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Parenting The Socially Phobic & Avoidant Adult
The socially phobic adult with avoidant personality and overly dependent behavior presents a complex and daunting therapeutic challenge. In fact, the mental health professions have been confounded by this clinical scenario. This podcast provides critical information for parents and concerned persons of adults who have had a long-term struggle or paralysis with launching. Launching refers to social, academic, career, relationship, and emotional pursuits.
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Parenting The Socially Phobic & Avoidant Adult: Episode 17 - An Introduction to Mind States for Social & Performance Anxiety Resolution
What do the following individuals have in common:
A world renown physician with public speaking panic.
A 5 million dollars a year CEO with the same public speaking panic.
The #2 man in a fortune 500 company with same profile as the previous two.
You get the picture. Individuals who have achieved elite career status.
Now consider the following:
A forty-year-old mother of two who considered an operation to sever her nerves due to fear of blushing. This is called erythrophobia.
The 26-year-old male and female who live pathologically avoidant and dependent lifestyles characterized by technology dependence, work and social avoidance. All of these behaviors enabled by parents or caregivers.
How about the bright 7-year-old who talks normally at home but is selectively mute at home school.
How about the high school starting point guard on the basketball team who avoided shooting the ball at all costs due to fear of missing!! When I played ball there wasn’t I shot I didn’t like to take.
An intelligent teenager with school phobia.
An attractive 36-year-old who has never dated or experienced intimacy with the opposite sex.
Let’s do one more, an adolescent with significant developmental disabilities and selective mutism.
Do you want to know what all these individuals despite age differences and functioning levels have in common?
Here’s the answer: are you ready – this is huge…
They all worked with me.
All were suffering significantly from performance and social anxiety.
And
All of them experienced an imbalance of mind states when they entered treatment.
When considering treatment for social and performance anxiety thoughtful evaluation would say that a model adapted to the specific needs of this specific anxiety is productive rather than trying to fit the condition into rigid restrictive existing models; most noticeably the nonsensical promises and absurd research perpetuated by the CBT community. I want to be very clear here. Behavior and cognition are very important variables to consider in treatment but if you miss the emotion-physiological connection you are playing the wrong game. Please feel free to quote me on this! is especially A productive model is going to have several tools. Since 1978 one of the tools that I have integrated into therapy is the utilization of mind states.
Let’s dive into what this is all about. Everything starts with the organicity of the brain, within which is the neo cortex for conscious thinking and the subcortex for non- conscious content and energy. Both are critical for healing.
Located in the brain is the personality. Analytical approaches agree that the personality is comprised of five mind states. The analytical formula that I use in treatment originates from Transactional Analysis, a psychology developed by Eric Berne and others in the 60’s It’s a much more functional approach to analytics than classical Freudian approaches. Perhaps you are aware of the book “I’m OK You Are OK” which was a transactional analysis primer.
In this podcast I want to introduce you to each state. Being able to think in mind state terms can be an empowering technique and therapy itself.
Now you need a visual. Look at the picture cover of this episode. The “Before Ego-graph” represents the baseline of social and performance anxiety. Resolution looks like the “After” graph. All mind states are important. There is no such thing as a bad mind state. You can see that we do not want to get rid of any. The goal is to change the balance or synergy. The synergy will determine one’s mind-body or psycho-physiological energy. Energy control is what recovery and high performance are all about.
Let’s address energy for a moment. A Harvard business review article from November 2013 discusses the of emotional agility for work performance. Emotional agility is the process of labeling importance emotions.
Let’s take this step further. The Latin word for emotion EMOTERE is translated to mean “energy in motion”. Think for a moment about how profound a concept this is please. Emotions are energy. The after ego-graph provides a visual of a significant energy shift.
The” After Ego-Graph” represents what I call a “High Performance Mind. This means developing a proactive approach to health and happiness. Performance anxiety is a major roadblock for this process.
