BEYOND SHYNESS Read online

  Feels anxious when talking to others, but can overcome when necessary.

  Occasionally responds to social invitations, but seldom initiates social events.

  Can hold a job and perform well when duties are well defined, but doesn’t seek attention; more a follower than a leader.

  Avoids asking favors, volunteering to help.

  May be overly concerned with physical appearance.

  Level 2—Moderately functioning

  Anxious about socializing; usually avoids social situations.

  Depends heavily on family members for most social life, and all emotional support.

  Seldom initiates or responds to invitations to socialize outside the family.

  One or two acquaintances, but no close friends to turn to for emotional support.

  Uncomfortable approaching store clerks, talking to waiters, etc.

  Can hold a job, but has difficulty relating to co-workers, asking for help, increasing responsibility.

  Unaware of physical appearance and how it factors into social situations.

  Level 1—Low functioning

  Extremely anxious about socializing; avoids social situations altogether.

  Relies solely on family members for all social life, emotional support.

  Never initiates or responds to invitations to socialize outside the family.

  No meaningful relationships outside the family.

  Unable to approach store clerks, talk to waiters, etc.

  Difficulty seeking employment, performing job duties, keeping a job.

  Poor attention to physical appearance.

  As you consider these categories, you might start to note some goals that you would like to work toward. Would you like to feel more comfortable initiating a particular conversation—say, proposing a new system at work or asking someone for a date? Would you like to feel more confident or comfortable about your appearance? We’ll talk more about goal setting in later chapters, but it helps to be aware not only of where you are now, but of where you’d like to be.

  Now that you have a general understanding of the levels of social ability, let’s concentrate on establishing your social ability level—focusing once again on where you are at present. No definitive test exists to measure how well a person functions socially, so to close this diagnostic gap, and make it easier for people who have trouble socializing to get the help they need, social anthropologist Robert Vetter and psychologist-statistician Richard Evangelista helped me to develop the Social Ability Questionnaire. This index of social skills is designed to help determine how well you function socially. Using a true-false format, this test is built around six categories connected with socialization:

  1. Concept of self: How do you feel about yourself? How do you see yourself in relation to others?

  2. Social anxiety: To what extent do social situations make you uncomfortable?

  3. Feelings toward parents: Do you rely on family for social context?

  4. Degree of independence: How well do you cope with day-to-day living on your own?

  5. Knowledge of social etiquette: Do you know how to behave around others?

  6. Empathy: How easily can you see things from another’s point of view?

  In addressing these issues, you will begin to take a careful look at yourself as a social person. A key is included on p. 49. But there are no right or wrong answers. Think of the test as a series of statements that are true or false for you and you alone. Be as honest as you can.

  The Social Ability Questionnaire: An Index of Basic Skills

  Directions: Please read each statement carefully, and decide whether or not it describes you. Circle “T” for true, if the statement applies to you, and “F” for false, if it does not.

  T

  F

  1. I listen patiently to others, and try to see things from their points of view.

  T

  F

  2. I often think about my physical appearance and what kind of an impression I make on others.

  T

  F

  3. I am very uncomfortable talking about myself.

  T

  F

  4. I am good at knowing how much to share about myself: I know when to keep emotional distance, and when to speak intimately.

  T

  F

  5. I try to emphasize the positive in others when I confront them, rather than the negative, or things they do wrong.

  T

  F

  6. I am able to discuss openly the quality of my relationship to someone else in my conversations with him or her.

  T

  F

  7. I am prone to attacks of anxiety and don’t know how to control them.

  T

  F

  8. My values are unclear, and I often have difficulty in deciding which course of action is right and which is wrong.

  T

  F

  9. I sometimes think I’d be happier if I could exist all by myself.

  T

  F

  10. I don’t know how I will be able to survive after my parents die.

  T

  F

  11. I often feel that life is not worth living.

  T

  F

  12. I’m good at interacting with other people.

  T

  F

  13. I understand all the different roles I play in life.

  T

  F

  14. I’m uncomfortable at parties and large, noisy events.

  T

  F

  15. I have plenty of self-confidence.

  T

  F

  16. I am secure on my own, and don’t need any money from my parents.

  T

  F

  17. When I look at how things are going in my life, it’s hard to imagine that I will ever amount to anything.

  T

  F

  18. I have frequent bouts of nausea and vomiting, especially when I am forced to interact with people I’d prefer not to talk to.

  T

  F

  19. There is nothing that I think I do very well.

  T

  F

  20. I can place myself in someone else’s shoes and ask, “What would I do if I were him or her?”

  T

  F

  21. Before I challenge someone, I first try to understand him or her.

  T

  F

  22. When I’m in public, I often feel confused about how to act.

  T

  F

  23. I’m good at starting conversations with people I don’t know.

  T

  F

  24. I’m good at both speaking and listening to others.

  T

  F

  25. I’m good at knowing what to do in familiar surroundings, but the idea of doing something around people I don’t know terrifies me.

