compel us to settle for a life of disillusionment and self-doubt even though we secretly crave a healthy alternative. This results in a life of inner contradiction, pitting fear against desire and shutting us off from possibility. We close ourselves off to innovative ideas and concepts. We let nothing in. We remain embrangled in our perceptions of incompetence and inferiority.
Generating the wherewithal to subvert these fears is affirmation of our determination to experience life at its fullest potential – to embrace the potential of our value and significance. When we commit to recovery, a broader dimension of consciousness opens up and we merge into the orderly flow of the universe. We are no longer isolated but accept our role as an internal and external creative force.
How do we defeat social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities? We outsmart them. We overwhelm them with rational response. We refute their authority and challenge their legitimacy. A battle is not won by focusing on past deficiencies, but by emphasizing our character strengths, virtues, attributes, and achievements. Any pursuit in uncharted waters is uncertain, but with risk comes great reward. Shadows of the fearful and unknown are exposed to the light of logic. That is why, in recovery, it is necessary to know the enemy and know ourselves to effectively prepare for all possibilities. Confidence and mastery materialize through knowledge and preparation. That is how wars are won.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to reinvigorate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT?
ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to reinvigorate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Program Development and Implementation
Social Anxiety Disorder Self-Empowerment Self-Esteem and Motivation
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Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI — deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” — WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
Forget most of what you have been told. We have been poorly informed by the disease model of mental healthcare and influenced by mental health stigma. The utilization of the term mentalillness is problematic. Its negative perspectives and implications promulgate perceptions of incompetence, unworthiness, and undesirability. It is the dominant source of stigma, shame, and self-denigration.
One only needs the American Psychological Association’s[1] definition of neurosis to comprehend the mental health community’s pathographic focus. The 90-word overview contains the following descriptors: distressing, irrational, obsessive, compulsive, dissociative, depressive, exaggerated, unconscious, conflicts, anxiety, and disorders.
The word mental defines a person or their behavior as extreme or illogical. In adolescence, anyone unpopular or different was a mentalcase or a retard. The urban dictionary defines mental as someone silly or stupid. It is often associated with violent or divisive behavior. Add the word illness or disorder and we have the public stereotype of someone dangerous and unpredictable who cannot fend for themselves and should be isolated.
To the early civilizations, mental illnesses were the domain of supernatural forces and demonic possession. Hippocrates and diagnosticians of the 19th century favored the humours (bodily liquids). Lunar influence, sorcery, and witchcraft are timeless culprits. In the early 20th century, it was somatogenic. The biological approach argues that mental disorders are related to the brain’s physical structure and functioning. The pharmacological approach promotes it as an imbalance in brain chemistry. The first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1952) leaned heavily on environmental and biological causes.
The term physiological disorder distances itself from the hostility of mental illness but even that is inadequate, as is psychophysiological or the Bio-Psycho-Socio-Spiritual model. A disorder is the consequence of the simultaneous mutual interaction of mind, body, spirit, and emotions – a complementary condition which, in lesser severity, is discomfort. They are, for all intents and purposes, emotional dysfunctions.
Disorders and discomforts can result in functional impairment which interferes with or limits one or more major life activities. Both are what used to be called neuroses, and both are correctible through the same basic processes. It’s a matter of severity. Discomfort is a condition that impacts our quality of life; a disorder is a diagnosable condition that impacts our quality of life. The disease model of mental healthcare labels the latter a mental illness or disorder.
Emotional dysfunction is not abnormal but a natural consequence of human development. A recent article in Scientific American speculates theyare so common almost everyone will develop at least one diagnosable disorder at some point in their life.[2] There is nothing abnormal or unusual about them. They are normal facets of human development – evidence of our humanness.
There are two measures of emotional dysfunction: neuroses and psychoses. When someone sees, hears, or responds to things that are not actual, they are experiencing a psychotic episode. 3% of Americans have or will experience a psychotic episode in their lives, and less than 1% have a psychotic disorder. The rest of us are neurotic. Everyone has moderate-and-above levels of anxiety, stress, and depression. We are all emotionally dysfunctional to some extent.
Research indicates roughly 90% of onset happens in adolescents due to heredity or experienced detachment, exploitation, and or neglect. In rare cases of narcissism and PTSD where onset happens later in life, the susceptibility originates in childhood due to physical, emotional, or sexual disturbance.
