Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brained behavior and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. Today
Speaker 1: we have doctor Ellen Hendrickson on the podcast. Doctor Hendrickson
Speaker 1: is a clinical psychologist who helps millions calm their anxiety
Speaker 1: and be their authentic selves through her award winning Savvy
Speaker 1: Psychologists podcast, which has been downloaded over five million times,
Speaker 1: and at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders.
Speaker 1: Her latest book is called How to Be Yourself, Quiet
Speaker 1: your inner critic, and Rise above Social Anxiety. Hi, how's
Speaker 1: it going really well? Thanks for talking with me. Oh,
Speaker 1: thanks for talking to me. Sure love your book And
Speaker 1: I love the title of the book, how to be Yourself.
Speaker 1: You know, there's like it's very hotly debated in psychology
Speaker 1: what yourself is. First of all, you know what that
Speaker 1: word even means. And I like how you define it,
Speaker 1: So maybe you could do that for the audience a
Speaker 1: little bit. What does it mean to find yourself? How
Speaker 1: do you know when you found that? Sure? So without
Speaker 1: getting too much into like philosophy or like deep existential definitions,
Speaker 1: So the way I define it for the purposes of
Speaker 1: the book and for social anxiety is that your self
Speaker 1: is the self you are without fear. So you know,
Speaker 1: we all feel comfortable around the people we love, or
Speaker 1: our closest friends, or even just when we're in blissful solitude.
Speaker 1: And so for folks who get socially anxious, it's often
Speaker 1: around you know, people like authority, figures or strangers. And
Speaker 1: so again for this book, the definition of yourself is
Speaker 1: the self you are without fear when you're feeling comfortable.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so interesting, Yeah, because like humanistic psychologists and
Speaker 1: all the you know, Carl Rogers and everyone, and they're
Speaker 1: really interested in authenticity and they kind of talked about
Speaker 1: that real self as being that real live center within
Speaker 1: yourself that Karen Horney talked about as well, Like, so
Speaker 1: that's really what this is about in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: is finding that spontaneous creative center within yourself and not
Speaker 1: being scared of it, right, right, the self that you
Speaker 1: are like without. You know, we've all had that moment
Speaker 1: where we're if we're in a you know, socially anxious situation,
Speaker 1: we tend to turn inward. We tend to start monitoring
Speaker 1: our thoughts and things like, oh, why did I just
Speaker 1: say that I sounded like an idiot? Or oh, gosh,
Speaker 1: I hope I didn't offend them, or like does my
Speaker 1: hair look weird? Or oh, he just like looked the
Speaker 1: other way. I wonder if he's looking for an escape route.
Speaker 1: And so it's the self we can be when we're
Speaker 1: turned outward, when we're engaging with the world and not
Speaker 1: monitoring ourself and our performance. Yeah, I like this quote.
Speaker 1: Social anxiety is self consciousness on steroids, right. It's just
Speaker 1: it's not just to run the mills self consciousness. But
Speaker 1: you know, if you reach the level of social anxiety,
Speaker 1: you really are you need to regulate that a little
Speaker 1: better within yourself. I'm fascinated with individual differences, and there's
Speaker 1: differences in this strait. So not everyone is self conscious,
Speaker 1: you know, right, And you can have the other extreme,
Speaker 1: you can have grandiose narcissism, where like there are some
Speaker 1: people in this world where I don't think they really
Speaker 1: are that self conscious about what oh what I just said.
