social anxiety Archives - Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy

May 9, 2022 by BHP Leave a Comment

Loneliness and CBT

People feel lonely for a wide range of reasons. Loneliness can be linked to mental health difficulties such as depression, anxiety, social anxiety, perfectionism, low self esteem or eating disorders. It can also be linked to autism, loss, difficulties disclosing, early adulthood, elderly. This is not an exhaustive list but illustrates how many factors can be linked to the problem of loneliness.

Loneliness is the perceived discrepancy between what we want and what we’ve got, a mismatch between actual and desired social situation, a lack of meaningful relationships. Social isolation doesn’t have to equal loneliness. We can be alone without feeling lonely.

Triggers to feeling lonely can be internal psychological factors, such as attitudes to participating in social interaction / having a negative interpersonal appraisal, e.g. other people don’t like me; or external factors, such as bereavement or living far away from friends and family. These factors evoke an emotional response such as anxiety or sadness
and can lead to counter productive behaviour such as avoidance and a decrease in valued social contact or unhelpful cognitive processes in the social domain, e.g. self focused attention or hypervigilance to rejection. This then impacts on our perception and our interpretation of our relationships / social situations and can inadvertently become a
perpetuating cycle of loneliness.

Social media also has a big impact on loneliness, particularly in early adulthood. People share and post what they want us to see and we can end up comparing ourselves to others. The pandemic too has had an impact on loneliness. Spending less time with friends and family, self isolating and shielding are all contributory factors to feeling lonely. If we struggle with technology this too may play a part.

So how do we change things? In CBT we look at four domains: the individual, their relationships, social relations and the community. In terms of strategies behavioural activation is key with a focus on increasing the amount of social interaction, social contact and social networks. We can explore values and once we have identified these set goals to
help meet where the person wants to be in their values. We can introduce and identify unhelpful thought patterns and beliefs, and learn techniques to restructure these. We can learn strategies to reduce rumination and use behavioural experiments to make changes and gather information, e.g. finding out what happens if you do disclose and share with others. Additionally whilst engaging in behavioural activation we can practise exposure
whilst reducing safety behaviours.

Everyone is different and because loneliness can be for many different reasons there is no one size fits all. Other strategies may also be used, such as social skills and communication training, mindfulness, mapping social opportunities, emotional awareness and psycho-education.

To address loneliness in older adults Age UK and the befriending service, such as Silverline, can be a great resource. Age UK offer all sorts such as social activities, lunch clubs, IT Training, transport, day centres. Younger adults may benefit from Meet Up groups, Young Minds or The Mix.

Reaching out, connecting with others and using the supports that are available to us are fundamental in combatting loneliness. Remember we all feel lonely at times in our lives.

Rebecca Mead is an accredited, registered and experienced Psychotherapist offering Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) to individuals adults. Rebecca is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Rebecca Mead, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

Further reading by Rebecca Mead –

Enhancing the Positive Self

Is that a fact or an opinion?

As we come out of lockdown, will a number of us be feeling socially anxious?

New Year’s Resolutions

Making Changes

August 23, 2021 by BHP Leave a Comment

Is that a fact or an opinion?

Now we are all starting to go out more and socialise again, I wanted to acknowledge how we can all experience anxious or self critical thoughts.

I have noticed, when meeting up with various girlfriends recently, how we’ve all shared thoughts of feeling slightly anxious about how others are perceiving us. Due to the various lockdowns over the last year and a half, we’ve been working from home, not exercising as much and possibly eating and drinking more, and for some of us, this has resulted in a slight change in appearance. Perhaps we’ve put on weight, are not as toned as we once were or are not looking so primped and preened as we used to. Various friends have shared some form of self criticism about their appearance. One friend referred to this as her ‘lockdown arse’. Another friend said she couldn’t possibly come out socially until she’d had her hair done and lost a few pounds. It occurred to me how we can all be self conscious and bothered by what others are thinking of us when we’ve not seen them for a while.

It’s normal.

We worry about what we think we should look like and worry that our friends will make judgements or look at us in a negative light if we are not the same shape/size as we were when they last saw us. Our internal dialogues are often talking to us in a critical way. We forget that we are acceptable to our friends however we are because it’s our friendship that is valued. Others want to see us for who we are and because we’re their friend not for what we look like.

If it wasn’t appearance that was being fretted about it was not having anything to say. Again because of lockdown and not being able to do much, friends would worry about not having anything to talk about, being dull and boring and having nothing interesting to say. Forgetting that we have all been in the same boat.