No matter what the functioning level, the CEO of multibillion corporation or the 26-yr old living in his room with performance anxiety the objective of mind state shifting is the same although the issues are dramatically different
Now I will introduce you to each state. Look at the top graph and state in the middle. The “Adult” is your internal computer. It’s your scientific self. Logic and objectivity, not contaminated by emotion. This state is critical for problem solving. It mediates between the other states. Put yourself in your Adult now and answer the following: on a scale of 1-10 what’s the severity of your social anxiety or the person you are concerned about. Use your objective observation skills. Identify the degree of social avoidance and overdependence at play, as well as the degree of mind-body discomfort when facing anxiety to determine your answer. Ask yourself; “Where do you need to apply more logic vs. emotion to your anxiety or that of your dependent?” “Where do you need a more effective approach to problem solving?” Welcome to the “Adult”.
One patient was the president of the PTA. Once when addressing her audience, a person at the back of the room said, “I can’t hear you”. This triggered a panic attack. At the next therapy session, I asked her to put herself in her adult and answer the question “what did he mean”? The answer simply he couldn’t hear me. Yes indeed! However, this triggered unresolved content from her reservoir. The reservoir is one’s emotional conscious and not conscious past and present. Think of being triggered as a bottom up dynamic.
One story I love telling is about Kirk Rueter. Kirk won the most games as a left hander pitching for the San Francisco Giants. In treatment everything is confidential, but the Rueters have given me permission to tell their story. In fact, they are featured in a selective mutism seminar available at www.socialanxiety.com where they describe who their daughter resolved selective mutism.
Joking around once I asked Kirk “did you ever have a bad game?” He responded, “I was pitching against the Rockies and losing 6 zip in the first inning with no one out”. I asked, “how do you deal with this?”. He responded, “I have to pitch every 5th day so what I think about is what do I have to do to be better the next time out”.
Isn’t this the perfect high- performance response and use of the Adult state. Ask yourself what gets in the way of this thinking. The answer: too excessive an internal critical script and challenged self-esteem.
This brings us to the critical parent. Now look at the left-hand tower. In this state is the energy of values, evaluation, criticism, judgement. Remember; it’s all about energy. Good Bad. Grow up to be. Success is. Give an example of values you learned from your parents which you both agree and disagree with, and you have identified this state. If your parents taught you don’t play in traffic. That’s good criticism. I have recorded myself countless times during a multiplicity of media platforms over a 45-year career; the purpose of which was to critique myself for higher performance. You get the point!!
That said, the excessive content and energy in this state is the cause of performance anxiety. Social anxiety is based on performance! Messages in this state drive anxiety. For example, “if you are nervous people will see who you really are”, “you better be perfect or you are not ok enough”,” if you make a mistake, you are screwed forever”,” if you take a risk, you will humiliate and embarrass yourself”. etc etc etc!!!
Let’s be clear on a very important dynamic. It is the drive in this mind state that creates performance success. You must be successful. Do whatever it takes. Strive for perfection. Meet your goals at any cost. It’s the inability to control it which causes the problem.
With selective mutism, which is an obsessive compulsive detach reflex from speaking, the critical script says, “Don’t talk and you will be safe” or “if you speak make sure the words you say are just right or you are not good enough”. “Don’t speak and you can detach from reality”, “it’s better not to take risks”.
In the case of the 26-year-old who lives in his room the excessive critical script not only drives pervasive embarrassment avoidance; it goes deeper and is not necessarily conscious. Examples include “you can create your own reality. Your parents owe it to you. They created me; therefore, they are responsible for me. If you don’t get what you want have a temper tantrum, act out in some form to get what you want”. This all results in status quo statis pathology as the temper tantrum controls the parents.
The excessive energy that originates from internal critical script is the problem. Its unrealistic expectations create anxiety. Now you are going to need a sense of humor; If one is going to recover and develop a high-performance mind there is a battle to be fought with the toxic script. Therefore, I’ve given it a personality. This comes from a book I gave my granddaughter when she was 5 years old. “RUNAWAY BOOGER”. The enemy to be vanquished you now know as “Booger””
Both the CEO and the 26-year-old who has not launched both have their “Booger”.
Ready for a very important question? important question is what would you do with a little child who is close to you who is quite upset having a temper tantrum? Look at the right-hand tower “the adapted child”; learned behavior and emotion which obviously is super important. Any time you learn a new skill you are in your adapted child. That said, the anxiety itself it located in this mind state! Adaptation is productive until it turns into mal adaptation. Loosely interpreted, I’m positioning the anxiety as an internal temper tantrum because it’s all about unresolved emotional energy which is recycling with no release from the human system.
