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We have meticulously outlined the structure and benefits of proactive neuroplasticity. Through the deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information (DRNI), we compel our neural networkto change its polarity and assist in the positive transformation of our thoughts and behaviors. Other benefits include long-term potentiation, abundant reciprocation, and increased BDNF and chemical hormones that consolidate cognitive functioning. Proactive neuroplasticity is the most effective method of positive neural restructuring, but it has its limitations. It only uses our left-brain hemisphere – the analytical part responsible for rational thinking. Recovery and self-empowerment entail identifying the automatic negative thoughts and behaviors (ANTs) that negatively impact our emotional well-being. Our right hemisphere monitors our emotions. Our creativity, intuition, feelings, and imagination are also right-brained hemisphere. Active neuroplasticity taps into the emotional, the social, and the spiritual; proactive the mental. Recovery, self-empowerment, and neural restructuring are enabled by both. What proactive neuroplasticity lacks in productivity is fulfilled by reactive neuroplasticity. They work in concert. They complete each other.
Plasticity is the quality of being easily shaped or molded. Neuroplasticity is our brain’s constant adaptation and restructuring to information. Science recognizes that our neural network is dynamic and malleable – realigning its pathways and rebuilding its circuits in response to all stimuli.
The principle goal ofrecovery and self-empowerment is replacing or overwhelming the accumulation of toxic neural information with healthy input. Neuroplasticity empowers us to force our neural network to reconstruct itself in alliance with our goals and objectives.
What is the role of neuroplasticity in positive behavioral change? The definition of recovery is regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost. Self-empowerment is making a conscious decision to become stronger and more confident in controlling our lives. In neuroses such as anxiety, depression, and comorbidities, what has been stolen or lost is our emotional well-being and quality of life. In self-empowerment, it is the loss of self-esteem and motivation. So both recovery and self-empowerment deal with regaining what has been lost. And both are supported by neuroplasticity whose goal is to replace or overwhelm years of negative neural information with positive productive information.
If there is an underlying theme in recovery and self-empowerment, it is that we are not defined by our insufficiencies, but by our character strengths, virtues, and attributes – and our achievements.
We accelerate and consolidate learning and unlearning by compelling our brain to repattern its neural circuitry. This establishes that our psychological health is self-determined. We control our emotional well-being. Of course, we are impacted by outside forces over which we have limited to no control: life’s vicissitudes, physical deterioration, human hostilities, and the quirks of nature. Our psychological well-being is determined by how we react to things. How we respond to adversity as well as fortune and opportunity. The onus of recovery and self-empowerment rests with us. We control our emotional well-being.
Mindfulness of our inherent capability strengthens our self-reliance, boots our self-esteem, and grants us accountability for how we navigate our psychological health. It simultaneously promotes positive neural repatterning.
There are three forms of human neuroplasticity. Reactive neuroplasticity is our brain’s natural response to things over which we have limited to no control – stimuli we absorb but doesn’t initiate or focus on. A car alarm, thunder flash, the smell of cut grass. Our neural network automatically restructures itself to what happens around us.
Active neuroplasticity is active pursuits like teaching, yoga, journaling, and puzzle assembly. We control active neuroplasticity because we consciously choose the activity. A significant component of active neuroplasticity is ethical and compassionate social behavior.
Proactive neuroplasticityis rapid, concentrated, neurological stimulation to change the polarity of our neural network.
What is significant is our ability to dramatically accelerate and consolidate learning by compelling our brain to repattern its neural circuitry. Our brain is structured around negative neural input. The primary objective in recovery and self-empowerment is replacing or overwhelming that negative information with positive neural input.
Our neural network is replete with negative information forming in childhood and increasing exponentially throughout life. To counter this we must consider every available relevant scientific and psychological approach.
Mind, body, spirit, social, and emotions are the gestalt of our humanness. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Gestalt psychology considers the human mind and behavior as a whole.I am a radical behaviorist. We not only consider observable behaviors, but also the diversity of human thought and experience. That calls for a collaboration of science, philosophy, and psychology. Philosophy, existentially defined, welcomes religious and spiritual insight. They compose the gestalt of our thoughts and behaviors.
Through neuroplasticity, we consciously and deliberately transform our thoughts and behaviors, creating healthy new mindsets, skills, and abilities. Through informed and deliberate engagement, we compel change rather than reacting and responding to it.
Proactive and active neuroplasticity support each other; their collaboration advances our goal. Their collaboration reinforces and strengthens positive neural restructuring. DRNI is a mental process designed to initiatetherapid, concentrated, neurological stimulation that transmits electrical energy. It is proactive because we construct the information before neurally inputting it.
Active neuroplasticity is left-brain activity, embracing the emotional, the social, and the creative. Beyond healthy activities like yoga, journaling, creating, and listening to music, is our ethical and compassionate social behavior. Altruistic contributions to society are extraordinary assets to neural restructuring. The value of volunteering – providing support, empathy, and concern for those in need, random acts of kindness – is extraordinary, not only in promoting positive behavioral change but in enhancing the integrity of our information. The social interconnectedness established by caring and compassion supports the regeneration of our self-esteem and self-appreciation.
One more rather mundane reason active complements proactive neuroplasticity. DRNI demands a calculated regimen of deliberate, repetitive, neural information that is not only tedious but also fails to deliver immediate tangible results. I can tell you from experience, it is challenging to maintain its rigorous process and the tedious repetition. Tedium generates avoidance, and we know how difficult it is to establish and maintain new habits. Active neuroplasticity brings other elements of our humanness into play to compensate for the rigidity and monotony of proactive neuroplasticity.
Proactive and active neuroplasticity are formidable tools when used in concert to facilitate neural restructuring and the corresponding positive transformation of our thoughts, behaviors, and perspectives. Recovery and self-empowerment are achieved through a collaboration of targeted approaches that compel the rediscovery and self-appreciation of our character strengths, virtues, and attributes. While the realignment of our neural network is the framework for recovery and self–empowerment, a coalescence of science and east-west psychologies is essential to capture the diversity of human thought and experience. Science underscores proactive neuroplasticity, and psychology focuses more on active neuroplasticity. Of course, that is an oversimplification and undervalues the gestalt of our thoughts and behaviors but, you get the drift.
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.
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Reasonable expectations for those experiencing emotional dysfunction including social anxiety.
Living with persistent negative self-beliefs and image for years on end is emotionally destabilizing. We crave interconnectedness, but our fears of ridicule and rejection interfere with any semblance of a social life. We are overwhelmed by loneliness and isolation. We avoid opportunities that may provoke our anxiety. So, we turn to defense mechanisms to relieve ourselves of our SAD-provoked fears and anxieties.
Defense mechanisms are psychological responses that protect us from our unrelenting anxieties. They temporarily appease our sense of helplessness, hopelessness, undesirability, and worthlessness. They also reinforce and justify our toxic behaviors and validate our irrational attitudes, rules, and assumptions. They twist reality to conform to our irrational behaviors. Defense mechanisms are short-term safeguards against the thoughts and emotions that are difficult for our conscious minds to manage. Mechanisms like compensation, substance abuse, projection, and cognitive distortions are methods of avoidance – unhealthy responses to our problems – that offer temporary respite but do little to moderate our anxieties in the long term.
Some defense mechanisms, when used appropriately, can be beneficial. Without coping mechanisms, healthy or otherwise, we can experience decompensation – the inability or unwillingness to generate effective psychological alternatives to stress – resulting in personality disturbance or disintegration.
Compensation
None of us is perfect. We all conceal things to avoid revealing things about ourselves that make us uncomfortable. Often, we hide them from ourselves. One way to accomplish this is to direct attention away from the problematic area to something else.
Compensation is when we excel in one area of our life to counteract real or perceived deficits in another. The socially inadequate may become an actor or musician. A toddler reprimanded for bad behavior might clean her room. A teenager compensates for learning difficulties by excelling in sports. (While they may accrue social and physical benefits, long-term problems may accrue unless educational issues are addressed.)
Compensation is a natural response to errant behaviors. It is a defense mechanism that has healthy applications. We compensate for our adverse thoughts and behaviors by replacing them with positive, productive ones. We compensate for our low self-esteem by recognizing and emphasizing our character strengths, virtues, and achievements.
Our social anxiety has negatively impacted our emotional well-being and quality of life since childhood. Our fear of rejection has subverted our social life. Our obsession with our performance and shortcomings is a constant reminder of our imperfections. Like the tendency to thrust a burnt hand into cold water, years of living with feelings of inferiority and self-loathing compels us to overcompensate.
Perfectionism
An unhealthy byproduct of compensation is falling into the trap of perfectionism. This is especially frequent in SAD persons. Perfectionism causes us to set unreasonable expectations. Let’s discuss some of the glaring similarities between social anxiety disorder and perfectionism.
Perfectionists tend to beat themselves when expectations are unmet. They struggle to move on when things don’t work out the way they anticipate. SAD persons worry about their performance before and during a situation and obsess about their failures long after.
Perfectionists tend to have higher levels of anxiety and lower levels of psychological well-being. SAD persons have lower implicit and explicit self-esteem relative to healthy controls.
To a perfectionist, anything less than perfection is perceived as failure. Polarized Thinking is common among SAD persons. We see things as absolute – black or white. There is no middle ground. We are either brilliant or abject failures. Our friends are for us or against us. If we are not faultless, we must be broken and inept.
Perfectionists and SAD persons avoid situations that project potential failure. We worry so much about doing or saying something inappropriate, we procrastinate or avoid the situation entirely. This exacerbates our self-criticism and defensiveness.
Perfectionists do not take criticism well. A prevailing symptom of social anxiety disorder is the fear of situations in which we may be criticized and or ridiculed.