Speaker 1: I hope it didn't hurt someone's feelings, you know. Like,
Speaker 1: So what's really interesting for me and reading your book
Speaker 1: is like, you know, you want to help people get
Speaker 1: from like maybe negative seven to what to two? You
Speaker 1: don't you don't want there? Like it's an interesting question, right, right, right?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just I think it's an interesting question,
Speaker 1: like what is the goal? Like when do you feel
Speaker 1: like with your patients? You know, it's like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I really think that you've reached a point where you
Speaker 1: just doesn't need to be a concern for you anymore,
Speaker 1: because you know, I personally, and I would love to
Speaker 1: see what you think of this. I personally am of
Speaker 1: the belief that self consciousness and self esteem that's like
Speaker 1: a deprivation drive. It's not a growth drive. So the
Speaker 1: goal there is actually getting to the point where that's
Speaker 1: not even a knee for you anymore, you know, right,
Speaker 1: and then you can really focus on the real things
Speaker 1: that help you grow, like you know, love and exploration
Speaker 1: and all these other things. So, yeah, it's just something
Speaker 1: to think about, Like is you know what's the optimal
Speaker 1: sort of point. Yeah, so it's interesting because it's funny
Speaker 1: you bring up like raging narcissism and whatnot, because there
Speaker 1: have been studies to show, like what is the opposite
Speaker 1: of social anxiety, Like if you turn social anxiety inside out,
Speaker 1: like a lot of people think well and also a
Speaker 1: lot of people who have social anxiety thinking, oh, I
Speaker 1: wish I could just turn this around. I wish I
Speaker 1: could just be confident, Like they think confidence or like
Speaker 1: more confidence is the opposite of social anxiety. But really,
Speaker 1: according to brain scan studies, psychopathy is the opposite of
Speaker 1: social anxiety, and that there's this fearless dominance or this
Speaker 1: kind of entitled narcissism. And so we're definitely not aiming
Speaker 1: for that. Like you said, we don't want to go
Speaker 1: from negative two or even negative seven all the way
Speaker 1: up to ten. We want to kind of inch it
Speaker 1: up the scale. And also, I think think inching it
Speaker 1: up the scale is great because as we lose our
Speaker 1: social anxiety, we don't lose the things that often come
Speaker 1: along as a package deal with that social anxiety. Like
Speaker 1: a lot of the people that I work with in
Speaker 1: my office who have social anxiety come in and are
Speaker 1: also very conscientious. They care about other people, They have
Speaker 1: a lovely openness to them. They're quite agreeable. But they're
Speaker 1: scared and self conscious, and so as they work on
Speaker 1: that and face their fears, all those good traits don't
Speaker 1: go away, which is so great. And so it's really
Speaker 1: really neat to see them grow into themselves and be
Speaker 1: able to realize how great they are, because that's when
Speaker 1: they come in well. I mean, this can get into
Speaker 1: the definition of social anxiety, which is a lot of
Speaker 1: people think it's like a fear of embarrassment. That's really
Speaker 1: more like a consequence to the fear coming true. So
Speaker 1: there's this wonderful professor at the University of Waterloo, doctor
Speaker 1: David Moskovich, who talks about the core fear of social
Speaker 1: anxiety being a deficit, a perceived deficit I want to emphasize, Yeah,
Speaker 1: will be revealed and will become obvious to everyone, and
Speaker 1: so as a result, we try to hide, We try
Speaker 1: to conceal whatever we think is wrong with us, whether
Speaker 1: that's we're awkward, or we're socially incompetent, or we're boring,
Speaker 1: or we're not funny. Does any of bazillion perceived flaws,
Speaker 1: and so he says that that is what social anxiety is.
Speaker 1: It's that urge to cover that perceived flaw. And so
Speaker 1: if we can help people realize that is exactly that
Speaker 1: is a perduption, is actually a distortion, then that really
Speaker 1: sets them free. It can help them int along that scale. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you say that this book will help relate to that.
Speaker 1: You say this book will help you feel comfortable when
Speaker 1: you're caught being yourself. Now that's a really that's really clever.
Speaker 1: That's a really clever phrasing. You know, that really encapsulates
Speaker 1: a lot of what you're saying, because when you're caught,
Speaker 1: that means you're not being self conscious about of who
Speaker 1: you really are because you're being yourself, you know. And
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, that's performative act. Yeah, I really like that.
Speaker 1: You also say nothing is wrong with you, and I
Speaker 1: mean that's an interesting question, but I mean there's some
Speaker 1: patients where I don't think that's true. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: something wrong with you. You You know. I like to be honest,
Speaker 1: you know, with people, you know, so if you have
Speaker 1: high social anxiety, I mean, that's what's wrong with you,
Speaker 1: you know, Like right, But there's nothing wrong with the live,
Speaker 1: unique best self within you that needs once to be expressed, right,
Speaker 1: is that what you're saying? And the fear so when
Speaker 1: I say nothing is wrong with you, because social anxiety
Speaker 1: is there's a perceived fatal flaw. Like people think that
Speaker 1: there's something like deeply wrong with them. Oh you can feel,
Speaker 1: but really that thing that they're afraid of is something
Speaker 1: that either doesn't exist or exists to such a small
Speaker 1: extent that nobody really cares like that. We're all human,
Speaker 1: we're all boring at times, we all strip over our words.
Speaker 1: We all you know, don't speak ineloquent full paragraphs, and
Speaker 1: so and so I think the folks with social anxiety
Speaker 1: often think that they are deficient because of like these
Speaker 1: you know, these perceived problems, but that really we're just human.
Speaker 1: It's just the foible and the blemishes of being a person.
Speaker 1: And so that is what I mean by nothing is
Speaker 1: wrong with you. Thank you. That was really helpful. And
Speaker 1: you had me thinking of the amazing work of christ
Speaker 1: and Neff on self compassion and how one of her
Speaker 1: facets of self compassion is sort of like a commune
Speaker 1: humanity or yes, and kind of recognizing that and so
Speaker 1: it seems like maybe with a lot of individuals who
Speaker 1: are having social high social anxiety, that maybe some self
Speaker 1: compassion exercises, meditations, things would be helpful. Absolutely, yeah, No.
