September 2026:Guest Blog– Wild Ink Publishing October 22, 2026: 1,000 readers in Wanstead, England October 23, 2026: Conversation with Ari Shapiro November 3, 2026: 3,200 readers in London November 10, 2026: 1952 readers in Pasadena November 14, 2026: 1,800 readers in St. Paul, MN November 23, 2026: The Bobby Jones Show; TN & NJ November 24, 2026: 1,200 readers in Branford, CT. TBD: 1767 readers in Liverpool TBD: 8,300 readers in San Diego, CA TBD: Return engagement with Ari Shapiro
The irrational thoughts and behaviors caused by our condition can be difficult for our minds to manage. To cope, we develop defense mechanisms—unconscious strategies that protect our well-being from emotional turmoil.
We deny, avoid, or compensate for a problem instead of acknowledging it. We rationalize our actions, project them onto others, or displace them by kicking the dog.
Defense mechanisms help us avoid situations that threaten our fragile self-image. Without them, we can experience decompensation, characterized by emotional overload and an inability to effectively manage stress and maintain our mental health.
Defense mechanisms are healthy when used to manage our emotional well-being, but they become problematic when we rely on them to avoid reality. Recovery involves examining and understanding how these strategies sustain our irrational thoughts and behaviors.
Recognizing how we use defense mechanisms to avoid reality is a vital step toward recovery. It helps us turn them into tools for growth and healing and empowers us to take control of our mental well-being and navigate recovery with confidence.
To date, psychologists have identified more than thirty defense mechanisms. Eight are especially relevant to social anxiety:
avoidance: evading thoughts, feelings, or situations that cause anxiety or discomfort.
compensation: overachieving to hide feelings of inadequacy.
denial: refusing to acknowledge a problem.
displacement: taking out frustrations on others.
dissociation: mentally and emotionally distancing ourselves from unpleasant situations.
projection: attributing our flaws to others.
rationalization: justifying uncomfortable or inappropriate feelings or behaviors with seemingly logical explanations.
the related triad of repression, suppression, and regression.
AVOIDANCE
A primary SAD symptom is our intense fear or anxiety in social situations, which leads us to avoid interacting with others. Human interconnectivity is essential for emotional health. Turning down opportunities to socialize exacerbates our isolation and limits opportunities for intimacy and friendship.
However, there is a clear distinction between avoiding something out of fear and avoiding it for rational reasons. Discretion in whom and where we engage is essential, as is adhering to our established boundaries and avoiding situations that threaten our physical or emotional stability.
COMPENSATION
Compensation is a defense strategy we use when we try to excel in one area of our lives to hide perceived flaws in another. It helps us conceal or overcome these inadequacies by becoming skilled in something else.
For example, a student might compensate for academic difficulties by excelling in sports or other extracurricular activities. Someone who feels intellectually inferior might become an artisan; a socially awkward person might become a performer; and someone with body dysmorphia may become a fitness enthusiast.
When used prudently, however, compensation can be a powerful tool for healing. We counteract our imperfections with positive, productive traits. We boost our self-esteem by reclaiming our character strengths, virtues, attributes, and achievements. We replace negative thoughts with positive stimuli.
However, the tendency to overcompensate is common among those of us experiencing social anxiety. In fact, it is often part of our daily struggles. The term refers to an overreaction to feelings of inferiority, incompetence, or inadequacy, leading to overzealous attempts to suppress those feelings by striving for perfection or seeking validation from others.
Perfectionism isn’t just about wanting to do well; it’s an obsessive need to be flawless, with anything less being unacceptable.
Unfortunately, as perfectionists, we harshly criticize ourselves when we fall short of our self-imposed standards. We worry excessively about our behavior before and during social situations, and we ruminate on these worries long afterward. When things don’t go as planned, we find it hard to move forward.
Social Anxiety and Perfectionism
Social anxiety and perfectionism are closely linked. Both are associated with higher anxiety and lower psychological well-being.
People experiencing SAD often perceive situations in extremes. To a perfectionist, anything less than perfect is disastrous. We view others as either supporting us or opposing us. The world appears black-and-white, with no middle ground or room for compromise. We see ourselves as either exceptional or failures.
Perfectionists and those with social or performance anxiety often avoid situations that could lead to self-sabotage, disappointment, or embarrassment. We fear saying or doing the wrong thing and dread criticism and ridicule. These worries intensify our self-criticism and defensiveness.
Perfectionism pushes us to set unreasonable expectations, such as performing flawlessly, never making mistakes, and maintaining complete control. When we can’t meet these expectations, we feel incompetent and inadequate.
Denial is a defense strategy that leads us to refuse to accept facts or recognize reality to avoid facing certain truths. It protects us from thoughts and emotions we cannot manage. It shields us from potentially destructive stimuli by blocking our conscious awareness of harmful or threatening elements in our memories, experiences, and environment.
We can also deny something we’re not ready to reveal or something that challenges our core beliefs and deeply held convictions.
Denial is a common way to avoid taking responsibility for our behavior. Many individuals with drug or alcohol addiction deny their habit. Trauma victims often deny that the disturbing experience ever occurred to avoid emotional confrontation.
While denial can offer temporary respite from what our minds find unmanageable, persistent use can impede our ability to face our fears and control our lives. Freud called denial the ostrich effect because we bury our problems in the sand.