Anything that interferes with a child’s social development is detrimental to adolescent and adult emotional health. Childhood/adolescent abuse is a generic term to describe a broad spectrum of experiences that interfere with optimal physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development. It could be hereditary, environmental, or due to some traumatic experience. The cumulative evidence that childhood and adolescent occasions and events are the primary causal factor in lifetime emotional instability has been well-established.
Any number of things are instrumental. Our parents were over-controlling or did not provide emotional validation. Perhaps we were subjected to bullying or come from a broken home. We must recognize that it is never our fault and possibly no one is intentionally responsible. A toddler who senses abandonment when a parent is preoccupied can develop emotional issues
Those who believe emotional dysfunction is a result of some behavior or is god’s punishment for sin are misinformed. Behaviors later in life may impact the severity but they are not responsible for the condition itself. We are not accountable for the cards we have been dealt; we are responsible for how we play the hand. We cannot be held accountable for the childhood disturbance that precipitated the onset. We did not make it happen; it happened to us.
The current pathographic process focuses on diagnosis over the individual. In groups, we learn to personify the dysfunction to distinguish it from the individual, so that the symptoms are appropriately assigned. An individual who breaks their leg does not become the broken limb; she or he is simply an individual with a broken leg.
Carl Roger’s study of the cooperation of human system components to maintain physiological equilibrium produced the word complementarity to define simultaneous mutual interaction. All human system components work in concert; they cannot function alone. Integrality describes the inter-cooperation of the human system, environment, and social fields. A disorder is not biologic, hygienic, neurochemical, or psychogenic. It is a collaboration of these, and other approaches administered by the simultaneous collaboration of the mind, body, spirit, and emotions.
There is no legitimate argument against mind-body collaboration in disease and wellness. Spirit is both the core and fluid character qualities of an individual, emotion is the expression of these qualities, both in collaboration with and responsive to mind and body.
Eliminating the prefix mental will help alleviate the deficit and diagnosis focus of the healthcare system. Changing negative and hostile language to embrace a positive dialogue of acceptance and appreciation will open the floodgates to new perspectives and positively impact the subject’s self-beliefs and image, leading to more disclosure, discussion, and recovery-remission. The self-denigrating aspects of shame will dissipate; mental health stigma becomes less threatening. The concentration on character strengths and attributes, propagated by humanism, positive psychology, and other wellness-focused alliances, will encourage accountability and foster self-reliance, leading to a confident and energized social identity.
SAMHSA defines mental illness as a “diagnosable mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder of sufficient duration to meet diagnostic criteria” that can “result in functional impairment which substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities.” This ‘defective’ emphasis has been the overriding psychiatric perspective for over a century. By the 1952 publication of DSM-1, the focus had drifted from pathology (the science of the causes and effects of diseases) to pathography (the breakdown of an individual’s problems, categorizing them to facilitate diagnosis). Pathography is the history of an individual’s suffering, focusing on a disease model of human behavior, whereas wellness models emphasize the positive aspects of human functioning.
Undoubtedly, this sociological model conflicts with moral models that claim emotional dysfunction is onset controllable, and the disordered are to blame for their symptoms, or that mental illness is God’s punishment for immoral behavior. Again, it is crucial to recognize we are not responsible for our disorder. Playing the blame game only distracts from the solution: What are we going to do about it?
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to reinvigorate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.
Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI—deliberate, repetitive, neural information. — WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
Mental Health Stigma (MHS) is the hostile expression of the abject undesirability of a human being who has a mental illness. It is the instrument that brands the mentally malfunctional defective due to stereotypes. MHS is purposed to protect the general population from unpredictable and dangerous behaviors by any means necessary. MHS is fomented by prejudice, ignorance, and discrimination. The stigmatized are devalued in the eyes of others and subsequently in their self-image as well.
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Between 50 and 65 million U.S. adults and adolescents have a mental illness; 90% of those will be impacted by mental health stigma, a presence that elicits unsupportable levels of shame and jeopardizes the emotional and societal well-being of the afflicted.
Trajectory
The Signaling Event. MHS is triggered by a set of signals or a signaling event, i.e., an occasion, experience, news story, or encounter where the visibility of behaviors and mannerisms associated with mental illness elicit a reaction.
The Label. Labeling defines the signaling event and distinguishes it from other labels. ‘Woman’ is a label; it is specific, restrictive to gender, and says certain things that distinguish it from other labels. A successful label elicits a strong public reaction. The defining characteristics of the label become the stereotype. Labeling is subject to the labeler’s belief system and, like stereotypes and stigma, is reliably inaccurate because of implied expectations of behavior.
