Recovery from social anxiety and related conditions.
Robert F Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChanneling
For every new subscriber, ReChanneling donates $25 for workshop scholarships.
Restructure, Replace, & Rebuild
The overarching goal of recovery is the alleviation of the symptoms of social anxiety. Restructure, replace, and rebuild are the three complementary actions that execute this goal.
Neuroscience and the validation of repetition in learning support neural restructuring. CBT and positive reframing replace negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones. Positive psychology’s emphasis on character strengths, virtues, and attributes spearheads the reinvigoration of our self-esteem and motivation.
“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)
One Goal, Three Objectives
A goal is the outcome we aim to achieve, while our objectives are the specific actions and measurable steps we need to take to reach that goal.
The overarching goal of recovery is the alleviation of the symptoms of social anxiety. The 3Rs of recovery – restructure, replace, and rebuild – execute this goal.
- Restructure our neural network by producing rapid, concentrated positive stimulation to offset the abundance of negative information in our brain’s metabolism.
- Replace our negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones.
- Reclaim and rebuild our self-esteem and reintegrate into society through recognition and reinforcement of our character strengths, virtues, attributes, and achievements.
Judith S. Beck, a renowned expert in cognitive behavior therapy, provides this addendum: “The overarching goals of treatment are to facilitate remission of clients’ disorders; to increase their sense of purpose, meaning, connectedness, and well-being and to build resiliency and prevent relapse.” [1]
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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.
RESTRUCTURE Our Neural Network
All registered information and experience inform our neural network, prompting it to realign, generating a correlated change in behavior and perspective. For something to register, it must be detected (noticed) and recorded.
The deliberate, repetitive neural input of information, which constitutes proactive neuroplasticity, is a process where we actively engage our brain to consolidate and accelerate the restructuring of our neural circuitry.
REPLACE Negative Thoughts and Behaviors
Childhood disturbance shapes our negative core and intermediate beliefs, establishing the attitudes, rules, and assumptions that drive our irrational behavior and automatic negative thoughts. We reframe and replace these negative self-appraisals and behaviors with healthy new mindsets, skills, and abilities..
REBUILD Our Self-Esteem
Our neural network has structured itself around negative information due to years of adverse self-appraisal and the general vicissitudes of life. However, by rediscovering and reclaiming our character strengths, virtues, attributes, and achievements, we reclaim and rebuild the latent properties of our self-esteem disrupted by childhood disturbance and the onset of our social anxiety.
Active neuroplasticity happens through intentional pursuits like creating, yoga, and journaling. We control active neuroplasticity because we consciously choose the activity. It is a longer-term neural restructuring that also aids in replacing our self-destructive thoughts and behaviors by rediscovering and reclaiming our character strengths, virtues, and attributes disrupted by our condition. This is just one example of how complementarity activates the three objectives simultaneously.
One Size Does Not Fit All
A one-size-fits-all solution fails to address the complexity of human experiences. A comprehensive treatment program utilizes traditional and nontraditional methodologies developed through client trust, cultural understanding, and innovative therapies. Our environment, heritage, background, and relationships reflect our desires, choices, and aspirations. When we ignore or trivialize these crucial factors, we devalue our authenticity.
A well-rounded plan incorporates complementary approaches such as proactive and active neuroplasticity, cognitive-behavioral therapy, positive psychology, recovery-oriented cognitive therapy, schema therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, rational emotive behavior therapy, gradual exposure therapy, and other methods tailored to the client.
Multiple Approaches
Just as there is no absolute right way to do or experience learning and unlearning, what helps us at one time in our life may not help us at another. Consequently, one-size-fits-all approaches to recovery and self-empowerment are inefficient. We are best served by integrating methods developed through clinical study, client targeting, cultural assimilation, and therapeutic innovation.
Coalescing science and East-West psychologies is essential to capturing the diversity of human thought and experience. Science gives us proactive neuroplasticity, which refers to the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections while promoting positive changes in thought patterns and behaviors.
Cognitive-behavioral modification and positive psychology’s optimal functioning are Western-oriented approaches. CBT focuses on replacing years of negative thoughts and behaviors with healthy, productive ones. Positive psychology reinvigorates our self-esteem by emphasizing our character assets, subverted by our social anxiety.
Eastern practices provide the therapeutic benefits of Abhidharma psychology and the overarching truths of ethical behavior.
These approaches do not act alone but work in concert.
Dr. Mullen’s Speaking Engagements
Complementarity
Complementarity, in the context of psychological and scientific approaches to recovery, refers to the state or system of corresponding components combining to enhance or emphasize each other’s qualities. This concept underscores the importance of integrating diverse approaches to recovery, as each enhances the effectiveness of the others. We are also concerned with the simultaneous mutual interaction of our mind, body, spirit, and emotions to stabilize and sustain our psychophysiological well-being, highlighting the holistic nature of recovery.
Hemispheric Synchronization
We learn through hemispheric synchronization, which means collaborating our brain’s left and right hemispheres to achieve optimal coherence, i.e., a rational-analytical brain. It establishes our emotional intelligence – the ability to perceive, manage, control, or communicate emotions.
People experiencing social anxiety ostensibly have a low EQ because it requires rational thinking, a faculty anathema to our condition.
However, we can compensate for this through neuroplasticity, which describes our brain’s remarkable ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. Active and proactive neuroplasticity aggressively and deliberately utilizes both brain hemispheres, balancing analytical objectivity with subjective creativity.
The neural network of a person experiencing social anxiety disorder is replete with toxic information established by the negative trajectory of childhood disturbance, core beliefs, negativity bias, SAD onset, intermediate beliefs, cognitive biases, and irrational thoughts and behaviors manifest by emotionally driven negative self-appraisal. Proactive and active neuroplasticity, two processes of what Jeffrey Schwartz called self-directed neuroplasticity, play vital roles in recovery.
Our brain’s right hemisphere, responsible for managing emotions, creativity, and intuition, is the domain of active neuroplasticity. Proactive neuroplasticity, on the other hand, focuses on the left hemisphere’s rational, analytical, and quantitative pursuits.
Individual Over Diagnosis
Hippocrates purportedly wrote, “It’s far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has.” This individual-focused approach empowers each person, making them feel valued and understood. We prioritize the individual over their diagnoses, offering personality-based solutions.
By emphasizing the positive aspects of the human condition over pathographic models, we help counteract the negative self-appraisal induced by our condition.
Training in prosocial behavior and emotional literacy supports typical interventions, while behavioral exercises are used to practice social skills. Data provides evidence for mindfulness and acceptance-based interventions, and motivational enhancement strategies help clients overcome their resistance to new ideas and concepts.
Discipline Collaboration
Addressing the diversity of human thought and experience calls for a collaboration of science, philosophy, and psychology. Philosophy, existentially defined, welcomes religious and spiritual insight.
Gestalt theory emphasizes that the whole of anything is greater than its parts. It underscores the interconnectedness of our mind, body, spirit, and emotions, all parts of the whole that cannot exist independently of each other or the parts. Each component overlaps, influences, and is interdependent with the others, albeit one dominates until superseded by another. They collaborate in the holism of our personality as the gestalt of our humanness, creating a sense of interconnectedness and wholeness.
[1] Beck, Judith S. (2020). Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond, Third Edition,
The Guilford Press, NYC.
Proactive Neuroplasticity YouTube Series
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 reclaim and rebuild 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.