Denying our condition is a pervasive problem. The inability or unwillingness to accept the personal impact of social and performance anxiety is clearly hostile to recovery. Even worse, many individuals who know they are affected resist recovery. This reticence stems from our core belief in hopelessness and worthlessness, which prevents us from making the effort.
DISPLACEMENT
Displacement is a defense strategy in which we redirect negative or hostile emotions to a less threatening or more acceptable target. Our minds look for a safer outlet for triggers that feel challenging or dangerous. Displacement helps us cope with unmanageable feelings by transferring them onto something or someone else.
By displacing negative emotions or distressing experiences, we temporarily ease the anxiety associated with the source of distress. In common vernacular, we take our frustrations out on someone else.
Unleashing our unmanageable feelings onto those who pose a limited threat, such as a roommate, sibling, or associate, has obvious repercussions. A chastised worker might go home, shout at his wife, run the lawnmower into the flowerbed, and upend the cat. Each recipient of their displacement is adversely affected.
Examples of displacement include the student, upset about poor grades, who bullies someone on the playground during recess, and the wife, frustrated by her husband’s lack of attention, who seeks another sexual outlet to suppress her feelings of rejection.
Another form of displacement is sublimation, in which we redirect unacceptable urges into socially acceptable activities, such as the individual who sublimates their carnal desires by working out at the gym or the alcoholic who frequents AA meetings.
Individuals experiencing social or performance anxiety are prone to displacement and sublimation to relieve their persistent self-doubt, isolation, and negative self-appraisal. For example, when we become overwhelmed by unresolved fears at the company convention, we might displace our anger and self-disappointment onto someone we dislike or sublimate our discomfort by going out on the dance floor.
It is crucial to recognize that, like all defense mechanisms, the relief from displacement is temporary. This shows that we must become more aware of our emotional processes and develop more productive coping strategies.
Next week, we’ll continue our discussion of defense mechanisms, including dissociation, projection, rationalization, and the triad of repression, suppression, and regression.
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Admittedly, I am not an expert on super-natural fantasies. I couldn’t care less about Harry Potter, but I greatly enjoyed Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy (I’m a big fan of Ian McKellen), so I had mixed feelings about a dark fantasy featuring blood magic, covens, warring dragons, and a magic academy.
For those readers who ask why I am reviewing a dark fantasy, I have two responses: (1) The author appreciated my book on social anxiety, and I support my readers, and (2) I am a firm believer in the benefits of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
I asked Krista Graves which of her books she would recommend, given my interest in mental health, and the author recommended Darkbirch Academy 3: Fire & Shadows, which falls in the middle of a five-book series, denying me the benefit of knowing what came before and after but adding to the unpredictability of the meticulously shifting plot.
The author’s disclaimer that “Any resemblance to actual events, locales, entities, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental,” is an understatement. The mix of political intrigue, whispers of the dead, romantic tension, and a complex cast of intriguing characters makes the journey highly enjoyable.
The tension and pacing never slow, which keeps the affair between the female warrior protagonist and an exiled dragon king captivating and the storyline unpredictable.
The novel is filled with nonstop action, suspense, and the inevitable cliffhanger that leads readers into Darkbirch Academy 4: Stars and Lies. If you are a fan of this genre, Krista Graves’ five-book series is a delightful romp into the world of dark fantasy.
INDIVIDUAL RECOVERY. The symptoms of social anxiety make it challenging for some to participate in a collective workshop. Dr. Mullen works one-on-one with a select group of individuals uneasy in a group setting. ReChanneling offers scholarships to accommodate the costs. What is absent in group activities is provided in our monthly Graduate Recovery Group. In this supportive community, graduates interact with others who have completed the program. Contact ‘rmullenphd@gmail.com’
ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) reduce symptoms of social anxiety and related conditions and (2) pursue personal goals and objectives — harnessing our natural ability for extraordinary living. Our core approach focuses on personality through empathy, collaboration, and program integration, using neuroscience and psychology, including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral therapy, positive psychology, and techniques to rebuild self-esteem. All donations go toward scholarships for groups and workshops.
The distinction between social anxiety and social anxiety disorder is in severity. We are not all affected by the same symptoms or relentlessness. The characteristics and traits are equivalent. These conditions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior. While comorbidities dramatically benefit, the recovery methods identified are for social anxiety and social anxiety disorder, and reference to one includes the other.
Complementarity
Understanding the holistic nature of our being is a journey into the intricate web of our mind, body, spirit, and emotions – the components of our behavior. These elements of our human holism are not separate entities, but intimately interconnected, each influencing and shaping the others. This interconnectedness is the essence of our emotional well-being.
Defining Our Behavioral Components
It’s easy to provide basic definitions for mind, body, and emotions. Many of us confuse the term ‘spirit’ due to its association with religion and spirituality. In the context of recovery, ‘spirit’ refers to our ongoing emotional state or disposition that influences our perceptions, thoughts, and behaviors.
Emotions versus Spirit
Emotions are temporary outbursts or subjective responses to people, situations, and objects that trigger strong feelings and behavioral responses. Unlike emotions, which are typically intense and short-lived reactions to specific triggers, our spirit is a more enduring emotional state or disposition that is influenced by our fundamental, rigid beliefs.