The Stereotype. Labeling gives the signal a moniker for identification; the stereotype defines it and gives it meaning. Stereotyping is a cognitive differentiation of something that piques one’s interest; everyone stereotypes. Mental health stereotyping is distinguishable by pathographic overtone that identifies the victim as unpredictable, potentially violent, and undesirable.
Ironically, 14th-century asylums in Spain and Egypt were built to protect the mentally afflicted from the dangerous and violent members of society.
Mental health labeling and stereotypes support and collaborate with preconceived notions of mental illness, generated by the natural aversion to weakness and difference. This is supported by an ignorant and prejudicial belief system and, on occasion, personal experience. Labels and stereotypes are unbound by truth or evidence; believability is the ultimate criterion.
Stigma. A stigma is a brand or mark that negatively impacts a person or group by distinguishing and separating that person or group from others. The branding concept originated with the ancient Greek custom of identifying criminals, slaves, or traitors by carving or burning a mark into their skin. Stigma is identified by three types: (1) abominations of the body, (2) moral character stigmas, and (3) tribal stigmas. The first refers to physical deformity or disease; tribal stigmas describe membership in devalued races, ethnicities, or religions; and moral character stigma refers to persons perceived as weak, immoral, duplicitous, dishonest, e.g., criminals, substance addicts, cigarette smokers, and the mentally ill.
Mental Health Stigma. The objective of MHS is the perceptual protection of the general population from the unpredictable and dangerous behaviors associated with mental illness by any means necessary, including deception, misinformation, and fear-baiting. Its ultimate goal is to negatively impact the social reintegration of the victim.
Anticipatory stigma is the expectation of a stigma due to behavior or diagnosis, and subsequent adverse social reactions. This causes resistance by the potential victim to disclose any physiological aberration.
Stigma-avoidance identifies those who avoid or postpone treatment fearing the associated stigma will discredit them and negatively impact their quality of life. Studies indicate almost one-third of the potential victims resist disclosure, impacting the potential for recovery.
Family stigmatization occurs when family members reject a child or sibling because of their mental illness. Throughout history, it was commonly accepted that mental illness was hereditary or the consequence of poor parenting. A 2008 study found 25% to 50% of family members believe disclosure will bring shame to the family. (Courtesy-stigma reflects supportive family members.)
An active stigma is a parasitic one. If it finds enough suitable hosts, the parasitosis can spread rapidly by traditional means. Studies show the aversion to mental illness is prosocially hard-wired which provides an abundance of hosts.
Contributing Factors to MHS. The stigma triad of ignorance, prejudice, and discrimination is generated and supported by preconceived notions, general obliviousness, a lack of education, and society’s deep-rooted fear of its susceptibility. The primary attributions to MHS are public opinion, media misrepresentation, visibility, diagnosis, and the disease or pathographic model of mental healthcare.
How MHS Impacts the Victim
MHS impacts the victim through a series of stigma experiences:
Felt stigma. The anticipated or implied threat of a stigma.
Enacted stigma. The activated stigma.
External stigma. The victim holds the perpetrator responsible for the stigma.
Internalized stigma. The victim assumes behavioral responsibility for the stigma.
Experienced stigma. Victim’s reaction to the stigma.
The victim anticipates their mannerisms, behaviors or diagnosis will generate a stigma (felt stigma). When the stigma is realized it becomes an enacted stigma. The victim blames the person who originated the stigma (external stigma) or assumes responsibility due to behavior (internalized stigma). When the stigma impacts the victim’s well-being, it becomes an experienced stigma.
MHS Impact. Mental health stigma can negatively affect the victim’s emotional well-being and quality of life by jeopardizing their:
Safety, health, and physiological wellbeing
Livelihood
Housing
Social Status
Relationships
Solution
Mental health stigma will not be mitigated or eliminated until the mental healthcare community embraces the wellness model over the disease of mental health. The disease model of mental health focuses on the problem; creating a harmful symbiosis between the individual and the diagnosis. The wellness model emphasizes the solution. A battle is not won by focusing on incompetence and weakness but by knowing and utilizing our strengths, and attributes. That is how we positively function―with pride and self-reliance and determination―with the awareness of what we are capable of.