  T

  F

  26. When I meet someone new, after the first sentence or so, I don’t know what else to say.

  T

  F

  27. I am only able to get from place to place because my parents are willing to drive me.

  T

  F

  28. I like sharing: communicating thoughts and feelings to others.

  T

  F

  29. I understand the difference between a friend and an acquaintance.

  T

  F

  30. I understand what people are saying to me, but I’m often confused about their intentions and motivations.

  T

  F

  31. I have no significant: friendships or relationships outside my family.

  T

  F

  32. I often feel frustrated about my parents. They love me and protect me, but I get angry when they are overly protective of me.

  T

  F

  33. I would never admit it, but my parents give me the only strength and support: I receive.


  T

  F

  34. Sometimes I think I know someone, then all of a sudden I realize I don’t.

  T

  F

  35. If an opportunity came up for a date, I’m sure I could think of a place to go and a way to get there.

  THE RESULTS

  Only you know whether the answers you gave reflect your true self or a projection of the person you would like to be. Consider whether you have answered each question truthfully. Are your answers colored by your expectations of yourself? If you think you may not have been honest with yourself, then take the test again. When you are ready, check your responses against the key at the end of this chapter to gauge your level of sociability. To determine your rating, give yourself one point for each answer that corresponds with the key. Then add the points together to determine your final rating. The average score for individuals who have moderate social anxiety problems is 22.5.

  Interpreting Test Scores:

  Social Ability Level

  Score

  Low

  17 or below

  Medium

  18-27

  High

  28 or above

  A Note for Parents

  For people such as Jack, whose family was concerned that he depended excessively on his family relationships, it may take parental intervention to bring about healthy change. As I’ve said, there are many different levels of social functioning. In the case of adults with severe social anxiety problems, parental intervention is quite common (see Chapter 3 for more discussion of the parents’ role in social anxiety). For adolescents, parental involvement is also essential. In my clinical experience, highly to fully functioning people (levels four and five in this chapter) generally take the initiative to improve their interactive ability and stress management skills on their own, while low- to moderately functioning people (levels one and two) characteristically rely on a relative to facilitate healthy change. For those who function adequately (level three), there is a less defined pattern of behavior.

  If you have obtained this book for your adult child, please follow these guidelines in working with your son or daughter. As a parent, you have three roles in utilizing this test. First, take the test yourself, answering the questions as though you were your adult child. Second, administer the test to your son or daughter, explaining the directions and providing general guidelines. Emphasize that he or she is free to ask you to explain anything that is unclear. Third, and most important, you should use the test as a basis for a dialogue between the two of you. For example, look again at the questions that the two of you answered differently. Is your son or daughter ignoring a deficit in his or her social knowledge or ability? Are you? How does that particular question relate to a specific skill or attribute?

  ANSWER KEY TO THE SOCIAL ABILITY QUESTIONNAIRE

  1. T

  2. T

  3. F

  4. T

  5. T

  6. T

  7. F

  8. F

  9. F

  10. F

  11. F

  12. T

  13. T

  14. F

  15. T

  16. T

  17. F

  18. F

  19. F

  20. T

  21. T

  22. F

  23. T

  24. T

  25. F

  26. F

  27. F

  28. T

  29. T

  30. F

  31. F

  32. F

  33. F

  34. F

  35. T

  CHAPTER THREE

  Good Intentions: The Parents’ Role in Social Avoidance

  Over the years, I have encountered resistance and confusion when I talk about the role that parents play in the lives of socially anxious children and adults. But my clinical experience has confirmed that when social anxiety results in avoidance, dependence on others—usually parents or other relatives—is almost inevitable. What follows is aimed primarily at parents who are seeking help for a low- to moderately functioning child, adolescent, or adult. But adults on the higher end of the interactive spectrum who are seeking help on their own will also benefit from reading this chapter, which offers background information on how social anxiety develops. If you are a functioning to highly functioning adult in search of self-help, reflect back on the ways your parents may have helped to perpetuate your social avoidance, rescuing you from the situations that made you anxious instead of empowering you to confront them on your own.