Speaker 1: Doctor Nef was kind enough to comment for the book
Speaker 1: and she talked about how you know, we're all in
Speaker 1: this together, and you know we're all on this kind
Speaker 1: of long awkward journey together. Oh yeah, and absolutely, And
Speaker 1: so that I like to tell my clients that you know,
Speaker 1: if there's ever an embarrassing moment you have, like, I
Speaker 1: can guarantee that millions of other people have had that
Speaker 1: same embarrassing moment. Even if you feel like you're the
Speaker 1: only one you're you're definitely not alone. So yes, doctor
Speaker 1: Nef is definitely on this for sure. And then let's
Speaker 1: talk about the difference between like introversion and shyness, because
Speaker 1: a lot of people conflate those two things, and you
Speaker 1: see it conflated in the community is online of introversion,
Speaker 1: like Susan kin'es has a huge following, and so you
Speaker 1: get all sorts of different types of introverts and you see,
Speaker 1: so to be introverted doesn't mean that you are necessarily
Speaker 1: having social anxiety or there's something wrong with you if
Speaker 1: you are not as interested in socializing with lots of
Speaker 1: new people as maybe other people are, right, right, exactly.
Speaker 1: So introversion and extroversion is more about where you get
Speaker 1: your energy. So extroverts recharged by being around people. They
Speaker 1: recharge by talking to others and interacting and being in groups,
Speaker 1: and introverts often recharged by being alone or one on
Speaker 1: one or with like a small group of people that
Speaker 1: they trust. And so that's again that's more about energy.
Speaker 1: Whereas social anxiety, which just you know, the everyday way
Speaker 1: of saying socially anxious is to say shop. So those
Speaker 1: are really the same thing. That's about fear, and that's
Speaker 1: about again wanting to conceal this perceived flaw. And so
Speaker 1: you can be a socially anxious extrovert. Like a person
Speaker 1: I like to talk about as an example is someone
Speaker 1: I met who is both a teacher and a stand
Speaker 1: up comedian. And so this gentleman loves being in front
Speaker 1: of crowds, like loves getting the energy of being at
Speaker 1: a microphone or being in front of a group, but
Speaker 1: he's simultaneously afraid that nobody wants him there and that
Speaker 1: they're all judging him, and so he is a great
Speaker 1: example of somebody who is socially anxious but also really extroverted.
Speaker 1: And then I think people often conflate introversion and social
Speaker 1: anxiety because it is fairly common to see folks who
Speaker 1: are both who get their energy by recharging and being
Speaker 1: alone or in smaller groups, but are also have this
Speaker 1: fear of social situations which could be generalized or could
Speaker 1: be very very specific. Absolutely, my friend Jennifer Grimes, for
Speaker 1: her master's thesis, she went behind the scenes backstage after
Speaker 1: oz Fest with the you know, the heavy metal musicians, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and she took them aside and she specifically her research
Speaker 1: was on introversion and highly sensitive people trades, highly high
Speaker 1: sensitive traits, and she found a very high proportion of
Speaker 1: highly sensitive traits amongst the rockers and backstage. And I'll
Speaker 1: send you the article about this. I think, well, for research,
Speaker 1: she found that backstage, so many of them, this is
Speaker 1: literally they just performed on the loudest They would say
Speaker 1: things like, oh, I really can't stand loud noises, and
Speaker 1: they literally they would say this after they just performed,
Speaker 1: but say, that's the way for them if they can
Speaker 1: control it as long as it's not spontaneous, then it's okay.
Speaker 1: But when they're on stage, they're in control of it,
Speaker 1: and that was different to them for some reason than absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've met a lot of both introverts and socially anxious
Speaker 1: folks who say, if they have a role, and I
Speaker 1: talk about this in the book as well, if they
Speaker 1: have some structure and a role to play, that takes
Speaker 1: away uncertainty and certainty is what drives anxiety. And so
Speaker 1: if they know what to do, like they can play
Speaker 1: the kind of persona of this heavy metal rocker or
Speaker 1: you know, whatever they're supposed to do, that is much
Speaker 1: more comforting and so structure here. Like in the book,
Speaker 1: I talk about this wonderful study by the Australian researchers,
Speaker 1: doctors Simon Thompson and Ron Repey, And so they had
Speaker 1: a study where they compared women who had social anxiety
Speaker 1: and then women who were like on the above average confident, chatty.