Establishing new parameters of wellness calls for a reformation of thought and concept. In 2004, the World Health Organization began promoting the advantages of wellness over disease perspective, defining health as a state of physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. The World Psychiatric Association has aligned with the wellness model and it has become a central focus of international policy. Evolving psychological approaches have become bellwethers for the research and study of the positive character strengths that facilitate the motivation, persistence, and perseverance helpful to recovery. Wellness must become the central focus of mental health for the simple reason that the disease model has provided grossly insufficient results.
A WORKING PLATFORM showing encouraging results for most physiological dysfunctions and discomforts is an integration of positive psychology’s optimum human functioning with CBT’s behavior modification, neuroscience’s network restructuring, and other personality-targeted approaches. including affirmations, autobiography, and methods to regenerate self-esteem and motivation.
This new wellness paradigm, however, should not be a dissolution of medical model approaches but an intense review of their efficacy, and repudiation of the one-size-fits-all stance within the mental health community.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to reinvigorate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI—deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” — WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
Mindfulness is recognizing, comprehending, and accepting the veracity of something. If we understand a concept or theory about something but don’t believe it is true or valid, then we are not being mindful. Likewise, if we recognize the concept but don’t understand it, then we are still left in the dark.
We share intimate and unhealthy relationship with our emotional malfunctions that manifests in many ways.
The tolerant relationship. We recognize our condition is detrimental to a healthy and productive lifestyle, but we are too lazy or apathetic to address it.
The resigned relationship. We devalue our character strengths and virtues, convincing ourselves any attempt at recovery is futile. We have given up.
Theself-pitying relationship. We wallow in our misery because it comforts us and confirms our victimization.
Theassimilated relationship. We acclimate to our condition, adapting and incorporating it into our system. This is the odd relationship where we become our malfunction.
Thedenial relationship. We refuse to acknowledge the problem, denying its existence, our dismissal so pervasive it subconsciously metastasizes, like unchecked cancer.
Emotional malfunction generates a correlated deficiency of self-esteem due to the condition and the corresponding disruption in natural human development. The overwhelming majority of malfunctional onset happens during adolescence due to a toxic childhood environment caused by physical, emotional, or sexual disturbance. This disturbance manifests in perceptions of abandonment, exploitation, and detachment, engendering a disruption in natural human development which negatively impacts our self-esteem.
Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is mindfulness (recognition and acceptance) of our value to ourselves, society, and the world. Self-esteem can be further understood as a complex interrelationship between how we think about ourselves, how we think others perceive us, and how we process or present that information.
Self-esteem deficits result from disapproval, criticism, and apathy of significant others—family, colleagues, ministers, and teachers. Any number of factors impact self-esteem including our environment, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, and education.
Proactive Neuroplasticity
The primary objective or consequence of recovery is the restructuring of our neural network. When neural pathways reshape, there is a correlated change in behavior and perspective. Our brain is not a moral adjudicator, but an organic reciprocator, adapting and correlating to stimuli.
Every stimulus we input causes a receptive neuron to fire, transmitting a message from neuron to neuron until it generates a reaction. Neural restructuring is the deliberate input of positive stimuli to compensate for years of negative input. Deliberate repetitious stimuli compel neurons to fire repeatedly causing them to wire together. The more repetitions the quicker and stronger the new connection.
Neural restructuring is deliberate plasticity—functionally modifying our neural network through repetitive activation. Neuroplasticity is our brain’s capacity to change with learning—to relearn. Studies in brain plasticity evidence the brain’s ability to change at any age. Behavioral Plasticity is the capacity and degree to which human behavior can be altered by environmental factors such as learning and social experience. In theory, a higher degree of plasticity makes an organism more flexible to change, whereas a lower degree of plasticity results in an inflexible behavior pattern. Behavioral plasticity enables an organism to change its behavior through learning.
Mindfulness
True mindfulness of our malfunction is more than recognition and acceptance; it is embracement. By embracing our flaws as well as our character strengths, virtues, and attributes, we embrace ourselves. Love is linked to positive mental and physical health outcomes. Love motivates recovery. Embracing our assets as well as defects is an act of love.
Our condition is a natural component of human development. It is evidence of our humanness. Think of it as an emotional virus. We are not our malfunction any more than we are an accidental broken limb. We are individuals experiencing an emotional malfunction. Embracing it does not mean we don’t want to transform into healthy and more productive individuals; it encourages transformation.