Because of our critical nature and tendency to reject out of fear of rejection, perfectionists and SAD persons are, ostensibly, lonely or isolated, which seriously impacts our ability to interconnect and sustain satisfying relationships.
Perfectionists obsess over their imperfections. Rather than taking pride in their abilities, they prioritize their faults. Filteringis a cognitive distortion common to SAD persons. We selectively choose our perspective. We focus on the negative aspects of a situation and exclude the positive. Negative filtering sustains our toxic core and intermediate beliefs. A dozen people in our office celebrate our promotion; one ignores us. We obsess over the lone individual and disregard the goodwill of the rest. That is in an imperfect scenario, and anything less than perfection is a failure.
Expectations that follow the same criteria that we establish for our neural information will likely be met. Rational, reasonable, possible, positive, unconditional, goal-focused, concise, and first-person present or future time expectations will likely be met.
An expectation, by definition, is astrong emotional belief that something will take place in the future.When we set expectations, we have a vested interest in their outcome. An unreasonable expectation is irrational – one that has no basis in reason or fact. So, what happens in the likelihood our expectations are unmet? Because we have a vested interest, we are psychologically attached to the outcome. Fixed In our minds, we see it as a reality. When it does not go our way, the general response is one of disappointment.
Disappointment is a formidable emotion; experts describe the reaction to disappointment as a form of sadness – an expression of desperation or grief due to loss. While it is true that we cannot lose what we do not acquire, by fixing the expectation in our mind, we made it real, and we feel the loss viscerally. This leads to depression, self-loathing, and the other symptoms associated with perfectionism and social anxiety. We have failed; we are hopeless and worthless.
History shows us that setting unreasonable ambitions in war can have disastrous consequences when expectations are unmet. Since we are at war with SAD, it is crucial to avoid making the same mistake. Recovery is challenging enough without adding additional stress to the equation.
It is human nature to want to aspire to excellence. How do we set reasonable expectations when every fiber of our being wants to grab the brass ring? Setting a clear and concise singular purpose and reasonable expectations. First, we identify the particulars of the anxiety-provoking situation; they vary depending on our associated fears, and corresponding ANTs (automatic negative thoughts). We then devise a structured plan to address the feared situation – the coping skills best suited to achieve our purpose.
Purpose
What is our singular goal or reason for exposing ourselves to the Situation? Is it to network, make friends, challenge our dysfunction, or work on a personal concern? Our Purpose is our primary motivation. The overarching goal in recovery is to moderate our fears and anxieties. We rarely expose ourselves to situations, however, for the sole purpose of challenging our social anxiety. We have alternative or secondary motivations. Why are we participating in this situation? What do we seek or hope to accomplish?
A world of caution. While we may have multiple reasons for exposing ourselves to the situation, it is advisable to limit ourselves to a single clear and concise purpose because it strengthens our focus and resolve. Conversely, focusing on multiple purposes such as networking, seeking a sexual liaison, and making friends significantly reduces the probability of a successful venture, leading to disappointment and self-recrimination. There is an old Russian proverb. If you chase two rabbits, you will probably not catch either one.
Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS)
SUDS is a numbered, self-evaluation scale (1-100) that measures the intensity of distress we feel about a situation. SUDS has two purposes in recovery. The first is to help us identify and evaluate our fears and ANTs. It also helps us set expectations; we project how well we moderate that distress utilizing our recovery tools and techniques. It is a subjective exercise designed to generate a positive response to a potentially negative situation. Here is how it works.
Projected SUDS Rating
Let’s say we gauge the intensity of our distress about a situation at a SUDS level of 75. Projecting we can decrease the intensity of that distress to 25 is an unreasonable expectation. That is not going to happen immediately but through repetition and practice. We can reasonably expect, however, that our distress will modify to some extent. So, we project our SUDS Rating of 75 will decrease to 70 or 65. We can achieve that just by showing up. That is a reasonable expectation. We keep the training wheels on our bike until we have achieved the level of competence where we remove them and ride safely.
Projected Positive Outcome
Our projected positive outcome is the sequence of events we determine will satisfy our participation. What reasonable result will provide a sense of pride and accomplishment? Like our Projected SUDs Rating, anticipating a reasonable outcome will ensure the probability of success. For example, if our purpose is to network, what would support that goal to our satisfaction? This is purely subjective, so it is easy to be reasonable. If our fear of rejection disrupts our ability to network, for example, a projected positive outcome might be as simple as handing a business card to one potential employer. Someone more socially comfortable would, likely, ask more of themselves. Our reasonable expectation is a subjective determination of what we would consider progress. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. If we foolishly decide to fly, our wings may burn and hurdle us to the ground. A situation is defined as the facts, conditions, and incidents affecting us at a particular time in a particular place. A reasonable expectation is one that is reasonable to us when exposing ourselves to a feared situation.We determine the conditions for success. Progress, not perfection.
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.
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Lecture: Neuroplasticity and Positive Behavioral Change Lake Shore Unitarian Society, Winnetka, Illinois Sunday, Feb. 25, 2023
Moderator introduction
Dr. Robert F. Mullen is the director of ReChanneling Inc, a national organization dedicated to the research and development of programs to (1) moderate symptoms of emotional dysfunction and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives – harnessing our aptitude for extraordinary living. His paradigmatic approach targets the personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration utilizing neuroscience and psychology to capture the diversity of human thought and experience. A leading expert on social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities, Dr. Mullen is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity, enabled by the deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information (DRNI). A radical behaviorist and internationally published author, he facilitates workshops and seminars on emotional recovery and self–empowerment.
Italicized portions were omitted from the lecture due to time constraints.
I am a radical behaviorist. What does that mean? A radical behaviorist not only considers observable behaviors but also the diversity of human thought and experience. That calls for a collaboration of science, philosophy, and psychology. And philosophy, existentially defined, welcomes religious and spiritual insight.
The role of neuroplasticity in positive behavioral change. The definition of recovery is regainingpossession or control of something stolen or lost. Self-empowerment is making a conscious decision to become stronger and more confident in controlling our lives. In neuroses such as anxiety, depression, and comorbidities, what has been stolen or lost is our emotional well-being and quality of life. In self-empowerment, it is the loss of self-esteem and motivation. So both recovery and self-empowerment deal with regaining what has been lost. And both are supported by neuroplasticity.
If there is an underlying theme in my work, it is that we are not defined by our insufficiencies, but by our character strengths, virtues, and attributes – and our achievements.
[Neuroplasticity]
Plasticity is simply the quality of being easily shaped or molded. Neuroplasticity is our brain’s constant adaptation and restructuring to information.
Before 1960, researchers thought that neurogenesis, the creation of new neurons, stopped after birth. Today, science recognizes that our neural network is dynamic and malleable – realigning its pathways and rebuilding its circuits in response to information.
What is information? Thought, experience, phenomena, sensation, sights, sounds, smells, tactile impressions – anything and everything that impacts our neural network. Our wonderful brain never stops learning and unlearning. Absent that, we would be incapable of replacing unhealthy behaviors with productive ones.
What is significant is our ability to dramatically accelerate and consolidate learning by compelling our brain to repattern its neural circuitry. Our neural network is structured around negative information. The primary objective in recovery and self-empowerment is replacing or overwhelming that negative information with positive neural input.
Human neuroplasticity comes in three forms. The two that concern us are active and proactive. Reactive neuroplasticity is our brain’s natural response to things over which we have limited to no control – stimuli we absorb but do not initiate or focus on. Our neural network automatically restructures itself to what happens around us.
Active neuroplasticity is cognitive pursuits like teaching, aerobics, journaling, and creating. We control this aspect of neuroplasticity because we consciously choose the activity. An important component of active neuroplasticity is ethical and compassionate social behavior. We’ll expand on that shortly.
The third form is proactive neuroplasticity – the deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information called DRNI. It is the most effective means of accelerating and consolidating learning and unlearning.
Both active and proactive neuroplasticity empower us to transform our thoughts and behaviors, creating healthy NEW mindsets, skills, and abilities. Through informed and deliberate engagement, we compel change rather than reacting to it.
What does all this mean? It confirms that our psychological health is self–determined. We control our emotional well–being. Now bad things happen, much of which we have limited to no control over. We are impacted by outside forces: life experiences, physical deterioration, hostilities, the quirks of nature. Psychological well–being means how we react to things is self–determined. How we respond to adversity as well as fortune and prosperity.
[Origins and Trajectory of Negativity]
So, where does all this negative information come from? Why are our neural networks so clogged with harmful, growth-impeding information?
It starts with our core beliefs. Core beliefs are the deeply held convictions that determine how we see ourselves in the world. We form them during childhood in response to information and experiences, and by accepting what we are told as true. Core beliefs can remain our belief system throughout life unless challenged.
[Childhood Disturbance]
Cumulative evidence that a toxic childhood is a primary causal factor in emotional instability or insecurity has been well established. During the development of our core beliefs, we are subject to a childhood disturbance – a broad and generic term for anything that interferes with our optimal physical, cognitive, emotional, or social development. Disturbances are ubiquitous – they happen to all of us. What differentiates us is how we react or respond to the disturbance – our susceptibility and vulnerability. Any number of things can precipitate childhood disturbance. Our parents are controlling or don’t provide emotional validation. Perhaps we are subject to sibling rivalry or a broken home. It is important to recognize, the disturbance may be real or imagined, intentional or accidental. I give the example of the toddler, whose parental quality time is interrupted by a phone call. That seemingly insignificant event can foster in the child a sense of abandonment, which can then generate feelings of unworthiness and insignificance. We are not accountable for childhood disturbance or subsequent behaviors. As we mature, we are responsible for moderating our destructive behaviors, but we are not accountable for their origins. It’s important to remain mindful of that.