Speaker 1: And they took these two groups of women and one
Speaker 1: at a time sent them into this experiment that unbeknownst
Speaker 1: to them started as soon as they stepped in the
Speaker 1: waiting room, because this male research assistant would come in
Speaker 1: the room and sit down and just say, hope, we
Speaker 1: don't have to wait too long. He was pretending to
Speaker 1: be another participant, and then he would just roll with
Speaker 1: whatever conversation came up, and if they talked, that was great,
Speaker 1: and if not, every thirty seconds he prompted them again
Speaker 1: with like another you know, just quip or you know comment,
Speaker 1: and they saw what kind of you know, social interaction ensued,
Speaker 1: all right, So that was for five minutes. And then
Speaker 1: after that five minute chunk, a researcher came in and said, Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you guys for coming. You know, so glad you're here.
Speaker 1: Here's our experiment in the next five minutes, and are
Speaker 1: getting to know each other as well as you can
Speaker 1: in five minutes go. And so now these women had
Speaker 1: some structure, they had a role to play, they had
Speaker 1: you know, they knew what they were supposed to do,
Speaker 1: had a purpose. So after the whole study was over,
Speaker 1: they had raiders view videotapes of the interactions and rate
Speaker 1: the women on their social competence. And so in the
Speaker 1: first five minutes, when it totally unstructured, naturally, the women
Speaker 1: with social anxiety rated quite a bit lower than the
Speaker 1: kind of overly not overly but confidently chatty women. But
Speaker 1: in the second five minutes when they had a mission,
Speaker 1: they were almost neck and neck. And I like to
Speaker 1: stress that the folks with social anxiety again did almost
Speaker 1: as well as the people who were above average in
Speaker 1: terms of their confidence and ability to just chat with
Speaker 1: a stranger. So that really struck me, and it has
Speaker 1: really stayed with me in terms of just you know,
Speaker 1: give you both both helping my clients but also for me,
Speaker 1: you know, like I use I like to say that
Speaker 1: I'm not not only the author of How to Be Yourself,
Speaker 1: I'm also a client. You know. It's like the hairclub
Speaker 1: for men from the eighties, and so like I use
Speaker 1: all these techniques. When I go to a holiday party,
Speaker 1: I'll think, like, Okay, I'm going to try to talk
Speaker 1: to three new people, or you know, just give myself
Speaker 1: a little mission, and that makes things so much easier.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I love that so much. Yeah, you talk
Speaker 1: about in your book about researches, research, and yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I love that. I'm a client too, you know, like
Speaker 1: I would not want to propose any sort of exercises
Speaker 1: for people that I haven't tried myself. Sure, Yeah, based
Speaker 1: on that study you're just talking about. In my mind
Speaker 1: is brimming with like forty seven different directions to go
Speaker 1: in right now, and I want to just like commit
Speaker 1: to one right now, so I'll do that. Sure. Are
Speaker 1: you familiar with the re and research on the genetics
Speaker 1: of what are called orchid orchid dandelion hypothesis. I know
Speaker 1: the orchadene line, but I don't know if I know
Speaker 1: the genetics, but I know what you're talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So what I find so interesting about research is that
Speaker 1: you can find particular genes that, under particular environmental conditions
Speaker 1: lead to high anxiety, but which those same genes, under
Speaker 1: supportive conditions lead to higher levels of exploration than anyone
Speaker 1: else that doesn't have that gene. Yeah. Oh cool. So
Speaker 1: I think that relates a little bit to the study
Speaker 1: that you just described. It matters so much for people,
Speaker 1: you know, the context matters, and the framing of what
Speaker 1: your trade is matters. Because people who have this have
Speaker 1: these genetics, have a heightened vigilance. But if you actually
Speaker 1: convert that vigilance to like curiosity, it actually can lead
Speaker 1: to great creativity. It can lead to right, a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of great things in life, right right, Yeah, no, absolutely,
Speaker 1: because I think, yeah, under the right conditions, I think
Speaker 1: because we okay, so we're all we're all born let's
Speaker 1: just take anxiety. So we're all born with, you know,
Speaker 1: some greater or smaller tendency to be anxious. We all
Speaker 1: have like the raw plato you know, of of like
Speaker 1: being anxious about something to a degree. But then our
Speaker 1: experience has really shaped that plato into whatever it's going
Speaker 1: to look like. And so if we're born with a
Speaker 1: larger tendency to be anxious, then our experiences are going
Speaker 1: to mold that into either you know, a tendency or
Speaker 1: to mold it either to into social anxiety or you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps you know, generalized anxiety or OCD or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think that also our experiences can mold it
Speaker 1: the other way into the yeah, the flip side of
Speaker 1: those things or both. You know, it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be justally exclusive, totally does not have to be that's right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know that. Going back to just Aaron's lean, Aaron's
Speaker 1: concept of the highly sensitive person from a personality perspective,
Speaker 1: I find her that's her scale is almost perfectly correlated
Speaker 1: with neuroticism. So that's I think that's a lot of
Speaker 1: the trait dimension we're talking about here when we're talking
Speaker 1: about what you're talking about in your book stems from
Speaker 1: neuroticism domain of personality. But I do also find it
Speaker 1: very interesting there is this consistent correlation that pops up
Speaker 1: in all my data sets between neuroticism and openness to
Speaker 1: experience and artistic interests and sort of like beauty, like
Speaker 1: appreciation of beauty, and some of those items are even
Speaker 1: on Alien's scale, which is why she found that it's
Speaker 1: a coherent scale. So yeah, I think that's an interesting,
Speaker 1: interesting correlation that, you know, I'm just trying to wrap
Speaker 1: my head around or what's driving that commonality, but it's sure.