These beliefs set the tone for interpreting and responding to the world around us, making our spirit a key aspect of our holistic health.
Complementarity refers to the interconnectedness and mutual influence of our behavioral components: mind, body, spirit, and emotions. Understanding this concept can equip us with the knowledge to manage stress effectively.
How does complementarity work? During a fear situation, something triggers us. A trigger refers to a thing, person, or event that elicits a reaction due to its association with some past trauma. This trigger or stimulus alerts our mind, body, spirit, and emotions simultaneously.
Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity, utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information. – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
Trauma Defined
Trauma can be a scary and misunderstood term. It refers to any disturbing experience that results in disruptive or discomforting feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting adverse effect on our optimal functioning. These unsettling events activate the amygdala, which responds by sending out an alarm to multiple body systems to prepare for defense.
Mutual Interaction of Our Behavior Components
Let me provide a hypothetical example. During a fear situation, such as a social event, a trigger might generate automatic negative thoughts such as “No one will talk to me” or “I’ll do something stupid” (Mind). We express these thoughts through our reactions and responses (Emotions). We feel stress and other physical discomfort (Body). And we feel incompetent and inferior (Spirit).
This simultaneous mutual interaction is an example of complementarity in action.
Complementarity reflects the enduring interconnectedness of our four behavior components: mind, body, spirit, and emotions. Connection is the essence of mental health; disconnection is a sign of brokenness.
Utilizing Complementarity
How do we use complementarity to our advantage? We rechannel our anxiety or stress from one component to another. It’s crucial to recognize that we always have avenues of release for any form of discomfort. This awareness prepares us to manage stress effectively.
Through complementarity, we redirect unmanageable emotions – intense and overwhelming feelings that can disrupt our mental and emotional well-being – through physical activity, mental distractions, or spiritual contemplation. We engage in ‘B’ (physical activity), ‘C’ (mental distractions), or ‘D’ (mood reframing) to mitigate ‘A’ (the unmanageable emotion).
Examples of Complementarity
We walk to calm our angst, meditate when agitated, or solve a crossword puzzle to counter anxiety. If the component under stress is physical (such as palpitations, nausea, or tremors), we focus on a mental, emotional, or dispositional (spirit) state to compensate. If it is mental, we focus on a physical, emotional, or dispositional state.
Our mind, body, spirit, and emotions are not isolated entities, but interconnected. They act jointly, each influencing the other, although not always in equal measure. Depending on the situation and subjective response, one component takes precedence over the others.
It is one of the best investments I have made in myself, and I will continue to improve and benefit from it for the rest of my life. – Nick P.
Consider the aftermath of a freeway fender-bender. Our brain becomes chaotic with competing thoughts. Physically, we experience discomfort, if not whiplash. We’re emotionally angry and frustrated and suddenly aware of our mortality.
If we are in pain, the physical likely takes precedence. If we are slightly inebriated, it might be the mental (can I talk my way out of it?), it might be the emotional fear of being arrested, or it might be the dispositional sense of futility.
Managing Complementarity
There are various techniques we learn in recovery to help us redirect our stress. Cognitive reframing, a powerful tool in CBT, enables us to identify our anxiety triggers and gain control over our perspective. For example, if a social event triggers feelings of inadequacy, we can reframe it as an opportunity to improve our social skills, thereby boosting our confidence.
Grounding is a practical coping strategy that involves redirecting situational anxiety by intentionally focusing on the objects, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations around us. Other methods include using distractions and diversions, focusing on character and persona to change our perspective, and controlled breathing to shift energy by stimulating our vagus nerve.
As we journey through recovery, we gain the power to consciously manipulate our mind, body, spirit, and emotions to our advantage. This enables us to redirect or reframe the anxiety that threatens our emotional well-being. In a broader sense, we take control of our reactions and responses rather than allowing our condition to dominate our thoughts and behavior.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO NECESSARY AND ESSENTIAL?ReChanneling develops and conducts programs to alleviate the symptoms of social anxiety and help individuals tap into their innate potential for extraordinary living. Our unique approach focuses on understanding personality through empathy and collaboration, integrating neuroscience and psychology. This includes proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to reclaim and rebuild self-esteem. Every contribution, no matter the size, supports individuals striving to make a positive change in their own lives and the lives of others. All donations go towards scholarships for groups and workshops.
INDIVIDUAL RECOVERY. The symptoms of social anxiety make it challenging for some to participate in a collective workshop. Dr. Mullen works one-on-one with a select group of individuals uneasy in a group setting. ReChanneling offers scholarships to accommodate the costs. What is absent in group activities is provided in our monthly Graduate Recovery Group. In this supportive community, graduates interact with others who have completed the program. Contact ‘rmullenphd@gmail.com’.
Committing to recovery is one of the hardest things you will ever do. It takes enormous courage and the realization that you are of value, consequential, and deserving of happiness.
We all wear a kind of mask or personafor different situations that hide our insecure feelings and flaws, presenting a polished, controlled face to specific conditions. In psychology, the term “persona” refers to the social guise that we present to the world. In essence, our persona is a compromise between our current psychological state and societal expectations, such as being confident, approachable, or professional.
Just as actors assume different roles, we all have our portfolio of personas that we unveil depending on the situation. If effective, our personas make us more relatable and accepted in social settings.