  Over the past decades, Twelve-Step addiction programs and other treatment options have used the term enabling to describe the situation in which a relative or spouse helps to perpetuate an addiction. How does this concept apply to social anxiety? Avoiding the situations that cause anxiety is a kind of addiction—a habit almost too hard to break. How can parents and others enable an avoidance addict? Here is an example: A high school student feels ostracized on the school bus, so she persuades her mother to drive her to school every day. Her mother consents, knowing of her daughter’s anxiety but rationalizing that “the bus ride is awfully long, and it’s not out of my way to drive her.” Here is another example: A twenty-seven-year-old hotel catering executive becomes anxious when he has to write proposals to present to prospective clients. His assistant writes the proposals for him, allowing him to use her notes and take all the credit when the presentation rolls around. It’s easy to see from these examples the way in which avoidance and dependence go hand in hand. If you avoid doing something that must be done, someone else must necessarily step in and do it for you. (More on this in Chapter 4.)

  Parents in particular often confuse nurturing with rescuing. To nurture is to empower—to provide the skills and information that will eventually allow for independent, productive living. To rescue is to enable—to perpetuate avoidance of the situation that caused the anxiety in the first place. Empowering should be the overriding goal of every parent. Empowerment allows a child of whatever age to face fears and take responsibility for his or her life.

  Shannon, forty, was a prime example of someone whose parents were enabling her social avoidance and encouraging her dependence. Until three years earlier, Shannon had lived in an apartment a few blocks from her parents. But when her mother died, she and her father, who was sixty-three and in excellent health, agreed it would be “best” if she moved back home to help him run the household. Shannon had little time to date those days, spending her free hours entertaining her father’s friends or attending plays or concerts with him. She sometimes missed the companionship of her peers, but at other times said she had enough social contact at her job as a receptionist. It was true Shannon hadn’t been asked out in a while, and that injured her self-esteem. In fact, that was why she came to me, seeking a way to become more social. Her father’s response? “Why do you need to date? You’re so busy with other things.” Not only was her father enabling Shannon to avoid socializing with her own friends, he was creating a situation in which each depended on the other for all emotional support. Shannon’s father was in some ways lonely since her mother’s death, and he had confused his own need for companionship with his daughter’s dependence.

  In contrast, Bill, age twenty-eight, received the kind of empowering that enabled him to make a change for the better. He still lived at home with his mother, a travel agent, when he began taking classes to become a paralegal. At first, he was sluggish, taking only a class or two per semester and working one day a week in a convenience store. But his mother pressed him to arrange a better schedule that allowed him to progress through school at a faster pace and take on extra hours at work, which meant extra income for Bill, a portion of which his mother required him to pay toward household expenses. When his mother and her boyfriend traveled, they stopped including Bill, explaining to him that he was on his own, an adult, and could arrange his own trips when he could afford them. His mother knew what she was doing. By making it less and less conv
enient to live with her, she was showing Bill that he could have more independence, more freedom, if he lived on his own. Soon, Bill was able to find a roommate from the college. Eventually, he got a job as a paralegal and a place of his own. His mother had empowered him to become independent, and both were grateful for her courage and persistence.

  Parents themselves are often confused by the idea of enabling their children to avoid anxiety-producing situations. Recently, I received a call from the mother of a twenty-seven-year-old man inquiring about my sociability program. The first step, I told her, would be a consultation with her and her husband to discuss dependency issues relating to her son, who was still living at home and had little social contact outside of work. “I don’t understand,” she said. “My son is an adult. He’s twenty-seven years old. Shouldn’t you treat him independently? Why do you need to meet with us?”

  This question is typical, yet profound in its implications: In thirteen years of offering this therapy program, I have found that six out of ten calls come from parents concerned about their overly dependent—and not very social—children. Although there may be signs of “trouble” in childhood—few friends, a tendency to avoid peer situations, being a “loner”—the severity of the social anxiety problem may not be obvious to parents until it is almost too late. “He’ll grow out of it.” “She’s just going through a shy phase.” These statements—excuses, really—can often make a bad situation worse by allowing it to continue. Parents of preteens, adolescents, and adults who exhibit the symptoms of social anxiety we discussed in earlier chapters will find this chapter to be a practical guide toward helping their children to become independent, productive people.

  How do I determine whether a person is overly dependent on his or her parents? For one thing, if a person is independent enough—however anxious—to place a call to me on his own, then I feel comfortable meeting with him alone. (Similarly, if you have obtained this book on your own, you may well be capable of attaining a new level of social independence on your own, without directly involving your family in your self-help program.) But if it takes a parent to seek out help for an adolescent or adult child, then I feel that there are some dependency issues that must be clarified before treatment can begin. (In fact, even when an otherwise independent person relies on parents to pay for therapy, I am inclined to bring them in so that I can assess the degree of dependence that is present.) When a parent makes that phone call to me or obtains this book for a child, it could be the beginning of empowerment, of giving that child the tools for independent living. Or it could merely be a continuation of the enabling that has perpetuated the problem. The key lies in the follow-through. Later in this chapter, I’ll offer a set of guidelines that will help parents to become empowerers and abandon their role as enablers of social avoidance.