Embracing is not acquiescence, resignation, or condoning. Acquiescence is accepting our condition and doing nothing to change it. Condoning is accepting it and allowing it to fester. Resignation is defeatism. Embracing is logically accepting ourselves for who we are—human malfunctional beings abounding in ability and potential. Embracing our character strengths, virtues, and attributes facilitates the motivation, persistence, and perseverance to recover. It is embracing our totality. Healthy self-love is a fundamental component of self-esteem; we can never strive toward our potential until we truly learn to embrace ourselves. The value of mindfulness in recovery is immeasurable.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to reinvigorate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI — deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” — WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
Common Symptoms of Social Anxiety Disorder
Courtesy of Mayo Clinic
Feelings of shyness or discomfort in certain situations aren’t necessarily signs of social anxiety disorder, particularly in children. Comfort levels in social situations vary, depending on personality traits and life experiences. Some people are naturally reserved and others are more outgoing.
In contrast to everyday nervousness, social anxiety disorder includes fear, anxiety, and avoidance that interfere with relationships, daily routines, work, school, or other activities. Social anxiety disorder typically begins in the early to mid-teens, though it can sometimes start in younger children or in adults.
Emotional and behavioral symptoms
Signs and symptoms of social anxiety disorder can include constant:
Fear of situations in which you may be judged negatively
Worry about embarrassing or humiliating yourself
Intense fear of interacting or talking with strangers
Fear that others will notice that you look anxious
Fear of physical symptoms that may cause you embarrassment, such as blushing, sweating, trembling, or having a shaky voice
Avoidance of doing things or speaking to people out of fear of embarrassment
Avoidance of situations where you might be the center of attention
Anxiety in anticipation of a feared activity or event
Intense fear or anxiety during social situations
Analysis of your performance and identification of flaws in your interactions after a social situation
The expectation of the worst possible consequences from a negative experience during a social situation
Physical Symptoms
Physical signs and symptoms can sometimes accompany social anxiety disorder and may include:
10. Misunderstood by others (including therapists): No one else understands what it feels like to have social anxiety. Social anxiety remains a relatively misunderstood anxiety disorder, so it comes as no surprise that we feel at a loss when it comes to overcoming it. Many therapists lack the required knowledge to diagnose the disorder properly, and very few structured cognitive-behavioral therapy groups exist in the world.
9. Restricted from living a “normal” life: We feel our options in life are limited. Because we feel unable to engage in common, everyday activities, we feel trapped. A sense of helplessness and lack of control often accompany the feelings of being stuck or trapped.
8. Trapped (in a vicious cycle): We realize that our thoughts and actions don’t make rational sense, but we feel doomed to repeat them anyway. We don’t know any other way to handle scenarios in our lives. It is difficult for us to change our habits because we don’t know how.
7. Alienated: We feel alienated and isolated from our peers and families. We feel like we “don’t fit in” because no one understands us. The more we think this way, the more isolated we become. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. We identify with the word “loner.”
6. Hypersensitive to criticism and evaluation: We interpret things in a negatively skewed way. Our brain’s default position is irrational and negative. Even a minor misunderstanding can lead to a lengthy period of self-criticism. Sometimes others try to offer us advice, and we can take it the wrong way. We avoid events or activities where we can be judged, and this contributes to our lack of experience and sociability.
5. Depression over perceived failures: We replay events in our heads over and over, replaying how we “failed miserably” in our own perception. We’re certain that others noticed our anxiety. We may go our entire lives thinking back and re-living a “failed” experience, e.g., a public presentation, a bad date, or a missed opportunity. We keep replaying these things in our minds over and over again, which only reinforces our feelings of failure and defeat.
4. Dread and worry over upcoming events: We obsess about upcoming events, and “negatively predict” the outcomes. Worrying about the future focuses our attention on our shortcomings. We may experience anticipatory anxiety for weeks because we feel the event will cripple us. Worrying causes more worry, and it becomes a vicious cycle. Our fear and anxiety is built up to gigantic proportions, the more time we spend worrying about the future. We make mountains out of molehills.
3. Uncertainty, hesitation, lack of confidence: We generally have low self-esteem. We hold ourselves back and avoid situations in life. We don’t participate in conversations as much as we could. We avoid situations because we fear being criticized and rejected by others. The fear of disapproval is so strong that we don’t get enough life experience in social situations, due to our habit of avoidance.