When these worry or self critical thoughts creep in they can have a profound effect on how we are feeling. They can make us feel anxious, low and even depressed. Our thoughts are very influential over our emotions and our behaviours. They can prevent us from doing what we’d really like to do. Thoughts not only affect our moods and behaviours but can affect our self esteem and our self worth. Yet when you unpick thoughts they are often not facts, they are our opinions. Thoughts can feel believable, real and true, yet really they are just a string of words. Our thoughts can be quite bullying, they can tell us that we’re not good enough, that we should be this or that, they come thick and fast and once you get on the negative spiral it can be quite difficult to get off. They are instantaneous and we often don’t question them. Our thoughts are our internal dialogue and can be very harsh and self critical. We wouldn’t talk to others as we do ourselves. So why is that ok?

When I’m aware I’m starting to get into worry thoughts about what others might think I find it quite useful to ask myself is that a fact or an opinion? Often I’m making an assumption or mind reading. If this is the case it can be helpful to ask yourself if there’s another way of looking at this? What would my best friend say to me in this scenario? Or what advice would I give to someone else? And would this matter in 6 months time? These sorts of questions can help us to gain an alternative perspective, to a more balanced way of thinking, that is kinder and more realistic.

These questions are some of the prompts on a CBT technique called a STOPP record.*

So the next time you are worrying about going out with your friends because you may look a little different or not have much to say try challenging those thoughts, ask yourself is that a fact or an opinion? Remind yourself that we can all have unhelpful thoughts at times, its normal.

(* The STOPP record technique can be found here: https://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/docs/STOPP5.pdf)

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Rebecca Mead, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

Further ready by Rebecca Mead –

As we come out of lockdown, will a number of us be feeling socially anxious?

New Year’s Resolutions

Making Changes

Social Connections

April 19, 2021 by BHP Leave a Comment

As we come out of lockdown, will a number of us be feeling socially anxious?

For the past year we have largely been confined to our homes, a lot of us working from home and only going out for regular exercise. Our social lives have been depleted, we’ve not been able to see friends and family and generally life may have become quite repetitive.

As we come out of lockdown there will be mixed feelings, some people may feel really ready to socialise again and are already filling their calendars with get togethers and events. For others, they might be more cautious and be worried about feeling anxious in group settings.

Perhaps you’ve always found social gatherings difficult and so the lockdowns gave you permission to not have to socialise. By having to keep ourselves to ourselves anxiety has not been triggered or challenged and so confidence in social settings may have reduced. The prospect of now going into situations where there are more than two people may feel quite daunting.

Because we’ve not had much going on in our lives we may start to worry that we have nothing to talk about. Or perhaps our appearance has changed a little, we’ve put on some weight, or we’re not as toned as we were or our hair is more grey than it was, and so we are worried we will not look physically good enough. Or perhaps we are worried whether our friends will still want to see us after all this time.

These are normal thoughts that we may experience but they aren’t helpful and we may have to work at keeping them in check. It’s worth reminding ourselves that thoughts are not facts and whilst we may have these thoughts about ourselves it doesn’t mean that others are having these thoughts about us.

We’ve all been socially deprived over the last year and when you haven’t done something for a while it can feel uncomfortable going back into it, its normal to feel some level of anxiety. Just as the more we avoid something the harder it becomes to do. Be kind to yourself, don’t expect yourself to be able to go straight into large social gatherings. It’s better to return to socialising in a graded way. If it feels too big it’s ok to say you’re not ready.

When we are feeling socially anxious we can start to worry about how we come across to others and feel like we’re in the spotlight. The more we focus on ourselves the more self conscious we can become and the more this happens the more we end up in our own head. The more we start to judge ourselves and the more difficult it becomes to interact with others. We can’t be concentrating on what is going on around us or what others are saying if we’re so busy in our heads judging ourselves. Try shifting your focus onto others, paying attention to what’s being said rather than your internal dialogue. By shifting your focus of attention outwards to others, from internal to external, you can keep more relaxed.

A common fear to have when socially anxious is thinking you should be interesting all of the time. How realistic is this? particularly given that none of us have had very interesting lives recently. Take the pressure off yourself to perform, it’s about being with others, not entertaining others. Share how bored you’ve been, I’m sure others will have been to. Try to reduce those high expectations of yourself.

Another fear is to think that others can see your anxiety however the research tells us that this is not the case. What feels magnified and obvious to you, such as shaking or sweating, isn’t visible to others.

It is also unhelpful to prepare things to talk about as this again puts pressure on yourself to perform and maintains self focus. If you’re so busy thinking about the list of things you’ve prepared you’re not going with the flow of conversation, you become more self focused and can appear uninterested in what’s being said or aloof.

Lastly don’t allow yourself to replay or dwell on what you said or did later. No one else will be giving a second thought to what you’ve said or done, they will have moved onto the next thing in their day. You’re the only one analysing yourself and giving yourself a hard time.

Remember social interactions are a two way street, it’s not all your responsibility. The more we can focus on the social event rather than ourselves the more we are likely to enjoy the social interaction.

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Rebecca Mead, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

Further reading by Rebecca Mead –

New Year’s Resolutions

Making Changes

Social Connections

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