[Negative Core Beliefs]
Feelings of detachment, neglect, exploitation are common consequences of childhood disturbance, and they generate negative core beliefs so rigid, we refuse to question them, and ignore evidence that contradicts them. This establishes what is called a cognitive bias – a subconscious error in our thinking that leads us to misinterpret information, questioning the accuracy of our perspectives and decisions. This is why we have such societal divisiveness. We don’t challenge our hard-core beliefs.
[Intermediate Beliefs]
The confluence of childhood disturbance and negative core beliefs impacts our intermediate beliefs,the next phase of our psychological development. Intermediate beliefsestablish our attitudes, rules, and assumptions. Attitudes refer to our emotions, convictions, and behaviors. Rules are the principles or regulations or moral interpretations that influence our behaviors. Our assumptions are what we believe to be true or real. These intermediate beliefs, of course, are influenced by our social, cultural, and environmental experiences.
Let me emphasize, that none of this negative trajectory is extraordinary. It is a natural progression common to all of us. Our unique personalities and experiences determine our susceptibility to it and the severity of its impact.
[Self-Esteem]
This accumulation of negative core and intermediate self-beliefs impacts the development of our self-esteem. Self-esteem, loosely defined, is a complex interrelationship between how we think about ourselves, how we think others think about us, and how we process and present that information.
We are social beings, driven by a fundamental human need for intimacy and interpersonal exchange. Human interconnectedness is necessary for our mental and physical health. Low levels of self-esteem jeopardize our social competency and impact our motivation to recover and pursue certain goals and objectives, to self-empower.
We also have an inherent negative bias, similar to our cognitive bias, which compels us to focus more on negative experiences than positive ones. When we lie in bed reminiscing about experiences, it’s usually about bad ones. Add to our accumulation of negativity are the experiences of life – outside forces over which we have little to no control. Hostility, divisiveness, illness, social media. The long and short of it, our brains are structured around an overabundance of negative information. Proactive and active neuroplasticity counter that negativity with positive neural input. That is their role.
Let’s briefly talk about what goes on [in our brain] with active and proactive neuroplasticity. Neurons are the core components of our brain and central nervous system. They convey information through electrical impulses or energy. Whether that energy is positive or negative depends upon the integrity of our information. Our brain receives around two million bits of data per second but is capable of processing roughly 126 bits, so it is important to provide substantial and incorrupt information.
[Neural Trajectory of Information]
Information alerts or sparks a receptor neuron that algorithmically converts it into electrical impulse energy which forwards that energy to a sensory neuron that stimulates presynaptic or transmitter neurons that pass that energy to postsynaptic or receiving neurons that then forward that energy to millions of participating neurons, causing a cellular chain reaction in multiple interconnected areas of our brain. Confusing? Absolutely.
Here’s an easy way to visualize it.
Neurons don’t act by themselves but through circuits that strengthen or weaken their connections based on our information. Like muscles, the more repetitions, the more robust the energy of the information, and the stronger the circuits.
In addition to positively restructuring our neural network, proactive and active neuroplasticity trigger what is called long-term potentiation. Neurons repeatedly stimulate succeeding neurons sometimes for weeks on end. This strengthens the nerve impulses along the connecting pathways, generating more energy and more neural chain reactions.
They produce higher levels of BDNF(brain-derived neurotrophic factors) – proteins associated with improved cognitive functioning, mental health, memory, and concentration.
The positive energy of our information is picked up by millions of neurons that amplify the impulse (or energy or activity) on a massive scale. Positive information in, positive energy reciprocated in abundance. Conversely, negative information in, negative energy reciprocated in abundance. Thus the significance of positive reinforcement.
When the activity of the connecting pathways is heightened, the natural neurotransmission of chemical hormones accelerates, releasing cognitive and physiological support. GABA for relaxation, dopamine for pleasure and motivation, endorphins to boost our self–esteem, and serotonin for a sense of well-being.
Those are the highlights. Scientists have identified over fifty chemical hormones in the human body. Every input or bit of information or data accelerates and consolidates the neurotransmission of these hormones.
Unfortunately, as physics would have it, we receive these same neural benefits whether our information is positive or negative. All information is rewarded by restructuring, long–term potentiation, BDNF, reciprocation, and supportive hormones. The same neural responses are activated. That’s one of the reasons breaking a habit, keeping to a resolution, or moderating our behaviors is challenging. Our brain acclimates to whatever we input and every time we repeat a destructive behavior or a bad habit, our neural circuits adapt and reward us. Thus the importance of the integrity of our information.
We are already physiologically adverse to change. Our bodies and brains are structured to attack anything that disrupts their equilibrium. A new diet or exercise regimen produces uncomfortable, physiological changes in our heart rate, metabolism, and respiration. Inertia senses and resists these changes, and our basal ganglia – the group of nuclei responsible for our emotional behaviors and habit formation – resist any modification in our patterns of behavior. Thus, habits like smoking, gambling, or gossiping are hard to break, and new undertakings like recovery, improvement, and self-empowerment, are challenging to maintain.
We inherently desire to be better persons and to contribute to others and society, but we are entrenched with negative self-beliefs. We have tried everything to overcome our condition and achieved less than desired results, which makes us feel incompetent and worthless, generating an overriding sense of futility.
We beat ourselves up daily for our perceptual inadequacies. Our inherent negative bias causes us to store information consistent with our negative beliefs and image. Psychology still focuses on what’s wrong with us. We consume ourselves with our problems instead of celebrating our achievements, and we constantly look for ways to justify or support our thoughts and behaviors. We blame ourselves for our defects as if they are the pervading forces of our true being, rather than celebrate our character strengths, virtues, attributes, and achievements.
We are consumed and conditioned by negative words. By the age of sixteen, we have heard the word no from our parents, roughly, 135,000 times. That’s a statistic and we take statistics with a large grain of salt but, you get the drift. Some of us use the same unfortunate words over and over again. The more we hear, read, or speak a word or phrase, the more power it has over us. Our brain learns through repetition.
It is not just the words we say aloud in criticism and conversations. The self-annihilating words we silently call ourselves convince us we are helpless, hopeless, undesirable, and worthless – the four horsemen of emotional dysfunction. They cause our neural network to transmit chemical hormones that impair our logic, reasoning, and communication, impacting the parts of our brain that regulate our memory, concentration, and emotions.
Our neural network is replete with toxic information.
Proactive neuroplasticity is initiated by DRNI – the deliberate, repetitive, neural input of information. What is this information? It is self-motivating and empowering statements that help us focus on our goals, challenge negative, self-defeating beliefs, and reprogram our subconscious minds. Individually focused statements that we repeat to ourselves to describe what and who we want to be. Think of them as aspirations or self-fulfilling prophecies. We incorporate them into positive personal affirmations and rational responses to our negative self-beliefs.
I belong here.
I am valuable and significant.
I am confident and self–assured.
I am strong and resilient.
I am worthy of success and abundance.
We drastically underestimate the significance and effectiveness of these self-affirming statements when we do not understand the science behind them. Practicing positive personal affirmations and rational responses dramatically accelerate and consolidate the positive restructuring of our neural network and weexperience a perceptible change in our thoughts, behaviors, and outlook on life.
It is the integrity of the information that compels the algorithmic conversion into positive electrical impulse or energy. Information of integrity is honest, unconditional, sound, and of strong moral principles. We have established certain criteria so that our neural network will recognize the integrity of our information and restructure accordingly. Our information is rational, reasonable, possible, positive, goal–focused, unconditional, and first–person present or future time. Again, we recognize that actual wording is not as important as its integrity, but it is better emotionally if we are secure in our intent.
Rational. The only logical recourse to irrational thought.
Reasonable. Unreasonable aspirations get us nowhere. It’s unreasonable to expect a grammy for song of the year if we’re tone-deaf.
Possible. If we are incapable of achieving our goal, it is ridiculous to pursue it.
Positive. Negative information is counterproductive to positive neural restructuring.
Goal-focused. If we do not know our destination, we will not recognize it when we arrive.
Unconditional. Our commitment must be certain. The affirmation, I will give up drinking – when my wife is in the room, defeats the purpose.
First-person present or future. The past is irrevocable so let’s concentrate on what we have control over.
Brief. Succinct and easily memorized. Our personal affirmations are mantras; they evolve. We change them according to need and circumstance.
Let’s talk about how proactive and active neuroplasticity support each other and how their collaboration advances our goal. While proactive neuroplasticity accelerates neural restructuring because of our deliberate, repetitive, neural input, incorporating both active and proactive neuroplasticity consolidates the process. It reinforces and strengthens our efforts. DRNI is a mental process designed to initiatetherapid, concentrated, neurological stimulation that transmits the electrical energy. It is proactive because we construct the information prior to utilizing it.
However, we are more than mere mental organisms. We are also emotional, social, and spiritual beings. Neglecting these human components is limiting and irrational. Mind, body, spirit, social, and emotions are the gestalt of our humanness. Proactive neuroplasticity is a mental exercise.
Active neuroplasticity taps into the emotional, the social, and the spiritual. Beyond healthy activities like yoga, journaling, creating, and listening to music, is our ethical and compassionate social behavior. Altruistic contributions to society are extraordinary assets to neural restructuring. The value of volunteering – providing support, empathy, and concern for those in need, random acts of kindness – is extraordinary, not only in promoting positive behavioral change but in enhancing the integrity of our information. The social interconnectedness established by caring and compassion supports the regeneration of our self-esteem and self-appreciation.