2. Fear of being the center of attention: Being put on the spot or made the center of attention is another primary symptom of social anxiety disorder. The thought of giving a presentation in front of a group of people cripples us with anxiety and fear. We worry that everyone will notice our anxiety, even though we are good at hiding it. We may display physiological symptoms of anxiety including sweating, blushing, shaking of the hands or legs, neck twitches, and weakening of the voice.
1. Self-Consciousness: Social anxiety makes us too aware of what we’re doing and how we’re acting around others. We feel like we’re under a microscope and everyone is judging us negatively. As a result, we pay too much attention to ourselves and worry about everyone seeming to observe and notice us. We worry about what we say, how we look, and how we move. We are obsessed with how we’re perceived.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to reinvigorate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
Numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.
Feelings of shyness or discomfort in certain situations aren’t necessarily signs of social anxiety disorder, particularly in children. Comfort levels in social situations vary, depending on personality traits and life experiences.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI—deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
ReChannelingdevelops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives—harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Its paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral therapy, positive psychology, and techniques designed to compel the recovery and reinvigoration of self-esteem disrupted by the adolescent onset of emotional malfunction.
Origins
Impacted by social anxiety disorder, ReChanneling’s director spent his formative years trying to comprehend the source of his emotional and behavioral problems. Years later, studies for his degree revealed severe social anxiety disorder. Armed with that knowledge, Mullen began to research methods to alleviate the symptoms of malfunctions and discomforts. These efforts developed into groups and workshops for 550+ San Francisco bay area individuals. Recognizing the interrelationship of DSM-defined disorders, Dr. Mullen broadened his research to include the multiple forms of anxiety and depression and their comorbidities, e.g., PTSD, OC-D, substance abuse, self-esteem, and motivational issues. Realizing the approaches utilized in recovery apply to the pursuit of goals and objectives, ReChanneling now facilitates individuals seeking to self-modify and transform. Proactive neuroplasticity through direct, repetitive, neural information (DRNI) is the culmination of these efforts.
Emotional malfunction and discomfort. Both conditions can result in functional impairment which interferes with or limits one or more major life activities. Both impact our emotional well-being and quality of life. Both are addressed through the same basic processes. The primary distinction between the two is severity. ReChanneling advocates and supports the Wellness Model over the etiology-driven disease or medical model of mental healthcare. The Wellness Model emphasizes the character strengths and virtues that generate the motivation, persistence, and perseverance to function optimally.
A Paradigmatic Approach
The Wellness Model
One of the disadvantages of the etiological perspective is its focus on malfunction over the individual; traditional psychology has abandoned studying the human experience in favor of focusing on a diagnosis. Evidence suggests that conventional psychiatric diagnoses have outlived their usefulness. The National Institute of Mental Health, for example, is replacing diagnoses with easily understandable descriptions of the issues based on emerging research data, not on the current symptom-based categories.
The disease model of mental health focuses on the problem, creating a harmful symbiosis of individual and their malfunction. The Wellness Model emphasizes the solution. A battle is not won by focusing on incompetence and weakness; it is won by knowing and utilizing our strengths, and attributes. That is how we positively function―with pride and self-reliance and determination―with the awareness of what we are capable of.
The insularity of cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychologies, and other approaches cannot comprehensively address the complexity of the personality. We are better served by the integration of multiple traditional and non-traditional approaches, including those defined as new (third) wave (generation) therapies, developed through client trust, cultural assimilation, and therapeutic innovation. Our environment, heritage, background, and associations reflect our wants, choices, and aspirations. If they are not given consideration, then we are not valued.
An integration of science and east-west psychologies is essential to capture the diversity of human thought and experience. Science gives us proactive neuroplasticity; cognitive-behavioral modification and positive psychology’s optimal functioning are Western-oriented, and Eastern practices provide the therapeutic benefits of Abhidharma psychology and the overarching truths of ethical behavior. Included in this program are targeted approaches utilized to restore self-esteem by correcting maladaptive and self-defeating thoughts and behaviors.
Cognitive-Behavioral
Lack of motivation and self-esteem stems from negative, irrational thinking and behavior caused by ingrained reactions to situations and conditions. The impediments to achieving a goal or objective are corroborative.