Speaker 1: I guess my riff on that would be it's a
Speaker 1: tendency to feel deeply, and whether that's a tendency to
Speaker 1: feel negative emotions deeply, negative experiences deeply, or to feel
Speaker 1: deeply when it comes to the all standing on the
Speaker 1: edge of the Grand Canyon, or the wave of emotion
Speaker 1: you get when you stand in front of a great
Speaker 1: piece of art, you feel everything deeply. I think you
Speaker 1: nailed it. That is what it is. You know. My
Speaker 1: dissertation was trying to break up the openness to experience
Speaker 1: domain into its components. One of my compone was what
Speaker 1: I called effective openness, openness to both the positive and
Speaker 1: negative emotions within yourself. That's different than neuroticism, but it
Speaker 1: was actually an aspect of openness, okay, and that was
Speaker 1: correlated with all those other forms of openness as well,
Speaker 1: you know, as well as compassion. Yes, great stuff, great stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I love I mean people social anxiety are my favorite clients.
Speaker 1: I'm a generalist and I work with everybody, but sure,
Speaker 1: the folks with social anxiety are near and dear to
Speaker 1: my heart because they're often just wonderful people. They are compassionate,
Speaker 1: and they are open to experiences and again care deeply
Speaker 1: about others. So it's you know, it's a nice bunge
Speaker 1: to work with, and especially great to help them realize
Speaker 1: that about themselves. Are they more fun to work with
Speaker 1: than your grandiose, narcissistic patients. It's very easier. I have
Speaker 1: a better time with the internalizers. I do have to admit,
Speaker 1: it's easier to work with the people who are depressing
Speaker 1: anxious than those are acting out, acting out. Yeah right, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about some practical things. So you say you
Speaker 1: have a phrase heading out into the world, Like that
Speaker 1: concept itself could trigger some of our more socially anxious listeners, right,
Speaker 1: just the thought of having to head out towards. So
Speaker 1: maybe you could talk about some of the things you
Speaker 1: talk about how to kind of get your confidence and
Speaker 1: kind of getting in touch and with that true self
Speaker 1: again as you talk about absolutely. So one of the
Speaker 1: things that I like to kind of set expectations with
Speaker 1: clients with is that many people will come in and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I wish I could just like kind of hit pause
Speaker 1: on my life and retreat and like work on my
Speaker 1: confidence and feel better about myself, and then I could
Speaker 1: hit play again and go out into the world and
Speaker 1: live my life. And I always say, that's awesome, And
Speaker 1: let's do that in the opposite order. Let's have you
Speaker 1: go out and live your life like before you're confident,
Speaker 1: and your confidence will catch up. And so like a
Speaker 1: nice analogy I like to use is that of mood
Speaker 1: and action. Like we often think we have to feel
Speaker 1: like doing something before we do it. You know, we
Speaker 1: have to feel inspired before you sit down and write,
Speaker 1: or we have to feel like, you know, going swimming
Speaker 1: before we actually go do some laps, and that that's
Speaker 1: not actually true. If we actually just go and get started,
Speaker 1: often our mood catches up. We're glad we did it,
Speaker 1: we're happy we're there. Inspiration strikes as we're kind of
Speaker 1: going through the motions, and so it's the same thing
Speaker 1: with confidence. So I like to tell people to start
Speaker 1: before they're one hundred percent ready, like stretch a little bit,
Speaker 1: go a little bit outside of your comfort zone, and
Speaker 1: that will refute the two biggest lies that anxiety tells you.