One more rather mundane reason we turn to active neuroplasticity. 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. I can tell you from experience, it is challenging to maintain the rigorous process demanded of DRNI – the tedious repetition. Tedium generates avoidance, and we know how difficult it is to establish and maintain new habits. Active neuroplasticity fills any gaps and brings our entire being into play.
In closing. Proactive and active neuroplasticity are formidable tools in neural restructuring and the corresponding positive transformation of our thoughts, behaviors, and perspectives. Recovery and self-empowerment are achieved through a collaboration of targeted approaches that compel the rediscovery and self-appreciation of our character strengths, virtues, and attributes. While the realignment of our neural network is the framework for recovery and self–empowerment, a coalescence of science and east-west psychologies is essential to capture the diversity of human thought and experience.
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)
This is a draft of Chapter Sixteen – “Recovery Mechanisms” in ReChanneling’s upcoming book on moderating social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities. We present this as an opportunity for readers to share their ideas and constructive criticism – suggestions gratefully considered and evaluated as we work to ensure the most beneficial product to those with emotional dysfunction (which is all of us to some degree). Please forward your comments in the form provided below.
<16> Recovery Mechanisms
“Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation, there is sure to be failure.” – Confucius
We are at war and social anxiety disorder is the enemy. Successfully challenging our fears and anxieties requires a strategy. A military strategist is someone skilled in planning the best way to gain an advantage against the enemy to achieve success. As strategists, we identify the vulnerabilities of the enemy and our wherewithal to exploit them. We build the case and create the blueprint for successful engagement. We develop the weapons, propagandize our neural network, and define the territory. Our strategy, techniques, and abilities are our weapons. We lead the forces of recovery; no one else can do that for us. Strategist Sun Tzu wrote extensively about enemy terrain and accessibility – entangling ground. narrow passes, and precipitous heights. The hostile terrain is our life-consistent negative thoughts and behaviors. To successfully negotiate it we utilize our character strengths, attributes, and achievements.
Before executing our Structured Plan for Feared-Situations, we have additional key definitions to assimilate.
Once again, a Situation is a set of circumstances – the facts, conditions, and incidents affecting us at a particular time in a particular place. A Feared-Situation is one that provokes fears and anxieties that negatively impact our emotional well-being and quality of life. Examples range from restaurants and the classroom to job interviews and social events.
There are two types of situations. Anticipated and recurring situations are those that we know, in advance, provoke our fears and anxieties. Unexpected situations are those we do not anticipate that catch us by surprise.
Automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) are anxiety-provoking thoughts, emotions, and images that occur in anticipation of or reaction to a situation. We touched upon them in Chapter Five. They are the unpleasant expressions of our negative self-beliefs that define who we think we are and who we think others think we are. (“No one will talk to me.” “I’ll do something stupid.” “I’m a loser.”)
Identifying situations and unpacking associated fears and ANTs are crucial to recovery.
As individuals living with social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities, we are challenged by a series of symptoms. Individually, we are not impacted by all of them or by the same ones as other SAD persons. Our issues are as distinctive as our experiences and personalities. The approaches to recovery are targeted to meet individual needs. Moderating our associated fears and corresponding ANTs demands an integrated and targeted approach. Through the following steps, we learn to:
Identify our Feared Situation(s). Where are we when we feel anxious or fearful and what activities are involved (what are we thinking, what might we be doing)? Who and what do we avoid because of these insecure feelings?
Identify our Associated Fear(s). One way to identify our anxiety is to ask ourselves the following: What is problematic for me in the situation? How do I feel (physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually)? What is my specific concern or worry? What is the worst thing that could happen to me? What do I imagine might happen to me?
Unmask our Corresponding ANT(s). We determine howwe express our anxiety. What are our involuntary emotional expressions or images? How do we negatively self-label? What do we tell ourselves? “I am incompetent.” “I am stupid.”
Examine and Analyze Our Fear(s) and ANTs. What are the origins of our fears and anxieties? Discovery approaches include cognitive comprehension, introspection, psychoeducation, and the vertical arrow technique.
Generate Rational Responses. We become mindful of the irrationality and self-destructive nature of our fears and ANTs. We discover and analyze the cognitive distortions that we use to validate or reinforce our fears. Then we devise rational responses to counter our false assumptions. The character motivations of psychobiography and positive psychology are useful here.
Reconstruct Our Thought Patterns. Through proactive neuroplasticity and cognitive approaches, we convert our thought patterns by replacing or overwhelming our toxic thoughts and behaviors with healthy productive ones. The process is facilitated by the rapid, concentrated, neurological stimulation of DRNI (the deliberate, repetitive neural input of information).
Devise a Structured Plan for Our Feared Situations(s). Utilizing our learned tools and techniques, we develop a plan to challenge our situational fears and anxieties by devising a strategy and incorporating targeted coping mechanisms.
Practice the Plan in Non-Threatening Simulated Situations. We strengthen our rational responses by repeatedly implementing the Plan in practiced exercises including role play and other workshop interactivities. Affirmative Visualization is a valuable scientific tool.
Expose Ourselves to the Feared Situation. We challenge our anxieties and corresponding ANTs on-site in real life. Thistranspires after a suitable period of graded exposure to facilitate the reconstruction of our neural network and a familiarity with the prescribed tools and techniques.
Workshop participants are asked to list their top five anxiety-provoking situations. First on George’s list was speaking in front of a group or audience. His corresponding fears were that he would not be taken seriously and be overwhelmed as the center of attention. His automatic negative thoughts were “I will be criticized” and “They will ridicule my anxiety.” Rational responses to these fears and ANTs are multiple. Among others, George chose “I deserve to be here” and “I am as worthy as everyone else.” Using this information, he created his Structured Plan for Feared-Situations.
Coping Strategies and Mechanisms
A coping strategy is our plan of action, and coping mechanisms are the tools or weapons we utilize to implement our strategy. To paraphrase the strategic offensive principle of war, “The best defense against social anxiety is a good offense” There are many moving parts to a counteroffensive requiring different levels of responsibility and expertise. At the top, we have our military strategists like Napoleon, Hannibal, and Eisenhower whose roles were to develop structured plans of action to outmaneuver the opponent.In recovery, this is ourcoping strategy designed to outmaneuver our social anxiety disorder – to moderate our fears and anxieties.
We then identify the actions or measurable steps needed to execute our strategy. In military jargon, those are the tactics implemented by field officers on the ground. In recovery, these are our coping mechanisms. A definitive strategy also identifies what resources are needed to implement the tactics. On the battlefield, the resources are the infantry, the training, and the equipment. In recovery, we are all these.
This process of strategizing is not linear or trickle-down, but complementary to its accessible assets. A smart military strategist plots the counteroffensive around the available weaponry, the expertise of the field officers, and the numbers and capabilities of the ground troops. In recovery, our coping strategy is fashioned around our ability to execute it. In Chapters Nineteen and Twenty-One, we explore some of the coping mechanisms that support our efforts.
In recovery, we do not have strategists to plan our counteroffensive nor officers on the ground to tactically implement it. We are the generals, the field officers, and the foot soldiers. The onus of recovery is on us. We are in an enviable position; recovery through proactive neuroplasticity empowers us to take control of our emotional well-being and quality of life. Master orator, William Jennings Bryan never became president but was the youngest person in U.S. History to be nominated – three times. He wrote, “Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”
Coping Strategies
There are maladaptive and adaptive coping strategies. Since maladaptive is particular to social anxiety disorder, we focus on adaptive coping strategies to counter our negative thoughts and behaviors. Experts tout problem-focused strategies, emotional-focused strategies, and a plethora of others. Multiple strategies are used in recovery including response-focused and cognitive-focused.
We use our coping mechanisms and skills in anticipated and recurring situations as well as unexpected ones. For the latter, we cultivate generic skills useful in any stressful occasion. For predetermined situations, we devise a structured plan incorporating predetermined coping mechanisms.
Strategizing how to combat our feared-situations is a crucial element of recovery. When we are facing anticipated and recurring situations, we know what to expect. We have advanced knowledge of the logistics of the event or occasion and have identified our associated fears and corresponding automatic negative thoughts.
Knowing how to effectively respond to anticipated situations is challenging enough. Devising fluid strategies to help us moderate unexpected situations is comparable to planning for the tactics used in guerilla warfare. Our social anxiety will use any means to control our emotional well-being including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, and hit-and-run tactics. These are the elements of unexpected situations. Guerilla warfare is conducted by a lesser force to subdue a stronger, more formidable force. Your social anxiety disorder is small and inferior to our inherent and developed character strengths, virtues, and attributes. That is why SAD has to resort to devious, underhanded, and manipulative tactics. Chapter Eighteen will examine the most effective coping strategies and mechanisms for unexpected situations, and those that support anticipated and recurring situations will be outlined in Chapter Twenty.
Coping Mechanisms
Coping mechanisms are tools and techniques that we consciously or unconsciously use to moderate stress and reduce the neurotransmissions of our fear and anxiety-provoking hormones, cortisol and adrenaline. They range from practiced skills we learn in recovery (e.g., slow talk and progressive muscle relaxation), to instinctual reactions to stress like going for a walk or listening to music. Healthy coping mechanisms are adaptive – positive contributions to our emotional well-being. Cognitive coping mechanisms include introspection and affirmative visualization – ways to mentally improve our response to situations. Behavioral coping mechanisms are interactive distractions – activities to moderate our fears and anxieties.
