^ good post, but would like to add to it, I agree regarding needing to put work in it and I disagree regarding the need to think more, put too much energy.
Too much thinking can often cause anxiety, and anxiety is one of the biggest preventer of change.
The locust of control is more important here, do people frame themselves as victims of the situation? Previous experiences changes our beliefs in what we can control and what we can't.
I think people generally have an erroneous belief in willpower in that it is unlimited, in rational thinking it seems we have unlimited tries and unlimited restarts, but the truth is every bit of negative experience will linger in the back of your mind, again I blame our popular culture somewhat for our "follow your dreams" culture, and looking down on you if you turn away from something.
There is an idolisation of fail again and fail again, successful and positive people actually DONT, FAIL MUCH, actually, if they did they quickly changed to something they are good at. This model of torturing your mind with failure until eventually you come up with a solution, doesn't always work because the mind is fragile emotionally. It's normal for most people to give up on something after failing 3-5 hard tries. The error is some people THINK it's their FAULT.
Its easy for the rational mind to think "we only need to try enough, or a different way", sometimes the hardest and best thing is to give up and leave a unwinnable situation, again I think the complexities of each individual and situation (especially if its severe like neuronal dysfunction) makes it hard for a average psychologist to be worth the money.
The paradigm shift is that thinking "we need to do more" is often a coping mechanism for previous failures and desires. Our brains are obsessed with failure because we do not want the same thing from happening again, but this can be a trap in scenarios where "trying harder" is not possible. This can generally lead to some very needy and negative driven behaviour.
Recovery and freedom is gained from not associating your actions with the judgements and behaviour of yourself and others, this "decoupling" is crucial to autonomy in the cases of negative thinking and behaviours. Thats why "not giving a shit" is such great therapy for some, or drugs that cause such behaviour. To me our brain is most open to change when feeling good and relaxed, not the other way around.
You can't say absolutely the same for a trainer, yes the client has to put the effort in in both cases, but physical conditioning is a much straightforward affair than fixing/changing the mind.
I see what you're saying, but I don't agree with equating lots of rational thinking with real-world failure or success. I actually disagree with the whole "exposure" therapy thing; I think it's neurotic and needy and skims past the real problem. For example, CBT teaches people with social anxiety to expose themselves to various social situations to acclimate themselves and lessen anxiety over time. This is an okay strategy, but if used alone it's doomed to failure.
When I think of this strategy, I think of young guys (like myself) who follow advice from those PUA gurus who send people out like fighter jets to approach, approach, and approach again. "Get used to it. The more you fail, the more comfortable you'll be." As I said, this is an okay strategy but if used alone, it's nonsense. You're still trying to seek approval and affirmation from people, which is the core problem of why you have SA in the first place. Personally, when I had intense social anxiety in late teens/ early twenties, all this approach stuff just made the problem worse. What has nearly obliterated my social anxiety was stopping that nonsense, and doing some deep thinking regarding what my true strengths and interests in life were, and to concentrate on those. Doing so brought me pleasure in life, so I didn't need to GET it as much from other people. I didn't live for what other people thought of me, so paradoxically this lessened my social anxiety! And I did the opposite of what CBT tell you to do, and I isolated myself! (Of course, this eventually leads to other problems, but you get the point I'm trying to make). This is what I mean by "effort." Exposure therapy is a mindless strategy, but sitting down, reading books, trying to understand and accept yourself, and working to change your own values/ beliefs about yourself and the world - THAT is real work/ effort.
So when I say there needs to be a lot of rational thinking applied and effort exerted, I mean more in the sense of, in this example, trying to understand why you even think of your social anxiety as a negative. Are you aware of the positives of a person with social anxiety? Do you know the evolutionary causes of social anxiety? Why do you feel you should be exempt of having social anxiety? If all the great scientists weren't at least a little socially awkward, those negative experiences probably never would have funnelled them into finding and working with their strengths. So maybe you need to stop fighting against this, and focus on finding your own personal sources of joy in life.
Hopefully this clarifies. Great discussion!
Edit: So to sum up, if this hypothetical person with social anxiety visits your average psychologist, he'd get recommended a short-term action-intensive therapy, such as exposure therapy. The only "thinking" generated would be regarding the particular thought patterns you had while in the social situation, so as to correct them, hence cognitive-behavioural therapy. But no real transformation with the person is done. Why? As I said before... too much time and money. Or maybe the psychologist doesn't know any other way, who knows. Point is, it's up to you to make the real transformation.
My personal opinion is that a psychological disorder like social anxiety is a by-product of low-social rank. Evolution has kept SA in the gene pool because our species needs the "followers" and "worker-bees" of society to function optimally. This means that it's in your DNA to have social anxiety. As soon as you were born and thrust into the social hierarchy at school, you were starting to show signs of seeking approval, hesitating before speaking, social inhibition, etc., while other kids from families higher up the social ladder were running around the classroom saying "I"m here, look at me!" This is because it's in THEIR constitution to be more of a leader.
As your life progressed, your vague sense of inadequacy and inferiority was confirmed by the advanced intelligence, sense of style, material possessions, and personality attributes of the other kids. So you might spend your whole adolescence feeling inadequate, so you submit to others more confident then you are. You start developing patterns of approval seeking and self-negation, which further reinforces your somewhat genetically determined feeling of low self worth. This is why I think it's nonsense to put your typical young person with social anxiety into an exposure therapy regimen! Because it reinforces the core belief that they NEED approval and acceptance from other people to feel okay, to feel worthy. But if that same person were to study the evolutionary genesis of his condition, he would come to understand that it's not "his" problem. It's not "his" fault.
And maybe through further development of his intellect will he learn the fallacy in comparing himself to other people. He will come to laugh at his prior needy behaviour. In a sense, it's his pre-frontal cortex that in time will OVERRIDE the biological mechanism that used to constantly fire off alerting him to be submissive and agreeable so he's not thrown out of the social group and left to die. This is why intelligent people don't usually have something like social anxiety, because their thinking is too developed to give that kind of thought any weight. But a person who comes from a family of general low social rank, will probably not have a developed intellect from the get-go... developing one takes time, effort, money, etc. - the factors I stated before.
So this is what I mean by real, personal transformation. Your average kid with social anxiety is not going to take the time out to truly understand his condition, and to further his intellectual growth in the direction of truly changing/ challenging his values, e.g. why do I need other people's approval to feel okay? Your average medical doctor, for example, or politician, or entrepreneur, is not going to have social anxiety because he spends so much time thinking about more complex things unrelated to his own self-absorbed self. And not only that, he has gained so much self-esteem from developing his intellect and furthering his feeling of competency in life, that he wouldn't need anyone's approval anyway. But going back to your avg. kid with social anxiety, he's not thinking about problems that are bigger than him in life, his thought process is focused on what the store clerk is thinking of me when I buy my groceries.
Edited by pheanix997, 27 July 2014 - 02:21 PM.
. 