Speaker 1: One is that the worst case scenario is a foregone
Speaker 1: conclusion and will absolutely happen. And two is that you
Speaker 1: can't handle things that you can't handle what life throws
Speaker 1: at you. And so by getting some experience under their belt,
Speaker 1: they learn, oh, that wasn't so bad, and oh I
Speaker 1: was able to roll with things, and then that builds
Speaker 1: confidence and then they're ready for the next thing. So
Speaker 1: that's one thing I do to set expectations. We talk
Speaker 1: about giving yourself some structure. And then a third biggie
Speaker 1: is to try to turn attention inside out. So, like
Speaker 1: we talked about at the beginning, when we're in a
Speaker 1: socially anxious moment, our attention often turns inward and we
Speaker 1: start to monitor ourself, and we start to monitor ourselves
Speaker 1: from mistakes especially. And so if we can turn our
Speaker 1: attention outward and focus on where we are in the moment,
Speaker 1: so we can focus on the person we're talking to,
Speaker 1: we can focus on the group around us, the environment
Speaker 1: around us, we can listen very closely to what the
Speaker 1: other person is saying. Then that frees up a lot
Speaker 1: of bandwidth and we can fill in that remaining band
Speaker 1: with just like natural curiosity, natural interest, our authenticity, and
Speaker 1: that makes us not only feel better, but in studies,
Speaker 1: if you ask confederates who are are research assistants who
Speaker 1: are in the study talking to the participants, those research
Speaker 1: assistants rate the participants as more likable before than people
Speaker 1: who are kind of inwardly focused, so they's come across better.
Speaker 1: Everything is also more authentic, So it's a win win situation.
Speaker 1: You feel better and you also come across better by
Speaker 1: turning your attention outward. That's great. So a lot of
Speaker 1: this is really getting out of your own head and
Speaker 1: getting outside yourself. Yeah totally, yeah, yeah exactly. So shall
Speaker 1: we bust some myths of social anxiety. Sure, a lot
Speaker 1: of people have this feeling like, you know, I have
Speaker 1: to sound like the shoulds, you know, like Karen Hornay
Speaker 1: get talked about this back and the like the tyranny
Speaker 1: of the shoulds is what Karen Hornay called called it
Speaker 1: such a great phrase. Yeah, I love that. I think
Speaker 1: that she's really underrated. But you know, like people, there's
Speaker 1: like a lot of oldies but goodies you know in
Speaker 1: the psychoanalytic literature that aren't discussed. But maybe you could
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about, Yeah, how does perfectionism hold
Speaker 1: us back? Sure? Yeah, so perfectionism is a huge driver
Speaker 1: of social anxiety. And so I mean I can relate
Speaker 1: to this like I you know, I after PhD in
Speaker 1: clinical psychology in several decades, you know, I'm much more
Speaker 1: comfortable than I used to be. But definitely I realized
Speaker 1: that over the years that perfectionism had really driven a
Speaker 1: lot of my own anxiety in thinking that like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I had to be entertaining, I had to sound smart,
Speaker 1: I had to carry the conversation for both of us
Speaker 1: if I was talking to one other person. And so
Speaker 1: just the realization that you know, your social life or
Speaker 1: you know, conversation is not like a laser maze, you know,
Speaker 1: like alarms don't go off if you make one mistake.
Speaker 1: Is so helpful, And so I quote doctor David Burns
Speaker 1: in the book, who wrote the first evidence based self
Speaker 1: help book way back in nineteen eighty for depression, and
Speaker 1: so he has a chapter in there called dare to
Speaker 1: be averaged, And I love that phrase. So it helps
Speaker 1: us lower the bar and realize it's okay to pause
Speaker 1: in conversation, It's okay to lose your train of thought,
Speaker 1: it's okay to have an awkward moment. It's even okay,
Speaker 1: you know, spill your drink on somebody, You apologize, and
Speaker 1: you move on and again, bringing back Christ enough like
Speaker 1: this common humanity. We're all in this together, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure that everybody has had drinks spilled on them at
Speaker 1: some point as well. So to be able to to
Speaker 1: dare to be average and not have to perform as
Speaker 1: it were, makes things so much easier. What if you're
Speaker 1: intentionally like, what if you're a grandiose narciss and you're
Speaker 1: intentionally pouring drinks on people? Like, that's not okay, that's
Speaker 1: another problem. Ye, okay, it's not. It's not always okay
Speaker 1: for our audience. It's okay, I imagine not narcissisting this. Okay,
Speaker 1: good for this audience. Okay. I always ask Chris enf
Speaker 1: that question, like she was on my podcast, and I
Speaker 1: was just like, you know, like sometimes some of this
Speaker 1: language can get to like, you know, you're perfect the
Speaker 1: way you are? You don't, And I'm like, is that true? Well?
Speaker 1: The thing is, there's a common humanity there in the
Speaker 1: sense that none of us are perfect the way we are.
Speaker 1: You know, do you know what I mean when we
Speaker 1: say you're perfect the way you are? I kind of
Speaker 1: rolled my eyes a little it because I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: speak for yourself. I'm not perfect the way I am.