Purpose of a Persona
For those experiencing social anxiety, a compelling persona is designed to make a positive impression while concealing the nature of our condition. Developingpersonas as coping mechanisms helps us prepare for and adapt to multiple exposure situations. For instance, if we have a fear of public speaking, we can present a confident and articulate persona to our audience, thereby reducing our fears and anxiety.
Jung’s Archetype
Carl Jung claimed the persona as one of his primary archetypes – inherited patterns of identity that significantly influence human behavior. These archetypes are deeply ingrained in our psyche and influence how we perceive and interact with the world.
According to Jung, developing a viable social persona is a vital part of adapting to and preparing for adult life in the external social world, which is a powerful coping mechanism for those of us experiencing social anxiety.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
Stanislavski’s Method
Personas have been part of culture since the pre-Roman days. The word itself is Latin and refers to masks worn by the Etruscan mimes, circa 600 B.C.E. Personas were adopted by Konstantin Stanislavski, who lived around the same time as Jung, who developed them as a method for actors to inhabit their roles.
Adaptability
Our personas are not fixed, but rather adapt to the context in which we find ourselves. They establish our body language and determine how we carry ourselves, the timbre of our voice, attitude, and dress. This adaptability empowers us to navigate different situations with confidence and control, making us feel more in charge of our social interactions.
Situations
A situation, in the context of social anxiety, is the set of circumstances – the facts, conditions, and incidents affecting us at a particular time in a specific place.
Feared Situationsare situations that provoke our fears and anxieties. These are individually specific. It might be a social event, the office, the family dinner, or the barbershop. Anticipated and recurring situations are those situations that we know in advance provoke our fears and anxieties, while unexpected situations are intrusive and unanticipated.
Personas as a Coping Mechanism
In recovery, we deliberately formulate personas as coping mechanisms utilized to alleviate the stress of a situation. Personas constructively mask our social anxiety.
It is a coping mechanism designed to make an impression, e.g., one of confidence or insouciance, while concealing the physical and emotional symptoms of our condition. It can be used as an adaptive affirmation of our composure or self-command.
Moreover, personas serve as a coping distraction, reducing the influx of fear and anxiety-provoking hormones. A well-crafted persona can reveal our inherent strengths, which social anxiety may have obscured, thereby helping us reclaim and rebuild our self-esteem.
An Extension of the Self
While some may identify the persona as separate or differentiated from the authentic self, our persona is not inauthentic but a divergent and healthy aspect of the genuine self. Adopting a healthy persona does not conceal our true nature but presents another facet of our personality. Our persona is not a departure from our true self, but an extension of it.
The Social Psychology of Dress
Persona is a component of the Social Psychology of Dress, which is a field concerned with how our dress appearance affects our behavior and that of others toward us. It examines how our outward appearance, encompassing our clothing and grooming choices, affects our self-perception and the perception of others. Think about how you behave in various environments (work, home, social gatherings). What traits do you showcase?
Our outward appearance mirrors our internal vision of who we want to present ourselves as. Persona is more than an image or affectation. It is the attitude and performance that reflect our internal vision.
“It is one of the best investments I have made in myself, and I will continue to improve and benefit from it for the rest of my life.” – Nick P.
Self-Complexity Theory
Based on the self-complexity theory, individuals create or embellish their identity to navigate life more effectively. Creating personas is a powerful tool that allows us to harness our diverse range of personalities, putting us in the driver’s seat of our social interactions.
The self-complexity theory posits that an individual with multiple and unique self-aspects will have greater and healthier self-complexity than one who has only a few self-aspects. For our purposes, we will define self-complexities as personas.
Personas as Aspects of our Identity
Multiple personas are not an indicator of identity loss. Personas are not other selves distinct from who we are, but different aspects of our identity. A persona is not entirely who we are; it’s a part of us that we choose to show.
To analogize, all the clothes in our wardrobe belong to us, but we choose an outfit for a specific occasion to appeal to our sense of self. The same pattern of thought-driven choice establishes our persona.
Positive Impact of Personas
The direct link between our behavior and our emotions is undeniable. Research has shown that even attempting a smile can alter our mood. Moreover, it signals our brain to release, among other hormones, GABA for relaxation, dopamine for motivation, endorphins to boost self-esteem, and serotonin for a sense of well-being. Just imagine the positive impact a well-crafted persona can have on our self-esteem.
The ‘Act As If’ Technique
Revealing personas is not just about managing social anxiety but about enhancing our overall well-being. As William James famously wrote, “If you want a quality, act as if you already have it.” In psychology, the ‘Act As If Technique’ is designed to inspire us to adopt the mindset and behaviors of the person we choose to present during a social situation. This approach can lead to a more positive and hopeful outlook on life, motivating and inspiring us to strive for a better self.
In recovery, we consciously determine and project positive outcomes to our efforts. Which helps build self-confidence and modify our behavior to support the end result.
Projected Positive Outcome
A projected positive outcome is an optimistic outcome scenario. We determine the probability of success and project our outcome accordingly. What can we reasonably achieve? What would satisfy our efforts? And what would leave us with a sense of pride and accomplishment? Their reasonableness guarantees success, avoiding disappointment and self-recrimination.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Our personas reflect the version of ourselves we strive to become. Acting as if something will occur is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s a form of the ‘fake it till you make it’ technique, where we promote positive aspects of ourselves to enhance our persona. To fake it is to pretend to be capable and confident; to make it means our persona effectively supports our goals.