Defense Mechanisms
Unhealthy or negative coping mechanisms are called defense mechanisms – unhealthy safeguards against the thoughts and emotions that are difficult for our conscious minds to manage. Defense mechanisms are mostly unconscious psychological responses that protect us from our fears and anxieties. They are methods of avoidance – unhealthy responses to SAD-induced conflicts – that offer temporary respite but do little to moderate our anxieties in the long term. Substance abuse, denial, projection, regression, sublimation, and cognitive distortions are common defense mechanisms.
Without coping mechanisms, healthy or otherwise, we can experience decompensation – the inability or unwillingness to generate effective psychological coping mechanisms in response to stress – resulting in personality disturbance or disintegration.
Those of us living with SAD are preoccupied with the future, predicting how things will go wrong. We avoid situations because we anticipate making a fool of ourselves. We dread exposing ourselves to criticism and ridicule. Not only are we consumed with anxiety during situations, but we confront it days in advance. We create self-fulfilling prophecies of miserable and lonely solutions. Before recovery, I recall repeatedly circling the block before a social situation to bolster my courage. More often than not, I ended up in the bar rather than the event. Not only did I fear letting myself down, but I guaranteed it through my avoidance. I had no strategy.
There are literally hundreds of coping mechanisms that can make those stressful moments in life easier to handle, including yoga, dancing, meditation, eating, painting, writing, and streaming a movie. Anything that takes us out of the stress of the moment and reduces the flow of those pesky chemical hormones. The mechanisms detailed in these chapters are designed specifically to moderate the symptoms of our social anxiety in feared-situations.
Going into a problematic situation without a strategy and functional coping mechanisms is jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. In the words of the pioneer of moderation, Benjamin Franklin: “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
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Comments. Suggestions. Constructive Criticism
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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 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)
<29> Words that Impede Recovery
“I believe that a negative statement is poison. I’m convinced that the negative has power. It lives. And if you allow it to perch in your house, in your mind, in your life, it can take you over.” — Maya Angelou
Words have enormous power; they influence, encourage, and destroy. They are a source of compassion, creativity, and courage. They evoke desire, emotion, fear, and despair. They lift our spirits, inspire our imagination, and plunge us into the depths of despair.
We have three primary recovery objectives: To (1) replace or overwhelm our life-consistent negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy ones, (2) produce rapid, concentrated, neurological stimulation to change the polarity of our neural network, and (3) regenerate our self-esteem by regaining mindfulness of our attributes. Positivity is the catalyst for each.
Childhood disturbance prompts our negative core beliefs; our intermediate beliefs, influenced by SAD, establish the attitudes, rules, and assumptions that produce maladaptive understandings of the self and the world. Once again, attitudes refer to our emotions, convictions, and behaviors. Rules are the principles or regulations that influence our behaviors, and our assumptions are what we believe to be true or real. The common element is their toxic energy which we convey in the words we use.
These core and intermediate beliefs generate a cognitive bias that compels us to misinterpret information and make irrational decisions. Since humans are hard-wired with a negative bias, we respond more favorably to adversity. Add our SAD symptomatology to this mix and our neural network is replete with toxic information.
We are consumed and conditioned by negative words. By the age of sixteen, we have heard the word no from our parents, roughly, 135,000 times. Some of us use the same unfortunate words over and over again. The more we hear, read, or speak a word or phrase, the more power it has over us. Our brain learns through repetition.
It is not just the words we say out loud in criticism and conversations. The self-annihilating words we silently call ourselves convince us we are helpless, hopeless, undesirable, and worthless. They cause our neural network to transmit chemical hormones that impair our logic, reasoning, and communication, impacting the parts of our brain that regulate our memory, concentration, and emotions. The illusory truth effect defines how, when we hear the same false information repeated again and again, we come to believe in its veracity. Telling ourselves, repeatedly, we are incompetent and unlikeable, and other forms of negative self-labeling has the same effect – even when we intellectually know that the misinformation is false.
Before recovery, our neural circuits are structured around emotionally hostile information. While positive words boost our self-esteem and self-image, contradictory words support our irrational attitudes, rules, and assumptions. Negative absolutes like no one, nobody, nothing, and nowhere substantiate our isolation and avoidance of relationships. Qualifiers such as barely, maybe, and perhaps invalidate our commitment, while self-beliefs expressed by can’t, shouldn’t, and won’t support our sense of incompetence.
There are three categories of words to be mindful of and eliminate from our thoughts and vocabulary:
Pressure Words like should and would equivocate our commitment. “I should start my diet” essentially means, maybe I will and maybe I won’t. Pressure words give us permission to change our minds, procrastinate, and fail. (We are either on a diet or will be on a diet.) The pressure comes from the guilt of potentially doing nothing (I should’ve done that). Compare “I shouldn’t drink at the office party” to “I will not drink at the office party.”
Negative Absolute Words. The impact of won’t and can’t is obvious. Our objective in recovery is to replace or overwhelm toxic with healthy neural information – positive over negative. Consider the two statements: “I won’t learn much from that lecture” and “I will learn something from that lecture.” Which one offers the probability we will attend? Negative absolute words include never,impossible, and every time. “Every time I try…”
Conditional Words like possibly, maybe, might weaken our commitment. “Maybe I will start my diet” is not a firm commitment. Conditional words originate in doubt and manifest in avoidance and procrastination. Other examples include ought, must, and have to. Qualifying or conditional words or statements give us an excuse to opt out. “I will not drink at the office party” is a more robust commitment than “I will not drink at the party unless I get nervous.” Qualifying or conditional words or statements are also pre-justifications for our failures. (I might have won if only … )
A quick note about the word, hate.Hate is an extremely destructive sentiment to describe something we dislike. “I hate doing the dishes.” Do we really, or do we just dislike doing the dishes? Hate is an emotion; dislike is a feeling. Feelings quickly dissipate while emotions can metastasize. Psychologists argue hate has value in healing. I am less certain because it correlates to rage, resentment, and fear, feelings we seek to moderate. For those of us experiencing SAD, the word is detrimental to recovery.
It is important to recognize the harmful nature of these words and eliminate them from our self-referencing thoughts and vocabulary. They adversely impact the integrity and efficacy of our neural information which impedes recovery.
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.
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Cognitive Distortion #8: Labeling
When we label an individual or group, we reduce them to a single, usually negative, characteristic or descriptor based on a single event or behavior. As a result, we view them (or ourselves) through the label and filter out information that contradicts the stereotype. Labeling others leads to false assumptions, prejudice, and ostracizing. “Because he talked about his neighbor, he is a gossip.”
Our SAD symptoms compel us to label others to support our preconceived notions about how others perceive us. Our conversational inadequacy might make us label the group as rude and dismissive. If we expect rejection, they are cold and untrustworthy. Because we feel like we are the center of attention, our social failure could lead us to label the entire room as mean or arrogant.
Labeling is common to SAD persons because we resent our symptomatic fears and anxieties, causing us to project our frustrations on those close to us. Labeling a friend or significant other can destroy relationships, especially when the label is for unintentional behavior. If we feel unsupported at a social event, we might label our companion cold or indifferent. In a similar vein, if a parent criticizes us at the dinner table, identifying them as cruel or hateful would not be inconceivable. Polarized Thinking, Filtering, Emotional Reasoning, Jumping to Conclusions, and Overgeneralization lend themselves to Labeling.
We know how distressing it can be when someone labels us. When we-self label, we sustain our negative self-beliefs. “I didn’t meet anyone at the party; I am unlikeable.” Negatively labeling ourselves invariably results in thoughts that support our self-image. “I gave the wrong answer in class; I am stupid.” Self-labeling like inadequate and incompetent supports our sense of hopelessness and undesirability, and we often find our subsequent behaviors support those labels.
Labels are irrational and myopic because they emerge from a single characteristic, behavior, or event and ignore the whole person or situation. Arbitrarily evaluating someone based on one isolated incident or behavior is almost always inaccurate. One negative behavior or incident does not define someone’s entire character. Rather than focusing on the specific element that generated the label, it is important to value the positive contributions of the person or group. We can observe ourselves and others with compassionate insight, recognizing the diversity of human thought and experience.
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.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI—deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” — WeVoice (Madrid)
This is a draft of Chapter Twenty-Eight – “Defense Mechanisms” in ReChanneling’s upcoming book on moderating social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities. We present this as an opportunity for readers to share their ideas and constructive criticism – suggestions gratefully considered and evaluated as we work to ensure the most beneficial product to those with emotional dysfunction (which is all of us to some degree). Please forward your comments in the form provided below.
<28> Defense Mechanisms
“Unable to cope with fear and uncertainty, a person resorts to denial, repression, compromise, and hides behind the mask of a false self.” ― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Unhealthy or negative coping mechanisms are called defense mechanisms – temporary safeguards against situations difficult for our conscious minds to manage. Defense mechanisms are mostly unconscious psychological responses that protect us from our fears and anxieties. At one time or another, we will likely use a defense mechanism of some kind to protect ourselves from threats to our emotional well-being and sense of self.
Without coping mechanisms, healthy or otherwise, we can experiencedecompensation – the inability or unwillingness to generate effective psychological coping mechanisms in response to stress – resulting in personality disturbance or disintegration.
There are extensive lists of defense mechanisms. Cognitive distortions are considered defense mechanisms. Any mental process that protects us from our fears, anxieties, and threats to our emotional well-being is a defense mechanism. Some, like Avoidance, Humor, Isolation, and Intellectualization need no explanation. Compensation, Dissociation, and Ritual and Undoing have their positive value as well and are utilized in our recovery process. The following nine coping mechanisms are commonly exploited by persons living with social anxiety disorder and its comorbidities.
Ritual and undoing as a defense mechanism is the process of trying to undo negative self-behaviors or image by performing rituals or actions designed to offset them. For example, a person may engage in excessive prayer and abstinence to compensate for unhealthy behaviors or donate to a homeless shelter to make up for profiting from the underprivileged. As we can see, there can be some value to ritual and undoing, except when we use it as an excuse to continue our adverse activities.