Cognitive-behavioral modification (CBM) trains us to recognize our automatic negative thoughts and behaviors (ANTs), replacing them with healthy rational ones (ARTs) until they become automatic and permanent. The behavioral component of CBM involves activities that reinforce the process. CBM is structured, goal-oriented, and focused on the present and the solution. Almost 90 percent of therapeutic approaches involve cognitive-behavioral treatments. However, critical studies dispute cognitive-behavioral therapy’s efficacy, claiming it fares no better than non-CBT programs. They argue its effectiveness has deteriorated since its introduction, concluding it is no more successful than mindfulness-based therapy for depression and anxiety. Despite these criticisms, the program of thought and behavior therapy modification by Beck in the 1960s is still useful in modifying the irrational thoughts and behaviors that sustain malfunction and discomfort and prevent us from reaching our goals and objectives when used inconcert with other approaches.
Positive Psychology
While CBM focuses on modifying our negative self-image and beliefs, positive psychology emphasizes our inherent and acquired strengths, virtues, and attributes. PP focuses on the inherent human traits that help us transform and flourish. Its mental health interventions have proved successful in mitigating the symptoms of depression, anxiety, and other self-destructive patterns, producing significant improvements in emotional well-being. Positive psychology uses scientific understanding to aid in the realization of a satisfactory life, rather than merely treating mental illness, countering the pathographic focus of established mental healthcare.
Abhidharma Psychology
The Abhidharma explores the essence of perception and experience, and the reasons and methods behind mindfulness and meditation. It presents a clear system for understanding our psychological dispositions, processes, habits, and challenges. Western teachings tell us what to avoid—envy, gluttony, greed, lust, hubris, laziness, and rage. Buddhist psychology tells us what to embrace—a valuable life, good intentions, tolerance, wholesome and kind living, productive livelihood, positive attitude, self-awareness, and integrity.
It’s our belief that the historical revisions and translations of Buddha’s teachings overlooked the most important path to a healthy and productive life—that of making the right choice. Our self-destructive nature compels us to choose the self-destructive one even when every fiber of our being contradicts this compulsion. We know this because our entire human system revolts at self-destructive choices. Our physiological equilibrium is disrupted, producing changes in our heart rate, metabolism, and respiration. Inertia senses and opposes these changes, negatively impacting our brain’s basal ganglia, delivering mental confusion, emotional instability, and spiritual malaise
Self-Esteem
The rediscovery and reinvigoration of our self-esteem are achieved through a series of clinically proven exercises to help the individual reinvigorate our positive self-properties (self -reliance, -compassion, -resilience, etc.) disenabled by childhood exploitation, the onset of malfunction, the subsequent disruption in natural human development, and the general distress brought on by life’s uncertainty.
To fully address the personality, we must create individual-based solutions. Training in prosocial behavior and emotional literacy are useful supplements to typical approaches. Behavioral exercises are utilized to practice the execution of considerate and generous social skills. Positive affirmations have enormous subjective value. Data provide evidence for mindfulness and acceptance-based interventions. Motivational enhancement strategies help overcome resistance to new ideas and concepts.
Each approach provides an integral link to the quality and intention of the information we supply to our neural network via proactive neuroplasticity.
Emotions
Emotions are associated with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, and motivation. Do they dictate our behavior, or are we able to manage their volatility? Rather than succumbing to emotional instability, awareness of the origins of emotional instability prevents reactionary outbursts and inconsistency due to a lack of foresight, empathy, and perspective.
Recovered-Memory Process is the umbrella term for methods or techniques utilized in recalling memories. We repress certain feelings, thoughts, and desires unacceptable to the conscious mind and store them in the archives of our memory. It is helpful to retrieve and address the emotions felt in those repressed memories that once flashed by like a meteor. Stanislavski developed a method for authentic stage-acting that addresses our volatile emotions to deconstruct and better understand them.
Affective Emotion Management. Emotions are not solitary and exclusive but fluid and mutually interconnected, although we allow one to dominate the others. Love and hate are indistinct and interchangeable extremes of the same instinct as are laughter and tears, resentment and acceptance, and so on. The ability of the film actor to project an emotion when script and schedule demand it, demonstrates they are controllable. Any situation can be experienced through laughter, tears, pride, or anger. We choose the one that suits a psychological need, which exposes its transience and manipulability. Utilizing Stanislavski’s method of emotional management, we assume control of our emotions, rather than allowing them to control us.
Practicum versus Therapy
ReChanneling is practicum over therapy. A practicum is designed for self-reliance. While therapy often incurs a subordinacy to or dependency on the counselor, a practicum is a program developed in collaboration with the individual that targets her or his unique condition. We design a blueprint and provide the recovery methods, but the responsibility for achieving the goal rests on the individual, who controls the progress with the facilitator’s guidance.
