Shyness, social and performance anxiety are so common that there is some discussion in the psychological community as to whether there should be an official "diagnosis" for these issues. After all, virtually everyone feels anxious in one social/performance setting or another! It's part of being human. (And in fact, more than 40% of people consider themselves shy by nature.)
However, for some people shyness and social/performance anxiety can become quite intense. Some find dating so nerve-wracking that they stay single for years. Others find that test-taking anxiety is so strong that they drop out of school. Many people fear public speaking so much that they begin to dread upcoming events months in advance.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is one of the most common ways of helping individuals with shyness, social anxiety, and performance anxiety. The goal in cognitive therapy isn't simply to manage anxiety, but to help you change your entire view of yourself and the challenging situations — as well as learn self-supportive action steps that you can take before, during, and after the challenges.
There are many methods that we use in cognitive therapy to work with social and performance anxiety. Let me share a few basic approaches.
In the old days, psychotherapists talked about a "fight-or-flight" response to vulnerable situations. The idea was that when we perceived ourselves as vulnerable, we would either feel an impulse to fight or take flight.
In more recent times, therapists have come to realize that there are far more responses than these two. In fact, a common third response is to freeze.
Think of a deer or other animal that gets "caught in the headlights" of an oncoming car. The deer's brain registers a threat, and tells the deer to stay absolutely still.
This "freezing" response is an excellent response when you're trying to stay camouflaged in the forest. However, when you're facing an oncoming car, it's not a very good strategy! And yet, the deer has an automatic tendency to respond in this way.
Our brains often deal with social vulnerability in one of these automatic ways as well. In stressful social situations (such as first dates, job interviews, public speaking — or even parties), we may feel a tendency to fight, take flight, or freeze. For example:
If you have a "fight" response, you may automatically react in stressful interpersonal situations with bravado or aggresiveness (including "mild" forms of aggressiveness such as teasing.) Many men in our society are socialized to deal with vulnerability in this way.
If you have a "flight" response, you may experience racing thoughts, a surge of energy, and an impulse to exit the situation as quickly as possible. This is the typical response for people who consider themselves anxious in social or perfomance settings.
If you have a "freeze" response, you might clam-up, lose your train of thought, and even become physically frozen. This is a common response for people who come across as classically shy. Other people may not realize that folks who are having this response aren't trying to be anti-social.
These are all ordinary responses to a sense of vulnerability. In fact, these responses can be extremely helpful in certain situations. Speaking personally, I have an active adrenaline system, and often experience surges of energy in challenging situations. This "flight" response has allowed me to move quickly through dangerous rock-climbing situations at times. It can be a life saver!
Our fight, flight, and freeze responses are normal, and can be helpful. They are our brain's attempt to keep us safe. In fact, these responses probably saved our ancestors many times throughout history. If our ancestors hadn't been able to fight, take flight, or freeze, we might not have been born.
The problem is that many of us become preoccupied with and self-critical about our fight, flight, and freeze responses. Especially in social or performance situations that we percieve to be "high-stakes," we might become extremely focused on how we're "coming across." This can create an anxiety cycle.
People who experience high levels of social and performance anxiety, for example, often think things like:
"I'll start to give that speech, and I'll get frozen. I'll lose my train of thought. They might all start laughing at me!"
"When I offer people drinks at my party, my hands will shake and they'll see how nervous I am. They'll think I'm weird!"
"I'll probably get all flustered when I go out on that date, and I might slip and say something inappropriate. That will blow everything!"
"If I go to that event, I'll feel awkward and I won't have anything to say. People will think I'm anti-social. They'll hate me!"
In these cases, the people are expecting to have normal fight, flight, or freeze responses. But then they are overlaying their expected responses with anxiety about how the responses will be perceived by others.
Quite often a cycle can form of this type:
...and so on. This type of cycle can spin into an intense anxiety experience within a matter of seconds. When people talk about having "anxiety attacks," they are often referring to this type of experience.
If someone has experienced this once or twice in a particular setting — while at a party, or giving a speech, for example — the mind will often begin to associate the setting with threat. A pattern can form, and a phobia of the setting often results.
In cognitive therapy, we slow the anxiety cycle down enormously and take a close look at each of the elements. Our goal isn't to extinguish the adrenaline-response (after all, it might be necessary some day.) Rather, we try to reduce and replace the worried, catastrophizing, often self-critical thoughts that accompany the response. As we do this, we can begin to weaken the cycle.
So how does this process work? There are many cognitive therapy methods that can help to reduce the cycles associated with shyness, social anxiety, and performance anxiety. Two of the most fundamental approaches involve:
1. Changing thoughts and perceptions about ourselves and the situation (including our expectations about the results of the situation);
2. And then gently and gradually strengthening our new thoughts and perceptions within the situations themselves.
In my experience, severe social and performance anxiety often does not improve simply through "exposure" to frightening situations. There are actors who experience intense stage fright night after night, folks who go to parties repeatedly but feel overwhelmed the entire time, and individuals who date extensively but almost always feel nervewracked in dating situations.
These people are "facing their fears" quite courageously! And yet, they might benefit more by working on step one — identifying and re-evaluating the thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions that contribute to the anxiety.
In cognitive therapy, we find that anxiety is often preceded by a variety of thoughts about the catastrophic consequences of situations. In sessions, we work to identify and change these thought patterns.
For example, someone who experiences anxiety about dating might make the following changes:
| Old catastrophic thought | New self-supportive thought |
|---|---|
| If we go out on that date and she sees how nervous I am, she'll think I'm weird! | She's probably nervous about going out on dates too — I mean really... who isn't? |
| I'll probably get all weird and start tripping over my words or say something dumb. I'll blow it like all the other dates I've been on. | I'm actually a pretty good talker once I get going. If I stumble for a while, I'll just try to get back on track. If she can't deal with that — well, we're probably not a good match. |
| This will just show what a failure I am at dating. It will prove that I'm hopeless. | This won't "prove" anything. If I have a good time, so be it. If not, I'll try again in the future when I'm ready. |
Changing the catastrophizing, self-critical, expect-the-worst thought patterns is one of the most important tasks in cognitive therapy. As a way of supporting this, we often identify habits such as "mind reading," which is extremely common in social anxiety, and "fortune telling," which is common in performance anxiety.
Mind-reading refers to the tendency to assume that we know what other people are thinking. Fortune-telling refers to the tendency to assume that we know what the future will bring. In situations that trigger social and performance anxiety, our minds very often leap to highly negative variants of mind-reading and fortune-telling. If you look at the examples above, you can probably see several examples of each in the "catastrophic thoughts" column!
Once we have begun to develop self-supportive new thought patterns and perspectives, we can then start to use them within slightly-challenging situations.
This needs to be done gently and gradually! Many folks try to "plunge in" to stressful situations as a way of extinguishing the anxiety. However, this often just shocks the nervous system even more.
In my experience, it is far better to move gently and gradually along the path — always with an eye toward strengthening the new, self-supportive patterns. In therapy, we might begin with light-hearted, unserious role-plays in sessions. We then gradually expand to real-life situations. Always gradually and gently, though! It's important to give the mind (and nervous system) time and space to adjust.
In addition to the methods that I listed on this page, there are many other therapeutic approaches that I use — including assertiveness training, conflict-resolution skills development, and the reduction of perfectionism.
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