Substance abuse is another example – the uncontrolled or dissipation of alcohol, illegal drugs, or prescribed medications that affect our performance. Misusing drugs, pharmaceuticals, and alcohol to calm our fears and anxieties in a situation (1) can be physically harmful, (2) requires increased dosage to maintain the same effect, and (3) is a temporary solution to a long-term problem. Exercising Ritual and Undoing for positive gain is a valuable coping mechanism. It supports negative to positive neural restructuring, and the replacement (undoing) of our negative thoughts and behaviors with positive ones.
Cognitive distortions are exaggerated or irrational thought patterns that perpetuate our anxiety and depression. In essence, we twist reality to reinforce or justify our toxic behaviors and validate our irrational attitudes, rules, and assumptions. We have willowed down the expansive (and redundant) number of cognitive distortions to thirteen that are most associated with social anxiety disorder.
COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS
Always Being Right. Our need to always be right protects our fragile self-image sustained by our fears of criticism, ridicule, and rejection.Being right is more important to us than the truth or the feelings of others. We aren’t comfortable with thoughts or opinions that contradict our own. In our formative years, many of us were undervalued – subject to the circumstances of our childhood disturbance. Our parents may have been controlling or dismissive, and our siblings abusive. Some of us never experienced positive feedback or appreciation. This drives the impulse to disregard thoughts and viewpoints that conflict with our own.
Blaming. Blaming is when we wrongly assign responsibility for things and happenings. One focus of our accusations is external blaming – holding outside forces accountable for things that are our responsibility. Blaming someone or something for our personal choices and decisions seems illogical, but remember, SAD sustains itself on our irrationality. Internal blaming is assuming personal responsibility for the problems of other people and the things that go wrong which do not involve us. Internal or self-blaming can be expressed as power or weakness (Control Fallacies.). When we blame ourselves for our symptoms, we feed into our perceptions of incompetence and ineptitude. Believing we have power and influence over other people’s thoughts and behaviors can be seen as grandiosity. Both correspond to our low self-esteem and sense of inferiority.
Catastrophizing drives us to conclude the worst-case scenario when things happen, rather than considering more obvious and plausible explanations. It is the irrational assumption that something is far worse than it is. We validate this by Filtering out the alternatives. We anticipate and prophesize disaster and twist reality to support our projection. If our significant other complains of a headache, we assume our relationship is doomed. If this happens again, our belief is confirmed.
Control Fallacies. A Control Fallacy is the conviction that (1) something or someone has power and control over things that happen to us or (2) we hold that type of power over others. We either believe events in our lives are beyond our control, or we assume responsibility for everything. When we feel externally controlled, we see ourselves as weak and powerless, blaming outside forces for our adversities. Conversely, the fallacy of internal control is when we believe we have power and influence over other people’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. We blame ourselves for their mishaps and misfortunes.
Emotional Reasoning is making judgments and decisions based on instinct or feelings over objective evidence – best expressed by the colloquialism, my gut tells me… This emotional dependency dictates how we relate to things. At the root of this cognitive distortion is the belief that what we feel must be true. If we feel like a loser, then we must be a loser. If we feel incompetent, then we must be incapable. If we make a mistake, we must be stupid. All the negative things we feel about ourselves, others, and the world must be valid because they feel true. Emotional Reasoning is an oxymoron. Resolving this opposition is a crucial element of recovery.
The Fallacy of Fairness is the unrealistic assumption that life should be fair. It is human nature to equate fairness with how well our personal preferences are met. We know how we want to be treated and anything that conflicts with that seems unreasonable and emotionally unacceptable. Fairness is subjective, however. Two people seldom agree on what is fair. The fact that those of us living with SAD are predisposed to emotional reasoning or personalization does validate the irrationality that life is fair.
Filtering. When we engage in Filtering, we selectively choose our perspective. Our tunnel vision gravitates toward the negative aspects of a situation and excludes the positive. This applies to our memories as well. We dwell on the unfortunate aspects of what happened rather than the whole picture. Negative filtering is one of the most common cognitive distortions in anxiety because it sustains our toxic core and intermediate beliefs. Our pessimistic outlook exacerbates our feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. We accentuate the negative. A dozen people in our office celebrate our promotion; one ignores us. We obsess over the lone individual and disregard the goodwill of the rest. We view ourselves, the world, and our future through an unforgiving lens.
Heaven’s Reward Fallacy is when we put other people’s needs ahead of our own with an expectation of reciprocation. Contrary to others who share this cognitive distortion, SAD persons are not seeking heavenly reward, but acknowledgment in this one. We continually say yes to others while denying ourselves, We tell ourselves our motives are selfless, but we accommodate out of neediness and loneliness. Consummate enablers, we ingratiate ourselves and allow others to take advantage to compensate for our feelings of undesirability and worthlessness.
Jumping To Conclusions is judging or deciding something without having all the facts to substantiate our beliefs or opinions. We become fortune tellers and mind-readers, assuming we know what another person is feeling or why they act the way they do. When we form our automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) we usually jump to conclusions because the only evidence we rely on is our fears and anxieties which are abstractions based on perception rather than reality. When we overgeneralize or filter information we usually jump to conclusions.
Labeling. When we label, we reduce an individual or group to a single, usually negative, characteristic or descriptor based on a single event or behavior. As a result, we view them (or ourselves) through the label and filter out information that contradicts the stereotype. Our SAD symptoms encourage labeling because of our preconceived notions about how others perceive us. Our fears of criticism and ridicule label our projected antagonists as rude and dismissive. If we anticipate rejection, we label them cold and untrustworthy. Negative self-labeling like inadequate and incompetent supports our sense of hopelessness and undesirability.
Overgeneralization. When we engage In this cognitive distortion, we draw broad conclusions or make statements about something or someone unsupported by the available evidence. We make blanket claims that can’t be proven or disproven. Everyone knows Suzie is a liar. To imply that everyone thinks Suzie is a liar is an exaggeration without consensus. A few colleagues may share our opinion, but not the whole world. We overgeneralize when we base our conclusions on one or two pieces of evidence while ignoring anything to the contrary.
Personalization. If someone says to us, “don’t take it personally,“ we are likely engaging in personalization. When we engage in this type of thinking, we assume we are the cause of things unrelated to us. We believe that what others do or say is a reaction to us – that random comments are personally relevant. For those of us living with social anxiety disorder, personalization is symptomatic of our belief we are the center of attention and the subject of criticism or ridicule.
Polarized Thinking. In Polarized Thinking, we see things as absolute – black or white. There is no middle ground, no compromise. We are either brilliant or abject failures. Our friends are for us or against us. We do not allow room for balanced perspectives or outcomes. We refuse to give people the benefit of the doubt. Worse than our anxiety about criticism is our self-judgment. If we are not faultless, we must be broken and inept. There is no middle ground.
COMPENSATION
Compensation is when we direct our attention and energy to complimentary aspects of our personality to avoid dealing with perceived inadequacies. In other words, we overachieve in one area of our life to compensate for failures or deficits in another. A teenager might compensate for his learning difficulties by excelling in sports. While she or he may accrue social and physical benefits, it can cause long-term problems unless educational issues are properly addressed. In recovery compensating for our fears and anxieties through certain defense mechanisms can be beneficial as long as we address them honestly and rationally. We compensate for our negative thoughts and behaviors by replacing them with healthy and productive ones. We compensate for our low self-esteem by recognizing and emphasizing our character strengths, virtues, and achievements.
Like any approach, moderation is the key. It is easy, especially for those of us living with SAD, to overcompensate by setting unreasonable expectations or undercompensate by minimizing or dismissing our character flaws.
DENIAL
Denial is one of the best-known defense mechanisms that we use to protect ourselves from thoughts and behaviors we cannot manage. Our inability or refusal to recognize trauma or personality defects is detrimental to recovery. People experiencing drug or alcohol addiction often deny that they have a problem, while victims of traumatic events may deny that the event ever occurred. SAD persons are disproportionately resistant to recovery because they deny its personal impact or its destructive capabilities as if, by ignoring them, they don’t exist or will somehow disappear. Our core sense of hopelessness and worthlessness does not encourage a willingness to accept our diagnosis, which is the primary criterion for recovery.
Even with overwhelming evidence, we deny feelings and experiences that need to be addressed by rejecting them or minimizing their importance. Denial allows us to lie to ourselves; it does not eliminate the situation.
DISPLACEMENT
Displacement involves taking out our fears and frustrations on people or objects that are less threatening. An example would be the worker, reprimanded by his superiors, who goes home and kicks the dog. This defense mechanism is prevalent in SAD persons due to our symptoms. We feel incompetent, inferior, or unlikeable. We are unduly concerned we will say something that will reveal our shortcomings. We walk on eggshells, convinced we are the center of
everyone’s attention. We anguish over things for weeks before they happen and negatively predict the outcomes. Our overriding sense of helplessness convinces us that nothing can alleviate the distress of our negative self-beliefs. When the pressure threatens to overwhelm our emotional well-being, we often take out our frustrations on persons or things that pose a limited threat such as a roommate, sibling, or total stranger.
DISSOCIATION
Dissociation is a disconnect from reality to shield us from distress and traumatic experiences. In theory, our mind unconsciously shuts down or compartmentalizes distressful thoughts, memories, or experiences. Daydreaming or streaming television to avoid conflict is a harmless form of dissociation. Conversely, morphing into multiple personalities (dissociative identity disorder) is defined as psychosis.