We develop our persona as a coping mechanism for a specific situation. For example, we may adopt the persona of a gregarious and approachable character to compensate for our fear of attending a social event.
Our persona is an extension of ourselves, influenced by the demands of the situation. We design it to instill self-confidence while presenting that same confidence to others. This process helps us alleviate fear and anxiety, boosting our positivity in social interactions.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO IMPORTANT AND ESSENTIAL? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) mitigate symptoms of social anxiety and related conditions 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 neuroscience and psychology, including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups and workshops.
INDIVIDUAL RECOVERY. The symptoms of social anxiety make it challenging for some to participate in a collective workshop. Dr. Mullen works one-on-one with a select group of individuals uneasy in a group setting. ReChanneling offers scholarships to accommodate the costs. What is missed in group activities is provided in our monthly, no-cost Graduate Recovery Group. In this supportive community, graduates interact with others who have completed the program. Contact ‘rmullenphd@gmail.com’.
Committing to recovery is one of the hardest things you will ever do. It takes enormous courage and the realization that you are of value, consequential, and deserving of happiness.
Coping mechanisms help us cope with stress, anxiety, and other negative emotions. They range from practiced skills in recovery (e.g., grounding, reframing, and rational coping statements) to everyday stress reducers like gardening, journaling, and listening to music.
Social anxiety is culturally identifiable by the persistent fear and avoidance of social interaction and performance situations, which causes us to miss the life experiences that connect us with the world.
Our primary recovery goal is the dramatic moderation of these symptoms. To achieve this, we identify three objectives: To
Replace or overwhelm our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones.
Produce rapid, concentrated positive stimulation to offset the abundance of negative information in our brain’s metabolism.
Regenerate our self-esteem and reintegrate into society through mindfulness and reinforcement of our character strengths, virtues, attributes, and achievements.
Coping Strategies and Coping Mechanisms
Coping strategies are the methods or approaches that best execute our three objectives. On the other hand, coping mechanisms are tools and techniques that implement our coping strategies. The distinctions are important.
For example, to support a response-based strategy, we would utilize cognitive coping mechanisms that focus on our automatic negative thoughts and reduce the influx of our fear and anxiety-provoked chemical hormones.
A comprehensive recovery program employs multiple strategies sustained by cooperative coping mechanisms. These applications are not rigidly distinct solutions but complementary. One-size-fits-all approaches cannot address the underrated complexity of social anxiety.
Coping mechanisms alleviate our situational fears and anxieties, allowing us to step outside the bullseye and objectively analyze our irrational thoughts and behaviors to respond rationally and productively.
In general terms, coping mechanisms help us cope with stress, anxiety, and other negative emotions. They range from practiced skills in recovery (e.g., grounding, reframing, and rational response) to everyday stress reducers like gardening, journaling, and listening to music. Healthy coping mechanisms are situationally adaptive.
“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)
Decompensation
Without coping mechanisms, healthy or otherwise, we can experiencedecompensation – the inability or unwillingness to generate effective psychological stress response, resulting in personality disturbance or disintegration.
Defense Mechanisms
Defense mechanisms are temporary safeguards against situations that challenge our conscious minds. They are ostensibly automatic psychological responses designed to protect us from our fears and anxieties.
Cognitive distortions are exaggerated or irrational thought patterns that perpetuate our anxiety and depression. They are defense mechanisms that reinforce or justify our toxic behaviors. And validate our irrational attitudes, rules, and assumptions. They twist reality, painting an inaccurate picture of the self in the world with others. They interpret experiences through a glass darkly.
Any process that protects us from our fears, anxieties, and threats to our emotional well-being is a defense mechanism. Some, like avoidance, humor, and isolation, require no explanation. Others, such as compensation and dissociation, have positive applications in recovery.
Situations
A situation is a set of circumstances – the facts, conditions, and incidents affecting us at a particular time in a specific place. A feared situation provokes anxieties and apprehensions that negatively impact our activities and relationships.
Two Types of Situations
Two types of situations concern us: the anticipated situation and the unexpected one.
Anticipated situationsare those that we know, in advance, trigger our fears and anxieties. They can be one-off situations like a job interview or social event. They can be recurring situations like the classroom or our daily work environment.
Knowing our feared situation in advance gives us ample opportunity to devise a structured plan to counter our fears and anxieties. We develop it utilizing situationally focused coping mechanisms in a workshop environment. We practice our plan in non-threatening simulations. This method is called graded exposure or systematic desensitization.
Exposing ourselves to a feared situation without a strategy and functional coping mechanisms is jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. In the words of a master of moderation, Benjamin Franklin, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
Unexpected situationsare those that catch us by surprise – stress-provoking chance encounters such as faulty plumbing, an unexpected guest, or losing a wallet.
Knowing how to respond effectively to unexpected situations is like playing bridge. We know what’s in our hand (our coping mechanisms) but don’t know which card to play until we see the others on the table. Accordingly, we assemble our emergency preparedness kit – a variety of practiced coping mechanisms proven subjectively effective.
“It is one of the best investments I have made in myself, and I will continue to improve and benefit from it for the rest of my life.” – Nick P.