Speaker 1: But what I was supposed to work on as anybody else. Absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got the same problems. Okay. Cool? And then so
Speaker 1: what's the myth of hope in a bottle? Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: So this is so this is this is so common.
Speaker 1: So folks with social anxiety will drink to make themselves
Speaker 1: feel better in social situations. And quite honestly, like many
Speaker 1: people do this. You don't even have to have diagnosable
Speaker 1: social anxiety or anyway. This is you know, pregaming is
Speaker 1: a thing like people routinely they would have a drink
Speaker 1: before they go out to loosen up. They call it
Speaker 1: liquid courage, and so it's just so common. But then
Speaker 1: when you have especially for folks with social anxiety, if
Speaker 1: they then have a good time or they feel better,
Speaker 1: then alcohol gets the credit. And so what we want
Speaker 1: is we're certainly not I'm not anti alcohol. I'm not
Speaker 1: telling anybody to stop drinking, but what I am saying
Speaker 1: is that you have that confidence in you and it's
Speaker 1: just the inhibition that's getting in the way. And so
Speaker 1: to try not to give alcohol the credit and to
Speaker 1: have a drink because you want to, not because you
Speaker 1: think you have to. So that's a distinction. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: much about the shulds or the he do you have much? Yeah? Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I love that. I thought of a question I would
Speaker 1: to ask you. Well, first of all, this is good
Speaker 1: driving crazy until you ask you how can you do
Speaker 1: laps without swimming first? This is a good question. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's one question. Yeah, because he said earlier said some
Speaker 1: of us want to do the swim first before we
Speaker 1: do the lapse. I'm like, don't you need to do
Speaker 1: that first? Okay? Clear my brain, my brain did one thing.
Speaker 1: If other thing, I'm that's just me being cheeky. That's
Speaker 1: my real self being cheeky, and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be self conscious about that now. Okay. Second one, I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to you about sex difference. Gender differences.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting to think about in this particular
Speaker 1: domain because, like, it seems from my perspective that most
Speaker 1: of the audience of people that like are tracked to
Speaker 1: like Brene Brown's message, for instance, about vulnerability, tend to
Speaker 1: be women. And I wondered if maybe you could talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about maybe what are some unique needs
Speaker 1: or maybe like being a woman, like growing up in
Speaker 1: certain environments and kind of being treated a certain way
Speaker 1: by the world, etctera, etcetera, that you think might cause
Speaker 1: that gender difference, or maybe I'm imagining the gender difference.
Speaker 1: You can tell me that too. Yeah, sure, sure, no,
Speaker 1: that's I'm glad you brought that up. So what thing?
Speaker 1: So the cover of my book has this woman in
Speaker 1: a party dress, like hiding behind some balloons in it,
Speaker 1: so it's very it's like got purple lettering since it's
Speaker 1: very feminine cover. But don't let the cover full of you.
Speaker 1: This is for this is for everybody. And social anxiety disorder,
Speaker 1: So what I call capital s social anxiety, which is
Speaker 1: when it gets in the way of living your life
Speaker 1: or kind of crosses this line into being impairing, is
Speaker 1: one of the few anxiety disorders that is actually equal opportunity.
Speaker 1: And so an equal number of men and women suffer
Speaker 1: from social anxiety disorder. So it's again, this is really
Speaker 1: for everyone. And so I think that beyond that, when
Speaker 1: you talk about anxiety in general, there is I think,
Speaker 1: I think the recent stature like there's a two to
Speaker 1: one ratio of women to men who are anxious. But
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of that is driven by
Speaker 1: self report and who's willing to say I am anxious,
Speaker 1: who shows up for therapy, and who shows up to
Speaker 1: get medication, or who you know, who's even willing to
Speaker 1: in their own head interpret what they're feeling as anxiety,
Speaker 1: And so I think for a lot of men, anxiety
Speaker 1: might manifest as irritability or anger and might also come
Speaker 1: out kind of secondarily as substance abuse. And so I
Speaker 1: think that even though social anxiety is equal opportunity already,
Speaker 1: I think maybe other anxiety disorders and anxiety in general
Speaker 1: might be closer to fifty to fifty than we think.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting at that point you just made about
Speaker 1: how a lot of men might have this but not
Speaker 1: conceptualize it in the same way as women. Like I
Speaker 1: think it's undeniable that women are tend to be more
Speaker 1: attracted to like Brene Brown's kind of writing and maybe
Speaker 1: even yours, But that doesn't say like, maybe a lot
Speaker 1: of more men would be attracted to it if they
Speaker 1: like identified with it more as anxiety. Right, Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: just having me think of that now, So thank you
Speaker 1: for that elucidation. I really appreciate that. I want to
Speaker 1: be respectful your time, and I just have one last question,
Speaker 1: of course about the uh oh cool. Yeah, if I
Speaker 1: want to be respectful, you know, you talk about the
Speaker 1: building blocks of beautiful friendship. I want some beautiful friendship.