DRNI
The deliberate, repetitive input of neural information.
The consequence of DRNI over a long period is obvious. Multiple firings substantially accelerate and consolidate learning. In addition, DRNI activates long-term potentiation, which increases the strength of the nerve impulses along the connecting pathways, generating more energy. Deliberate, repetitive, neural information generates higher levels of BDNF(brain-derived neurotrophic factors) proteins associated with improved cognitive functioning, mental health, and memory.
We know how challenging it is to change, to remove ourselves from hostile environments, and to break habits that interfere with our optimum functioning. We’re physiologically hard-wired to resist anything that jeopardizes our status quo. Our brain’s inertia senses and repels changes, and our basal ganglia resist any modification in behavior patterns. DRNI empowers us to assume accountability for our emotional well-being and quality of life by proactively controlling the input of information.
Neural Reciprocity
Neural restructuring doesn’t happen overnight. Meeting personal goals and objectives takes persistence, perseverance, and patience. Recovery-remission from a mental malfunction is a year or more in recovery utilizing appropriate tools and techniques. Substance abuse programs recommend nurturing a plant or tropical fish during the first year before contemplating a personal relationship. The successful pursuit of any ambition varies by individual and is subject to multiple factors. However, once we begin the process of DRNI, progress is exponential. Our brain reciprocates our efforts in abundance because every viable input of information engages millions of neurons with their own energy transmission.
DRNI plays a crucial role in reciprocity. The chain reaction generated by a single neural receptor involves millions of neurons that amplify energy on a massive scale. The reciprocating energy from DRNI is vastly more abundant because of the repeated firing by the neuron receptor. Positive energy in, positive energy multiplied millions of times, positive energy reciprocated in abundance.
Conversely, negative energy in, negative energy multiplied millions of times and reciprocated in abundance.
Neurotransmissions
Our brain doesn’t think; it is an organic reciprocator that provides the means for us to think. Its function is the maintenance of our heartbeat, nervous system, blood flow, etc. It tells us when to breathe, stimulates thirst, and controls our weight and digestion.
Because our brain doesn’t distinguish healthy from toxic information, the natural neurotransmission of pleasurable and motivational hormones happens whether we feed it self-destructive or constructive information. That’s one of the reasons breaking a habit, keeping to a resolution, or recovering is challenging. The power of DRNI is that a regimen of positive, repetitive input can compensate for decades of irrational, self-destructive thoughts and behaviors, and provide the mental and emotional wherewithal to effectively pursue our personal goals and objectives.
Since our brain does not differentiate healthy from toxic information, it automatically responds to the energy of information, transmitting chemicals and hormones to reward it. We receive neurotransmissions of GABA for relaxation, dopamine for pleasure and motivation, endorphins for euphoria, and serotonin for a sense of well-being. Acetylcholine supports our positivity, glutamate enhances our memory, and noradrenalin improves concentration. In addition, information impacts the fear and anxiety-provoking hormones, cortisol and adrenaline. When we input negative information, our brain naturally releases neurotransmitters that support that negativity.
Conversely, every time we provide positive information, our brain releases chemicals and hormones that make us feel viable and productive, subverting the negative energy channeled by the things that impede our potential.
Constructing the Information
Deliberate neural information is differentiated by context, content, and intention, which determine the integrity of the information and its correlation to durability and learning efficacy. The most effective information is calculated and specific to our intention. Are we challenging the negative thoughts and behaviors of our malfunction? Are we reaffirming the character strengths and virtues that support recovery and transformation? Are we focused on a specific challenge? What is our end goal – the personal milestone we want to achieve?
The process is theoretically simple but challenging, due to the commitment and endurance required for the long-term, repetitive process. We don’t put on tennis shorts and advance to Wimbledon without decades of practice with racket and balls; philharmonics cater to pianists who have spent years at the keyboard. DRNI requires a calculated regimen of deliberate, repetitive, neural information that is not only tedious but also fails to deliver immediate tangible results, causing us to readily concede defeat and abandon hope in this era of instant gratification. To quote Noble Prize-winning author, André Gide “There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them.”
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional malfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our intrinsic aptitude for extraordinary living. Our paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing scientific and clinically practical methods including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to reinvigorate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups, workshops, and practicums.
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Social Anxiety Disorder, Anxiety and Depression, and Comorbidities