Associated Fears and Corresponding ANTs
Automatic negative thoughts are immediate, involuntary expressions of our fears and anxieties. These thoughts can occur in advance of, during, or after a feared situation. ANTs are terse emotional responses, unbased upon reason or deliberation. They are the unpleasant expressions of our negative self-beliefs that define who we are, who we think we are, and who we think others think we are.
Alleviating Our Symptoms
Coping mechanisms are valuable tools in the recovery process. Their role is to offset the negative stimuli within the situation, allowing us to de-stress and reframe our responses.
We develop and practice detailed coping mechanisms in a workshop environment. Introspection, collective activities, and graded exposure are helpful to the client in determining the mechanisms that are most individually effective and adaptable.
Know the Enemy
Did you ever try to talk to someone about your social anxiety? It’s hard. Like it’s some alien disease or something. Nobody gets it. That is why we are reluctant to disclose it. Many of us deliberately choose to remain ignorant of SAD’s destructive capabilities. Others pretend it doesn’t exist or ignore it, hoping it will disappear or no one will notice. Our resistance is a significant impediment to our recovery.
It is disconcerting how many affected clients are unfamiliar with SAD’s causes, symptoms, and impact. The information is readily available. When we have the sniffles, we dash to the internet and familiarize ourselves with every snake oil remedy known to civilization. Nevertheless, despite experiencing social anxiety for decades, it remains as mysterious to some as the mating habits of the Loch Ness Monster.
It is essential to know the symptoms of our condition and how they impact us. To paraphrase Sun Tzu, our chances of recovery are negligible if we neither know the enemy nor ourself. It is pointless to assemble a puzzle if the pieces are missing.
There are multiple ways to mitigate the anxiety of negative triggers. Three of the more effective are grounding, positive reframing, and rational response.
Grounding
Grounding is turning attention away from anxiety-provoking thoughts, memories, or worries and refocusing on the present moment. It refers to any technique that brings our attention to the present physical moment. Whenever we feel anxious or stressed, we can use grounding techniques to distract ourselves from the emotional situation.
This research-based strategy helps us moderate our situational fears and automatic negative thoughts. If we find ourselves in moments of stress or panic, grounding techniques can help our body relax and return to the present moment.
One of the most common grounding techniques is the 5-4-3-2-1 technique, which grounds us to the moment by reconnecting us to one or more of our five senses. We deliberately focus on objects, sounds, smells, tastes, and our bodies. Doing so moderates our emotional distress by distracting our anxiety.
Rational Response
Our automatic response to everything is emotional. To moderate negative emotions, we address them rationally. A rational response is a logical, self-affirming counter to our fears, issues of self-esteem, and automatic negative thoughts.
How do we respond to these triggers? First, we identify the situation where it happens: Where are we, what are we doing, who and what is involved, etc.? Then, we unpack our associated fears and corresponding ANTs.
Remember, fears are irrational, as is predicting what will happen. Knowing what others are thinking is also irrational unless we’re mind readers. It is all subjective projection.
So, we rationally respond to our fears to moderate them. Example: speaking in front of a group. What are our fears? (Again, they are subjective.) Let us go with our fear of criticism. What might our automatic negative thoughts FIX consist of? “They’ll think I’m stupid.” “They’ll make fun of me.” “I’ll make a fool of myself.”
Rational responses might be: “I am entitled to be here as much as anyone.” “I am valuable and significant.” “I am equal to anyone here.” These are accurate responses to unreasonable, self-defeating thoughts.
Positive Reframing
Our neural network is overwhelmed with negativity. Humans are hard-wired with a negativity bias, meaning we respond to negative things over positive ones.
Social anxiety and low self-esteem sustain themselves through our negative self-appraisal.
Positive reframing is turning a negative perspective into a positive one. By reframing, we identify our triggers and self-esteem issues and change how we react and respond to them. Any situation always offers multiple perspectives. While we cannot control everything that happens, we can control how we react and respond.
One example of reframing is viewing a problem or issue as a challenge or opportunity. We reframe an argument by looking at it from the other’s perspective. In a snowstorm, we can either be housebound and despondent or take the sleds and ice skates out of the closet and enjoy the day. Experts agree that positive reframing is critical for emotional well-being.
As we progress in recovery, grounding, positive reframing, and rational response become habitual and automatic.
Seek Progress, Not Perfection
SAD persons worry about their performance before and during a situation and obsess about the outcome long after. We fear criticism and negative appraisal. We set unreasonable expectations to compensate for our perceptions of incompetence and inadequacy, and then we beat ourselves up when our expectations are unmet. Perfectionism is not the desire to do well but the need to be faultless. Anything less is unsatisfactory. Perfectionism and social anxiety have a parallel relationship.
Recovery, however, is a life’s work in progress. There is no absolute cure for social anxiety, but with work and over time, we experience a dramatic and exponential alleviation of our symptoms. The key is progress over perfection.
Set Reasonable Expectations
An expectation, by definition, is afirm belief that something will take place in the future. When we set an expectation, we invest a fervid interest in its outcome. What happens in the likelihood that 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.
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 have not acquired, fixing the expectation in our mind makes it real and visceral. Loss leads to depression, self-loathing, and other traits associated with perfectionism and social anxiety.
