Book Review: How to Be Yourself

At its worst, social anxiety can make ordering a cup of coffee a daunting task, and can make a party feel like a house of horrors. From what direction will humiliation spring? Is it any wonder people with social anxiety learn to cower at home, safe from threats? Full-on social anxiety can be greatly life limiting, but even those of us who don’t suffer from the worst of it will find useful strategies for those moments of “do I belong?” and “can I handle this?” in psychologist Ellen Hendriksen’s new book, How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety. In a warm and friendly tone, Hendriksen, who herself experiences social anxiety, breaks into manageable chunks the cognitive processes that make benign social situations feel threatening. While there is certainly a genetic component to anxiety in general, she writes, learning and practice can turn predisposition to social anxiety into a sure thing. The tap root of social anxiety is fear of “The Reveal”—that some sort of imagined fatal flaw will be noticed, noted, commented on, and ultimately destroy us. “Social anxiety is not just fear of judgement; it’s fear the judgers are right,” Hendriksen writes. “We think there is something wrong with us, and we avoid in order to conceal it. In our minds, if The Reveal comes to pass we’ll be rejected, humiliated, or exposed.” She identifies the most common Reveals we fear exposing: that our anxiety itself will show; that there is some...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Anxiety Book Reviews Happiness Mindfulness Neuroscience Psychology Self-Help Social Phobia Source Type: news