Speaker 1: So I'm down on So why are those building blocks
Speaker 1: maybe not what we think they are. Sure so for
Speaker 1: folks with who are socially anxious or or prone to
Speaker 1: social anxiety, so we tend to hold things close to
Speaker 1: the vest. We tend to not really talk about ourselves,
Speaker 1: not reveal much, and that's actually a mistake. And so
Speaker 1: because relationships intimacy, you know, not necessarily sexual intimacy, but
Speaker 1: just getting to know another person is and this Elaine
Speaker 1: Aaron talks about, this is gradual and reciprocal. And so
Speaker 1: that means revealing a little bit about what you think
Speaker 1: and do and feel and then you will likely get
Speaker 1: back something about what the other person thinks and does
Speaker 1: and feels. And it doesn't have to be a confession.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be your deepest, darkest secret, it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be your life story. You know, talking
Speaker 1: about something as simple as the weather can be a disclosure.
Speaker 1: You can say like, oh, I'm so glad it's raining
Speaker 1: today because I find the grace Guy's really soothing, or
Speaker 1: you know, oh it's finally sunny. I'm so glad that
Speaker 1: i've been getting I've totally been having cabin fever. That's
Speaker 1: a disclosure. That's talking about yourself, even though technically you're
Speaker 1: still talking about the weather. And so to talk about
Speaker 1: oneself is part of building a friendship. Another thing is
Speaker 1: to just keep showing up that it takes on average,
Speaker 1: six to eight conversations, like real conversations, not just hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: before someone considers you a friend. And so yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I always stop at five, and I wondered if something
Speaker 1: was wrong with me. Exactly you figured it out. So
Speaker 1: what happens is that, because it's driven by perfectionism, a
Speaker 1: lot of folks with social anxiety go into a social
Speaker 1: situation and expect to connect, instance with a new with
Speaker 1: a potential new friend, like with a stranger, or they
Speaker 1: expect to go to an event and like walk out
Speaker 1: arm in arm with you know, a new buddy, and
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen. And so what we have to do
Speaker 1: is to have repetition, to keep showing up over and over.
Speaker 1: And that means that the places where you want to
Speaker 1: meet people are where you see the same people over
Speaker 1: and over, like this what I call like this steady
Speaker 1: drum beat of the same faces. So like meetups where
Speaker 1: the crowd changes every time are actually is actually not
Speaker 1: a good place, right But if you if you go
Speaker 1: to a dog park, you know, with your dog at
Speaker 1: you know, and the same people are there every morning,
Speaker 1: that's perfect. Or if you drop off your kid at
Speaker 1: school and the same parents are there, that's perfect. Things
Speaker 1: like that where you see the same people over and over.
Speaker 1: Would it be creepy for me to go to a
Speaker 1: dog park, even though I don't have a dog, But
Speaker 1: I just want to make friends. Waderline creepy you it'd
Speaker 1: be creepier if you had an invisible dog or claim
Speaker 1: to do that. I'll tell yes, yes, yes, yeah, sorted,
Speaker 1: yeah right right. But I think the most important thing
Speaker 1: for making friends is that a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are specially anxious, I think they have to project this
Speaker 1: image of being confident and competent and like that that
Speaker 1: is what people are looking for, But that's not actually true.
Speaker 1: What people are looking for in a potential friend is
Speaker 1: warmth is simply being kind and trustworthy and loyal. And
Speaker 1: you don't have to be impressive, and you don't even
Speaker 1: have to be confident. You just have to be nice.
Speaker 1: And so that's a really important kind of thing to
Speaker 1: get one's mind around when we think about making friends.
Speaker 1: So repetition, disclosure, be nice. I love it, I love it.
Speaker 1: And being too over confident anyway backfires. Peudle. Don't want
Speaker 1: to be friends with people who think they just rode
Speaker 1: in on a high horse, right, That is that a metaphor?
Speaker 1: I'm bad metaphors, but yeah, we'll take so. Yeah, people
Speaker 1: want to be friends with people who are human not superhuman? Right?
Speaker 1: What you said? Right? Forget the horse thing? Or well
Speaker 1: they came to the dog park riding a hole. There
Speaker 1: you go. I don't know anyway. Hey, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for the chat. This is delightful and I wish
Speaker 1: your book all the best. Do you end the book
Speaker 1: all the best? Yeah? I appreciate that so much. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for chatting with me. It is a
Speaker 1: delight delight for me too. Thanks for listening to the
Speaker 1: Psychology Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to react in some way to something you heard,
Speaker 1: I encourage you to join in the discussion at the
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