In recovery, we deliberately dissociate ourselves from SAD as a mental exercise that helps us regenerate our self-esteem. We redefine ourselves by our character assets rather than our social anxiety disorder. To repeat the analogy I use regularly when we break our leg, we do not become the injured limb. We are someone experiencing a broken leg.
PROJECTION
Projection is when we subconsciously deny our character defects yet recognize them in another. Rather than accepting them as a natural component of our symptoms, we project our negative thoughts, experiences, and behaviors onto someone else. Often when we instinctively dislike or avoid someone, it is because we have projected our disagreeable tendencies onto them. Oblivious to our own awkwardness, we ridicule a friend’s clumsy attempt at socializing. Or rather than deal with our unhappiness, we project it onto someone else.
RATIONALIZATION
Rationalization is when we justify our irrational thoughts and behaviors by creating a variety of logical explanations for them. We may be doing this intentionally, or unconsciously when we rationalize unmanageable feelings or experiences. Rationalizations are used to defend against anything that threatens our emotional well-being. Attributing our headache and dry mouth to the flu, rather than the massive consumption of alcohol the evening before is an example of trying to justify our behavior by creating an alternate explanation.
The defense mechanism of rationalization is not to be confused with rational response, which we construct by identifying and analyzing our situational fears and anxieties.
REPRESSION
We often conflate regression with repression. Regression is when we revert to an earlier or less mature stage of psychological development where we feel safe from emotional conflict. Repression is the exclusion of painful impulses, desires, or fears from the conscious mind. Repression is a psychological attempt to unconsciously forget or block distressing memories, thoughts, or desires from conscious awareness. Often involving aggressive childhood disturbance but applicable to any untenable trauma, we direct these unwanted mental constructs into areas of our subconscious mind that are not easily accessible. In recovery, personal introspection and interrogation can expose regressed memories as part of the discovery process.
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.
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“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI—deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” — WeVoice (Madrid)
Cognitive Distortion #12: Heaven’s Reward Fallacy
Heaven’s Reward Fallacy is when we put other people’s needs ahead of our own with an expectation of reciprocation. Contrary to others who share this cognitive distortion, SAD persons are not seeking heavenly reward in the afterlife, but acknowledgement in this one.
We continually say yes to others while denying ourselves, We tell ourselves our motives are selfless, but we do it out of neediness and loneliness. We are consummate enablers trying to compensate for our feelings of undesirability and worthlessness. Consummate enablers, we ingratiate ourselves and allow others to take advantage to compensate for our feelings of undesirability and worthlessness.
You are an exemplary office worker – always on time, and willing to go the extra mile. When your co-workers fall behind, you always offer to pick up the slack even if it means staying late or working on the weekend. Your desk is organized, you dress for success, and complete your assignments with diligence and efficiency. You eagerly anticipate a promotion at the end of the quarter.
The management hires someone from without the organization. Your disappointment turns to anger and resentment. When the company distributes the annual bonuses, yours does not reflect the recognition you think you deserve. Colleagues move on to better employment, but you have spent so much time ingratiating yourselves with management, you have not considered viable alternatives. You mire yourself in The Fallacy of Fairness and your resentment turns to sullenness and hostility.
People who engage in Heaven’s Reward Fallacy typically undervalue their worth and significance and have poor self-awareness. It is easier to take on the needs and responsibilities of others rather than face our fears and anxieties. Our actions are self-serving rather than noble. True altruism does not expect reciprocation.
Recovering our self-esteem is an essential element of recovery and cannot be second-tiered. Due to our disruption in natural human development, we are subject to significantly lower implicit and explicit self-esteem relative to healthy controls. Our negative core and intermediate beliefs stemming from childhood disturbance and onset are directly implicated. Our symptomatic fears and anxieties aggravate this deficit.
We rediscover and regenerate our self-esteem through the integration of historically and clinically practical approaches designed to help us become mindful of our inherent strengths, virtues, and achievements, and their propensity to replace our SAD-induced negative self-beliefs and image.
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.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI—deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” — WeVoice (Madrid)
Cognitive Distortion #10: Catastrophizing
One morning, as Chicken Little was plucking worms in the henyard, an acorn dropped from a tree onto her head. She had no idea what hit her and assumed the worst. “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” Catastrophizing drives us to conclude the worst-case scenario when things happen, rather than considering more obvious and plausible explanations. It is the irrational assumption that something is far worse than it is. We validate this by Filtering out the alternatives. We anticipate and prophesize disaster and twist reality to support our projection. If our significant other complains of a headache, we assume our relationship is doomed. If this happens again, our belief is confirmed.
A symptom of SAD is our tendency to expect negative consequences to things that happen during a situation. Because of our negative self-appraisal, and inherent negative bias, we tend to assume the worst. Often, we justify our projections based on prior events, believing that catastrophe will ensue because the former event had disastrous consequences. This is similar to Overgeneralization where one bad apple means the entire bushel is rotten. Our four horsemen of social anxiety disorder – helplessness, hopelessness, undesirability, and unworthiness aggravate our negative assumptions. Catastrophizing is often a consequence of our symptomatic fears of criticism, ridicule, and rejection. We take something we believe is inevitable and presuppose its actuality. We will be rejected and therefore, never find love. We will be criticized and, therefore, never be taken seriously.
Catastrophizing can be paralyzing. It limits our social engagement because we avoid situations that posit the possibility of disaster. Our fatalistic obsessions prevent us from experiencing and enjoying life. We express it in our SAD-induced automatic negative thoughts (ANTs). “What if no one talks to me?” “What if they criticize my presentation?” “What if they find me unattractive?” Worrying about something that hasn’t happened is an exercise in futility and supports our sense of hopelessness. It can negatively impact our entire outlook in life, causing issues of motivation and self-esteem that lead to self-disappointment and underachievement.
Considering the consequences of what can happen is a regular and rational part of determining our actions and activities. The compulsion to project the worst possible outcome, no matter how improbable, is self-destructive.
When those of us with social anxiety disorder find ourselves in a situation where we dread being criticized, ridiculed, and or rejected, the smallest incident, like a failed attempt at humor, can trigger the belief that the entire evening is a personal disaster. This projection can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy because we are convinced of its inevitability.
Catastrophizing is closely linked to anxiety, depression, and self-pity, and is prevalent among individuals who have generalized anxiety, social anxiety, panic, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Again, the obvious remedy is to become mindful of our susceptibility to this distortion, rationally assess the situation, and consider plausible explanations for the incident that triggered our catastrophizing.
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.
Utilizing Psychobiography to Moderate Symptoms of SAD
Abstract: Putting practical application to theory, this paper illustrates how the research techniques of psychobiography are incorporated into a comprehensive recovery program for social anxiety disorder.
Psychobiography can be a most helpful treatment method in moderating the impact of social anxiety disorder (SAD), which is one of the most common mental disorders, negatively impacting the emotional and mental well-being of millions of U.S. adults and adolescents who find themselves caught up in a densely interconnected network of fear and avoidance of social situations. SAD is culturally identifiable by the persistent fear of social and performance situations in which we claim to be misunderstood, judged, criticized, and ridiculed. The irony is that we have far more to fear from our distorted perceptions than the opinions of others. Our imagination takes us to dark and lonely places.
SAD makes us feel helpless and hopeless, trapped in a vicious cycle of fear and anxiety, and restricted from living a “normal” life. We feel alienated and disconnected—loners full of uncertainty, hesitation, and trepidation. Our fear of disapproval and rejection is so severe that we avoid the life experiences that interconnect us with others and the world. Fearing the unknown and unexplored, we obsess about upcoming situations and how we will reveal our shortcomings, experiencing anticipatory anxiety for weeks before an event and expecting the worst. We feel like we are living under a microscope, and everyone is judging us negatively, making us worry about what we say, how we look, and how we express ourselves. We are obsessed with how others perceive us; we feel undesirable and worthless.
As a SAD survivor, researcher, and workshop facilitator, I have found that the investigative methods utilized in psychobiography offer a unique understanding of how our motivation to succeed is seriously impaired by the symptoms of SAD. Until my psychology graduate study, I was convinced my emotional dysfunctions were the consequence of poor behavior rather than SAD-symptomatic. It was then I realized the immeasurable value of the in-depth case study that forms the crux of psychobiography. Recovery can be encapsulated by the phrase: “We are not defined by our social anxiety; we are defined by our character strengths, virtues, and achievements.”
SAD is a product of our negative core and intermediate beliefs induced by childhood disturbance. Cumulative evidence that a toxic childhood is a primary causal factor in lifetime emotional instability has been well-established. Emotional disorders sense the child’s vulnerability and onset during adolescence. (In the later-life onset of narcissistic personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD], the susceptibility originates in childhood.) The disruption of emotional development subverts the child’s natural physiological and emotional evolution, denying the satisfaction of self-esteem. This does not signify a deficit, but both latency and dormancy are expressed by our undervaluation or regression of our positive self-qualities.
In a recent article, I stated the case that the psychobiographic emphasis on the eminent extraordinary limits its potential to understand the character motivations of the “ordinary” extraordinary who has achieved a significant personal milestone. To the average individual living with SAD, a noteworthy milestone is recovery-remission from emotional dysfunction. Putting practical application to theory, I have incorporated research methods of psychobiography into our comprehensive recovery programs.
The role of psychobiography is to generate a more in-depth understanding of the qualities and characteristics that motivate us to achieve and overcome adversity. A primary function of recovery is to galvanize the SAD person to reclaim mindfulness of their character strengths, virtues, and achievements. Recognizing and accepting our inherent and developed personal values encourages us to embrace the extraordinariness of our lives, confirming we are consequential and valuable.