Does this make sense. To take this further; obsessive worry and rumination, fear of panic, and the anxiety itself is interchangeable with the concept of pain. The inner child is in pain because of the excessive directives coming from Booger!
Now look at the two tall towers. This is the problem. Think of it as a mind tic. Not a neurological tic, but a deeply ingrained mind-body, psychophysiological reflex. The two towers provide a visual of one’s trauma.
Trauma is located deep in the adapted child mind state. Booger triggers it. There are 3 types of traumas: acute, chronic, and complex. This will be the subject of another podcast. Here is an example of a trauma reflex. Twenty-five years ago, a very smart person said to me “get ready for e-commerce”. Little did I know. Now, from my home office I can work with individuals around the world… wonderful! Easy access. No travel time. No germs. No viruses. No snow cancellations. Operate clinically by the atomic clock. It’s quite precise. It’s a whole new world!! That’s the positive. After several acute technology traumas including losing internet service, a problem that took months to fix years ago, dealing with the abusive monster known as google for marketing purposes, and an overall stressful adaptation to technology over two decades I have developed technology PTSD. I refer to this as click anxiety. When I grew up the most common form of communication was talking. Now it’s texting. It’s mind blowing to me. Now, when I click on a link and there is a delay I get triggered from bottom up of memories where I was out of control with technology. It sucks but it’s an ongoing necessary challenge.
Let’s sidebar for a moment. Important information you may want to take note of; alcohol is the drug of choice for social anxiety because it lowers the towers. The problem is that it depresses the energy across the board in all states. The objective of psychopharmacology, medicine, when needed for social and performance anxiety, is to create neuroplasticity or flexibility. The specific goal is to decrease the towers so that the other states can grow more effectively which is the process and goal of treatment.
Now look at the mind state on the far left; the “Nurturing Parent”. This is the most important state to develop. The operative definition of nurturing is to provide support and develop growth. This is a muti-dimensional process. There are many components of nurturing. What comes to mind when you think of nurturing yourself?
Here are seven critical points for developing this state:
- The social anxiety sufferer is coming to the clinical table with a nurturing deficit. This manifests primarily with an inability or difficulty with self- acknowledgement on an emotional level. This is due to the over-riding influence of the critical script. Therefore, self-acknowledgment muscle needs to be developed.
For example, Jay age 28 was in sales for a security company. His performance reviews were spectacular. He was getting the job done in every way. His boss acknowledged that he was doing the work of three people. He received a $50,000 bonus. Despite the accolades and tremendous positive feedback Jay was unable to acknowledge on an emotional level his success. He could not appreciate his success because of his excessive critical script, Booger, which kept saying “do more”, “don’t smell the roses”, “don’t stop to appreciate your success”, “keep driving”… This over-drive script was causing panic and a dreadful fear of being noticeably nervous when addressing groups which led him to medicine and treatment. - Developing introspective and interoceptive skills. This is internal awareness regarding thinking, emotion, and physiology. In other words, understanding your mind-body or psychophysiological connection. This requires a cross-fit or paradoxical methodology. When individuals or families come to a treatment session with me it’s a CrossFit workout as there’s a need to develop under-used neural pathways. If you listen to the episode “World-renown Physician Describes Her Cure for Public Speaking Anxiety” you will hear Kendra describe her new -found awareness of and I quote “how my conscious thoughts drive emotions and actions rather than allow them to flow as if directed by some external force”.
- Understanding that healing is based on both top down and bottom-up approaches. Top down include conscious implementation of technique. The primary technique in The Berent method is “surfing” which is based on adrenaline acceptance. I love going to the beach in East Hampton where I live to watch the surfers who appreciate it when the waves are high, especially in stormy weather. Bottom up requires organized and deep reservoir work”. The reservoir is one conscious and not conscious past and present. Deep in the subcortex are physiological capsules of trauma.
