The Anxious Personality

Social anxiety disorder is persistent fear of (or anxiety about) one or more social situations that is out of proportion to the actual threat posed by the situation and can be severely detrimental to quality of life. Only a minority of people with social anxiety disorder receive help. Effective treatments do exist and this book aims to increase identification and assessment to encourage more people to access interventions. Covers adults, children and young people and compares the effects of pharmacological and psychological interventions. Commissioned by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). The CD-ROM contains all of the evidence on which the recommendations are based, presented as profile tables (that analyse quality of data) and forest plots (plus, info on using/interpreting forest plots). This material is not available in print anywhere else.

This book takes readers through The Anxious Personality Framework, a system designed to understand the hidden components that create anxiety and how to dissolve them. Lin delves into how the personality is formed and why for some people, it becomes the central operating system that creates and maintains chronic trait anxiety. For each major component of the Anxious Personality (The Inner Critic, The Sense of Self, The Core Belief, and The Anxiety Template), the book provides specific steps and techniques to gain the relevant insights needed to understand and dismantle anxiety. Part instructional and part workbook-based, this is a groundbreaking approach that goes beyond managing the symptoms of anxiety. Instead, it helps readers to comprehend the root cause of anxiety and how to reconnect with inner security, confidence, and authenticity.

Theorists are increasingly arguing that it is fruitful to approach anxiety from the cognitive perspective, and the empirical evidence supports that contention. The cognitive perspective is also adopted in this book, but the approach represents a development and extension of earlier ones. For example, most previous theories and research have been based on anxiety either in clinical or in normal groups. In contrast, one of the central themes of this book is that there are great advantages to be gained from a joint consideration of clinical and normal anxiety. Another theme of this book is that it is of major importance to establish whether or not there is a cognitive vulnerability factor which is associated with at least some forms of clinical anxiety. It is argued (with supporting evidence) that there is a latent cognitive vulnerability factor for generalized anxiety disorder which manifests itself under stressful conditions. This vulnerability factor is characterized by hypervigilance, and is found predominantly in normals high in the personality dimension of trait anxiety. The scope of the book extends to the effects of anxiety on performance and to the phenomenon of worry, which is regarded as the cognitive component of anxiety. In both cases, a new theoretical framework is presented. Correction notice: In chapter 4, on pages 70-71, Christos Halkiopoulos should have been credited for his role as the inventor of the Dot Probe Paradigm and for the design and execution of the experiment discussed in Eysenck, M. W. (1991 a). Trait anxiety and cognition. In C. D. Spielberger, I. G. Sarason, Z. Kulczar, and J. Van Heck (Eds.), Stress and Emotion, Vol. 14. London: Hemisphere.

Picking up where Quiet ended, How to Be Yourself is the best book you’ll ever read about how to conquer social anxiety. “This book is also a groundbreaking road map to finally being your true, authentic self.” —Susan Cain, New York Times, USA Today and nationally bestselling author of Quiet Up to 40% of people consider themselves shy. You might say you’re introverted or awkward, or that you're fine around friends but just can't speak up in a meeting or at a party. Maybe you're usually confident but have recently moved or started a new job, only to feel isolated and unsure. If you get nervous in social situations—meeting your partner's friends, public speaking, standing awkwardly in the elevator with your boss—you've probably been told, “Just be yourself!” But that's easier said than done—especially if you're prone to social anxiety. Weaving together cutting-edge science, concrete tips, and the compelling stories of real people who have risen above their social anxiety, Dr. Ellen Hendriksen proposes a groundbreaking idea: you already have everything you need to succeed in any unfamiliar social situation. As someone who lives with social anxiety, Dr. Hendriksen has devoted her career to helping her clients overcome the same obstacles she has. With familiarity, humor, and authority, Dr. Hendriksen takes the reader through the roots of social anxiety and why it endures, how we can rewire our brains through our behavior, and—at long last—exactly how to quiet your Inner Critic, the pesky voice that whispers, "Everyone will judge you." Using her techniques to develop confidence, think through the buzz of anxiety, and feel comfortable in any situation, you can finally be your true, authentic self.

The concept of a "directing object" is based on extensive clinical observations linked to a combination of ego psychology and object relations theory in the tradition of Otto Kernberg and Anne Marie and Joseph Sandler. People with a phobic disposition are those who were not, during childhood, permitted to learn by trial and error and thus gain confidence in their actions. They did not learn to direct their own actions and did not develop confidence in their capability to act successfully. In their inner world, they did not establish an internal directing object. Thus, they now need an external directing object, who watches over them. This has considerable influence on interpersonal relationships and on work. Phobic persons can work without difficulty when there is a external directing object, but they will not be able to work without such a companion. In therapy, they use their therapist as a directing object, which can create the illusion that the phobic patient is already much better. However the patient will fall back into phobic symptomatology when the therapist is no longer available as a directing object. Applying the concept of a directing object helps to understand a phobic person's psychodynamics. This will improve the results of therapy, and also help phobic persons to compensate difficulties arising from the lack of a companion, and deal with difficulties in finding and keeping one. Therapy can help them to develop their own internal directing object.

It is argued in this book that there are three major approaches to anxiety. First, there is anxiety as an emotional state. Second, there is trait anxiety as a dimension of personality. Third, there is anxiety as a set of anxiety disorders. What is attempted is to produce a unified theory of anxiety which integrates all these major approaches. According to this unified theory, there are four sources of information which influence the level of experienced anxiety: (1) experimental stimulation; (2) internal physiological activity; (3) internal cognitions, (e.g., worries); and (4) one's own behaviour. The unified theory is essentially based on a cognitive approach. More specifically, it is assumed that individual differences in experienced anxiety between those high and low in trait anxiety depend largely on cognitive biases. It is also assumed that the various anxiety disorders depend on cognitive biases, and that the main anxiety disorders differ in terms of the source of information most affected by such biases (e.g., social phobics have biased interpretation of their own behaviour). In sum, this book presents a general theory of anxiety from the cognitive perspective. It is intended that this theory will influence theory and research on emotion, personality, and the anxiety disorders. Correction notice: Christos Halkiopoulos should have been credited for his role as the inventor of the Dot Probe Paradigm and for the design and execution of the experiment discussed in C. D. Spielberger, I. G. Sarason, Z. Kulczar, and J. Van Heck (Eds.), Stress and Emotion, Vol. 14. London: Hemisphere.