Engender Joy and Laughter
The endorphins and chemical hormones transmitted by positive emotions dramatically enhance our psychological well-being. Joy and laughter counteract anxiety and defuse anger, resentment, and shame. Theystrengthen our immune system,boost energy levels, and enhance memory and concentration. When we smile and laugh, the influx of our fear and anxiety-provoking hormones decreases. Finding humor in stressful situations reframes our perspective and takes the edge off our anxiety. It provides a sense of shared comradery and community, which helps counter our fear and avoidance of intimacy and social events, improving our physiological and psychological health.
Remember, You Are Not Alone
Roughly 124 million U.S. adults and adolescents experience anxiety disorders. 60% of those have depression, and many resort to substance abuse. Persons experiencing SAD are too preoccupied with their center of attention to seek us out for judgment or criticism. Roughly two of five people in any situation are experiencing anxiety. So, when we worry and stress during a social event, we are in good company. Social anxiety is common, universal, and indiscriminate. We are never alone.
GENERAL COPING STRATEGIES
Controlled Breathing
Controlled breathing reduces stress, increases our mental awareness, and boosts our immune system, Scientific studies show that this simple grounding technique dramatically mitigates symptoms associated with anxiety, depression, and other stress-related conditions. Grounding distracts from negative stimuli by focusing on the present through our body and senses. It helps us manage our negative thoughts and reactions.
Our vagus nerve controls our heart rate and nervous system and manages our fight or flight (freeze, fawn, flop) response. Science tells us that the simplest way to manipulate our vagus nerve is to practice controlled breathing, which decreases the flow of cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine while releasing mood—and memory-enhancing chemical hormones like GABA and serotonin.
Positive Personal Affirmations
Positive personal affirmations are self-motivating and empowering statements that help us focus on goals, challenge negative, self-defeating beliefs, and reprogram our subconscious minds. We drastically underestimate the significance and effectiveness of PPAs because we don’t appreciate the neuroscience behind them.
Providing all the neural benefits of positive reinforcement, our PPAs self-describe who and what we aspire to be in our emotional development. PPAs are rational, reasonable, possible, positive, unconditional, problem-focused, brief, and in first-person present or future time. Think of PPA’s as aspirations or self-fulfilling prophecies that, through deliberate repetition, help replace our abundance of negative neural information with healthy, productive input.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR)
PMR is another grounding technique. We progressively relax our muscle groups, beginning with the lower extremities and extending to the forehead. Like controlled breathing, there are long and short applications. Abbreviated PMR takes less than a minute and can be executed surreptitiously during a situation. This coping mechanism relieves the discomforting muscle tension aggravated by stress. It also reduces the influx of our fear and anxiety-provoking hormones while momentarily distracting us from our negative thoughts and reactions.
Slow Talk
Our anxiety often compels us to mumble or rush our words under pressure. Slow talk is deliberately speaking slowly and calmly. It slows our physiological responses, alleviates rapid heartbeat, and lowers our blood pressure. It is also helpful to incorporate the 5-second rule, i.e., pause any response for five thoughtful seconds. Not only does this coping mechanism moderate the flow of cortisol, adrenaline, and other stress-provoking hormones, but it also presents the appearance of someone considerate and confident.
Affirmative Visualization
An affirmative visualization isa positive outcome scenario we mentally create by imagining or visualizing it. All information passes through our brain’s thalamus, which makes no distinction between inner and outer realities. Whether we visualize doing something or actually do it, we stimulate the same regions of our neural network. Visualizing raising our left hand is, to our brain, the same thing as physically raising our left hand.
Affirmative visualization activates our dopaminergic-reward system, decreasing the neurotransmissions of anxiety and fear-provoking hormones and accelerating and consolidating the beneficial ones. When we visualize, our brain generates alpha waves, which can reduce the symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Research shows that visualizing a situation in advance improves our mental and physical aptitude. We consciously source information that will enhance our performance outcomes, dramatically improving the likelihood of success in the actual situation. IT also produces the same neural benefits as any other form of proactive neuroplasticity, i.e., the deliberate, repetitive neural input of positive information.
Character Focus
Focusing on our character strengths, virtues, attributes, and achievements channels our emotional angst to mental deliberation, mitigating our fears, anxieties and corresponding ANTs. It supports the regeneration of our self-esteem as we rebuild our latent self-qualities. By manifesting our character strengths and achievements, we reframe our perspective, empowering our asset awareness and generating renewed self-confidence.
Distractions/Diversions
Distractions are mental grounding techniques that engage our focus when confronted by anxiety. Also called directed attention, we focus our attention on a sensory target (i.e. sight, tactile, sound, smell, and taste) to supersede moments of stress and discomfort in our feared situation. Snapping a rubber band on our wrist to momentarily ground our attention is a prime example of a tactile distraction.
Diversions are activities that fulfill the same function (e.g., initiating small talk or humming a song to yourself.) A diversion rechannels the stress of a situational fear or anxiety into a diversionary tactic. These physical diversions and mental distractions temporarily alleviate our fears and anxieties and help manage our negative thoughts and reactions.
Persona
Our body language represents roughly sixty percent of communication. Ten percent is words, and thirty percent is sounds (sighing, laughing, moaning). Persona is the social face we present to our exposure situation, designed to make a positive impression while concealing the nature of our social anxiety. Developing personas is vital to preparing for and adapting to multiple exposure situations.