- Brain health. Sleep, nutrition, exercise. When I’m able to start my day with an aerobic workout followed by 2 minutes in my ice bath it’s great for stress management.
- Realistic expectations about one’s learning curve for healing and developing high performance. In essence once performance anxiety is an ingrained reflex you need think that the pace of recovery is more like a 10k vs a sprint although everyone has their own learning curve. It’s imperative to invest in the paradox of stretching your mind into unfamiliar and difficult territory which requires accessing underused neural or brain pathways. Many of my patients are perfectionists. In addition to perfectionism being a symptom of insecurity it creates unrealistic rigid, often black and white expectations versus embracing the process of a learning curve. This is the reason I refer to my treatment program as “cross fit”.
- Determining if pharmacological support is required and if so how to use medicine productively because all too often it’s not! I can’t overstate this
- Your most valuable asset is time. It’s important to have a proactive game plan for anxiety management. Playing defense puts more pressure on one’s nervous system, makes the anxiety more ingrained, and sucks life out of self-esteem. It makes time the enemy as the problem accrues over time! Put yourself in your adult now. What percentage of offense or defense are you playing with your performance anxiety?
I have an indoor basketball court, a half-court, in my house. I used to have a legendary game there. It was so much fun which is an important dynamic of one’s natural child mind state. Now the bummer is I had to retire from basketball 15 years ago because of orthopedic stress. My assistant who used to coordinate players for the game used to play division one basketball He once had 23 rebounds against a major opponent. Now he has a hard time walking because of aging issues. A bunch of the players have died. This reality knocks home the reality that time is not elastic. It doesn’t stretch. It’s your most valuable asset so get moving!!
To dumb a complex subject down; regarding young adults with failure to launch; nurturing and empowering starts with the parents learning and initiating an empowering gameplan because the young adult has no initiative for their mental health. So if you are a parent of a 20- or 30-year-old who is not functioning socially or workwise and you think they will grow out of it you are in delusional territory! I have met many parents who do believe this.
Next state to be developed is the Adult”. Remember this is not intelligence. I already know you are intelligent if you are listening to tis podcast. It’s your scientific evidence-based self. This includes developing observation skills and applying objectivity and logic to problem solving. Use your adult to clarify to what degree anxiety has inhibited your problem solving. Use your adult to determine your degree of detachment and avoidance. If you are the parent of an adult with a sustained failure to launch, ask yourself “is it likely your adult child will grow out of the problem at this point
Last but certainly not least. Look at the state on the far right, the natural child. In this state is genuine emotion. It includes discovery, exploration, imagination, creativity, and the development of ideas. It’s passion. It’s one’s primitive self. It’s sexuality. It’s fun! Very importantly it is the truth of desire.
Now do something very important. Are you ready. Identify a desire that you have experienced that has been blocked because of anxiety. It could be anything. Giving a speech. Not asking a question. Learning a new skill. Asking someone on a date. Networking. Do you know the result of this avoidant behavior other than relief in real time?
Here comes the core issue. Are you ready? The result of natural child mind state suffocation due to anxiety is TMS. What’s that you ask. Tension Myositis Syndrome. Dr John E. Sarno MD died in 2017. World famous for his work on back pain and author of many books including The Mind Body Prescription, Sarno would take his patients through training based on the dynamic that repressed emotion is so powerful it inhibits the flow of oxygen into the blood stream. The result is TMS. What this translates to is that any symptom that does not have a biological cause to it is a manifestation of TMS. Social and performance anxiety is a manifestation of TMS.
The brilliance of Sarno’s work is how he organized the content in one’s reservoir into compartments including: 1. Childhood 2. Self-imposed pressures 3. The pressures of life and 4. Other emotions.
Sarno’s reservoir organization is the basis of core therapeutic work in the Berent Method. It organizes the process of going vertically which brings relevant content to a conscious level. This bottom-up process. Once vertical is achieved connecting to the emotional self is critical for recovery and high performance. Remember; that’s because of EMOTERE. ENERGY. You have to feel it to control it.
I hope this podcast has been helpful. The primary message that I hope you take away is that your blueprint for social anxiety control, and developing a high-performance mind is nurturing your natural child with a good dose of adult.
I wish you good health.
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