The lifetime-consistent influx of negative self-beliefs and images generated by SAD negatively impacts the natural development of self-esteem, defined as the realization of one’s significance to self and community. Self-esteem is the complex interrelationship between how we think about ourselves, how we think others perceive us, and how we process and express that information.
The roots of this lacuna are illustrated by Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of developmental needs. Childhood physical, emotional, or sexual disturbance disrupts our emotional and physiological development. Our sense of safety and security as well as feelings of belongingness and being loved are subverted, denying the satisfaction of self-esteem. While access to Maslow’s hierarchal levels is nonlinear, when coupled with our negative core and intermediate beliefs, the impact on our self-esteem becomes a certainty.
Maslow and Psychobiography: Realizing Our Potential
The collaboration of psychobiography and positive psychology traces its origins to themes addressed by Maslow that stress the importance of focusing on our positive qualities to realize our potential—to become the most that we can be. A function of psychobiography is to generate an understanding of the individual to learn what motivates our thoughts and behaviors. SAD functions by compelling irrational and self-destructive thoughts and behaviors due to its life-consistent negative self-beliefs and images. Psychobiography lays the groundwork for rational response.
The foundation of positive psychology is a human’s ability, development, and potential. The SAD symptomatic, life-consistent neural input of toxic information subverts our recognition and appreciation of our inherent and developed character strengths, virtues, and achievements—a trajectory initiated by our negative core and intermediate beliefs. It is the role of psychobiography to study the character attributes that generate the motivation to achieve and apply these understandings toward optimal functioning and improved life satisfaction.
The Influence of Core Beliefs in SAD
Core beliefs are determined by our childhood physiology, heredity, environment, information input, experience, learning, and relationships. Negative core beliefs are generated by any childhood disturbance that interferes with our optimal physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development. Perhaps we were subject to dysfunctional parenting, a lack of emotional validation, gender bullying, or a broken home. The disturbance can be intentional or accidental, real, or perceptual. A toddler whose parental quality time is interrupted by a phone call can sense abandonment, which can generate core beliefs of unworthiness or insignificance.
Core beliefs remain our belief system throughout life and govern our perceptions. They are more rigid in SAD persons because we tend to store information consistent with negative self-beliefs, ignoring evidence that contradicts. A recent Japanese study on emotional neuroticism found that core beliefs about the negative self generate cognitive vulnerabilities in achievement, dependency, and self-control. SAD generates cognitive distortions and maladaptive behaviors counterproductive to logical reasoning, negatively impacting the rationality and accuracy of our perspectives and decisions.
Aaron Beck is the undisputed pioneer of cognitive-behavioral therapy for social anxiety and depression. He assigned negative core beliefs to two categories: self-oriented (“I am undesirable”) and other-oriented (“You are undesirable”). Individuals with self-oriented negative core beliefs view themselves in four ways: we feel helpless, hopeless, undesirable, and/or worthless. These beliefs can lead to fears of intimacy and commitment, an inability to trust, debilitating anxiety, codependence, aggression, feelings of insecurity, isolation, a lack of control over life, and resistance to new experiences. People with other-oriented negative core beliefs view people as demeaning, dismissive, malicious, or manipulative. By blaming others, we avoid personal accountability for our behaviors.
Intermediate Beliefs: Establishing Attitudes, Rules, and Assumptions
The accumulated negative core beliefs due to childhood disturbance and other early-life experiences heavily influence our intermediate beliefs that develop our adolescence. As with core beliefs, they support our natural negative bias, neurobiologically inputting toxic information that reinforces our negative self-valuations. Intermediate beliefs establish our attitudes, rules, and assumptions. Attitude refers to our emotions, convictions, and behaviors. Rules are the principles or regulations that influence our behaviors. Our assumptions are what we believe to be true or real. A SAD person’s attitude is one of self-denigration, assumptions illogical and cognitively distorted, and rules interacted by destructive behaviors,
A comprehensive recovery workshop must consider the needs of the individual within the group. One-size-fits-all approaches are anathema to recovery. Just as there is no one right way to do or experience recovery and transformation, so also what benefits one individual may not be helpful to another. The insularity of cognitive-behavioral therapy, positive psychologies, and other approaches cannot comprehensively address the complexity of the personality. Our environment, heritage, background, and associations reflect our wants, choices, and aspirations. If they are not given appropriate consideration, then we are not valued.
Devising a targeted recovery approach requires multiple perspectives from different psychological and scientific schools of thought developed through client trust, cultural assimilation, and therapeutic innovation. A collaboration 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, positive psychology, and psychobiography are western-oriented; and eastern practices provide the therapeutic benefits of Buddhist psychology, as well as a sense of self that embraces the positive qualities of the individual. The qualitative and quantitative research elements of psychobiography, including the case study, hermeneutics, interpretations and explanations, personal data and evidence, and the narrative are useful tools for understanding the impact of SAD on our self-beliefs and images.
Quantitative and Qualitative Research
Quantitative research involves the empirical investigation of observable and measurable variables. It is used for testing theory, predicting and illustrating outcomes, and considering clinically-supported techniques. Quantitative research generates hypotheses and helps determine research and recovery strategies. It can include data-driven research, scales, personal inventories, and comparative or correlational studies. Although conceived as focusing on data articulated numerically, quantitative analysis is also used to study feared situations and the severity of anxiety.
Qualitative research provides a close-up look at the human side of SAD relative to behaviors, beliefs, emotions, and relationships, supported by such intangible factors as social norms, ethnicity, socio-economic status, philosophy, and religion. A comprehensive study of the status and motivations of a SAD person is partially compiled through interviews, open-ended questions, and opinion research to gain insight into perceptions and belief systems.
The psychobiographic in-depth case study is a reconstructive clinical and systematic analysis of the life and productivity of an individual. The key is the availability of evidence. Accessing therapeutic notes and conclusions is legally impermissible; the workshop facilitator must lean heavily on experience and innovative methods of discovery. A case study of a recovering SAD person relies heavily on personal interviews—testimony that is conditional and truthful to the extent that the individual believes it or needs the facilitator to believe it. Clinically-supported scales and inventories are useful, and statistical research and studies are abundant. Comparative and correlational evidence supports conclusions.
Psychobiography: Interpretations and Explanations
Psychobiography is an interpretation of the life of individuals, extraordinary or otherwise. Interpretations and explanations compensate for the physiological and psychological resistance to personal revelation. Recollections are highly subject to inaccuracies. We must ask ourselves, to what extent are memories of subjective experiences and events accurate portrayals of what happened, wistful recollections, or biased reconstructions? Whether correctly recalled or not, memories and recollections must be valued as authentic perceptions of the reality of the individual. In the case of Michael Z., his recollections of childhood physical and emotional abuse helped him understand and moderate his avoidance of trust and intimacy.
Interpretation permeates all investigations from data to statistics, the case study, and hermeneutics. Psychobiography is an intuitive, interpretive method of comprehension based upon the synthesis of evidence culled from all available, relevant sources. Therapists must partially base their diagnosis on the interpretation of observable behaviors.
A facilitator must consider the multiplicities of truth, which means different things to different people and is contingent upon the validity of the information provided by the subject. We must be willing to risk and value our interpretations, instincts, and even speculations while remaining cognizant that we are susceptible to incorporating personal sensibilities and subject to imperfect conclusions, due to the vagaries and ambiguities of the subject.
Hermeneutics: An Essential Step in Recovery
Hermeneutics is essential to recovery due to the core beliefs of the child impacted by a dysfunction-provoking disturbance. The disruption in emotional development coupled with unjustifiable shame and guilt generates negative and often hostile perspectives in early learning which leans heavily on morality and religion. The unjustifiable shame and guilt expressed by Matty S. was a reliable indicator of his sense of undesirability and worthlessness. Recognizing his non-accountability for onset allowed him to realize the irrationality of his adverse moral emotions. The negative belief system of the susceptible child cognitively distorts their understanding of self and their relationship with others and the world. A major function of recovery is moderating these irrational beliefs. This entails identifying and examining our disruptive thoughts and behaviors and generating rational responses, while proactively repatterning our neural network.
Narrative: The Ordinary Extraordinary
The narrative aspect of psychobiography favors the “ordinary” extraordinary because of their ability to access experiences. While the narrative of the average individual may lack spectacularism it does not impede creativity. Every SAD individual’s life is distinctive, consisting of unique experiences, beliefs, and sensibilities. How we express that information is subject to our self-beliefs and images. Through the interview and narrative process, Liz D. was able to rationally comprehend and moderate her intense situational fear of constructive confrontation. Its complex origins stemmed from her adolescent intermediate self-beliefs. The role of the personal narrative in moderating negative-self perceptions is significant.
Concluding Thoughts
This article illustrates the value of psychobiography in constructing an individually targeted approach to recovery from social anxiety disorder. A psychobiography generates hypotheses and helps determine recovery strategies while offering a close-up look at the human side of SAD relative to behaviors, beliefs, emotions, and relationships. It provides support in evaluating and treating the individual within the workshop gestalt. The investigative methods utilized in psychobiography, including the case study, hermeneutics, interview, narrative, and the relevant social sciences, are valuable to understanding the trajectory of and methods to moderate life-consistent negative self-beliefs and images. Less reliable is the availability of an informed case study and personal data and evidence. This lacuna is compensated by the experienced facilitator’s interpretation of common threads in SAD recovery, supported by statistical research and comparative and correlational evidence.
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Clio’s Psyche is a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, founded in 1994, and published by the Psychohistory Forum, holding regular scholarly meetings in Manhattan and at international conventions. Clio’s Psyche is unique in that it prefers experiential testimony over extensive citation.
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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.
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