Our persona establishes our body language. It determines how we carry ourselves, the timbre of our voice, our attitude, and the clothes and shoes we wear (boots, sneakers, high heels). It reflects our character strengths best suited for the situation. (The actor, Paul Newman, allegedly crafted his characters by initially determining their walk and posture.)
We all have multiple personas. We present ourselves differently depending upon the context of the situation, e.g., a sports event versus an interview for a job, a funeral versus a wedding, or a family dinner versus a hoedown. Our personas are ostensibly unconscious – they reflect the environment. Deliberately crafting our persona is an essential learned skill that can dramatically alleviate the stress of a situation.
Persona is an extension of the Social Psychology of Dress, which is concerned with how our dress appearance affects our behavior and that of others toward us. Our outward appearance expresses our internal vision of who we want to present. Persona is more than appearance. It is attitude and performance.
Rooted in self-complexity theory, delivering personas indicates that individuals with diverse self-aspects–different dimensions forming their identity–navigate life more effectively Developing and utilizing personas is vital to preparing for and adapting to multiple exposure situations.
Personas are not other selves distinct from who we are but different aspects of our personality. To analogize, all the clothes in our wardrobe belong to us, but we choose an outfit for a specific occasion to appeal to our sense of self. The same pattern of thought-driven choice establishes our persona.
Projected Positive Outcome
Our projected positive outcome is the reasonable expectations we set for our feared situation. We already know the projected negative outcome if we capitulate to our ANTs. Therefore, we rationally respond by setting reasonable expectations. A projected positive outcome is rational, practical, and doable to ensure success. For example, being immediately hired with a fantastic salary at a networking event is not a reasonable expectation. Making an initial and fruitful contact is an effective projected positive outcome.
Purpose
Purpose is the primary motivation behind our exposure to a situation. What do we seek or hope to accomplish? Why are we exposing ourselves? If our feared situation is the barbershop or beauty salon (not uncommon sources of anxiety), it is reasonable to consider that our purpose might be to get our hair cut or styled comfortably. Our purpose is a subjective determination.
Attending a social event offers multiple purposes, e.g., networking, carousing, making friends, and seeking an intimate relationship. However, maintaining numerous purposes reduces the probability of success, leading to disappointment and self-recrimination. Therefore, we set a reasonable expectation a focus on the principal purpose. To paraphrase a Russian proverb: if you chase two pigs, you have less chance of catching either one.
Small Talk
Small talk is an Informal greeting, comment, or conversation – discourse absent any functional topic of discussion or transaction. In essence, it is polite, non-confrontational verbal interaction meant to acknowledge presence and or open channels of further communication. This activity is not as easy as it appears for those experiencing social anxiety. In interactive workshop activities, graded exposure defines the parameters and establishes the comfort zone critical to successful small talk.
SUDS Rating and Projected SUDS Rating
The Subjective Units of Distress Scale ranges from 0 to 100, measuring the severity of our situational stress. Additionally, it allows us to set reasonable expectations of success. We evaluate what level of distress we anticipate in our feared situation (SUDS Rating) and what we project it will be upon its successful completion (Projected SUDS Rating).
Again, we set reasonable expectations. A moderate projected SUDS rating will offer the probability of a successful venture. For example, if our SUDS rating of distress for making a presentation is 80, a reasonable projected SUDS rating might be 70 or 75. Projecting a 10 SUDS rating would imply that we expect a standing ovation and a national speaking tour. It’s possible, but it is an unreasonable expectation.
Coping Mechanisms for Everyday Stress
Anything that alleviates stress qualifies as a coping mechanism. From listening to music to tending a garden, coping mechanisms are as numerous and varied as individual experience and imagination.
To iterate, some will work for us, and others we will discard. Some will work sometimes and not at other times. Many are general activities like exercise, meditation, and creativity. Examples of coping mechanisms for everyday stress include:
Arts and Crafts:
DIY
Music
Creative Pursuits
Connecting with nature
Hobbies
Personal Time
Physical Activity
Body Relaxation
Self-Empowering Activities
Coping mechanisms are tools and techniques with a wide range of uses. They assist in moderating our situational fears, anxieties, and ANTs. They temporarily allow us to step outside the bullseye so that we can objectively analyze our thoughts and behaviors. And react and respond rationally and productively. They also help us cope with everyday stress and other negative emotions.
WHY IS YOUR SUPPORT SO NECESSARY AND ESSENTIAL? ReChanneling develops and implements programs to (1) mitigate symptoms of social anxiety and related conditions 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 neuroscience and psychology including proactive neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral modification, positive psychology, and techniques designed to regenerate self-esteem. All donations support scholarships for groups and workshops.
INDIVIDUAL RECOVERY. The symptoms of social anxiety make it challenging for some to participate in a collective workshop. Dr. Mullen works one-on-one with a select group of individuals uneasy in a group setting. ReChanneling offers scholarships to accommodate the costs. What is absent in group activities is provided in our monthly, no-cost Graduate Recovery Group. In this supportive community, graduates interact with others who have completed the program. Contact ‘rmullenphd@gmail.com’.
Committing to recovery is one of the hardest things you will ever do. It takes enormous courage and the realization that you are of value, consequential, and deserving of happiness.
