# Therapies / approaches I tried for my SA symptoms



## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

Some people have asked which therapeutic approaches I have tried, so thought I would post. Some are things I had formal long term therapy in, others are things I tried for months or years at a time on my own. Since I was 15 (I am 30 now) I have had/tried:

Simple counselling
Hypnotherapy
Self hypnosis
NLP (I went on a master practitioner training course too)
I have 65 social skills, influencing, negotiation, meditation and dating books and applied all the writing in them
I have more than 70 books on psychology, neurology, biopsychology, philosophy, compassion and recovery
I have more than 20 books on miltary strategy, spycraft and control of fear in situations of war and hostage
I have read countless academic articles on many schools of therapy and research
Rogerian Therapy
REBT (Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy)
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
CBT
CBT with mindfulness
CBT with compassion
Applied Kinesiology
Chakra healing
Psychic healing
"Pick-up" approaches (about 10 e-books and a lot of trawling websites and 'in the field' practice both alone and with 'wingmen')
Social skills training seminars (including a dating boot camp with a major 'pick up artist' school from the internet)
Psychodynamic Therapy
Dietary changes and restrictions
Numerous supplements and vitamins cocktails
Homeopathy
Prayer
Schema Therapy
Numerous psychiatric assessments both by NHS and private clinicians
Effexor
Citalopram (Celexa)
Reboxetine
Paxil
Temazepam
Propranolol (Inderal)
Toastmasters
Simple exposure
Sexual therapies (no I am not revealing more  )

Some have been more helpful than others (mainly CBT and schema which have done about 80% of the job) but each has contributed to an understanding of myself and emotional problems / emotions as a whole

I have also been the lucky recipient of many diagnoses, including Major Depression, Acute stress reaction, panic disorder, clinical depression, anxiety, social anxiety, dysthymia and borderline personality disorder (low end spectrum). I overcame SA and depression for a year in 2003 and then saw relapse, due to underlying BPD. I fully overcame my SA after its root was exposed (through compassion based CBT combined with The Clark and Wells method) last December and am now working with schema on my BPD.

To top it off I went skydiving and rockclimbing to overcome a fear of heights, and I took up martial arts (Thai boxing, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Wing Chun Kung Fu, Semi-contact kick boxing) to overcome a fear of confrontation and violence. Oh I also tried moving 650 miles from home thinking that would help, but apparently emotional problems live inside (not outside) and so they followed me, little tinkers.

I think thats the lot ... will add any more I remember  Haha its my Nutso Resume :lol


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## ~AJ~ (Jan 23, 2008)

wow


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## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

I thought that when I typed it! I had forgotten about a lot of these!


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## tomcoldaba (Jul 1, 2007)

Very Impressive indeed.

Please do not consider this rude. How about trying acceptance. You accept you have SA. Try to manage it rather than conquer it. 

In this months Pyschology Today there is an essay on losing. The author says that if you accept your loss and move on, you will be happier than if you hate yourself for losing. Your thoughts??


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## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

I overcame my SA! Back in December last year  Acceptance was part of CBT and mindfulness / compassion. I agree, its a huge part of getting better. Right now I am being treated for BPD, and acceptance is almost the first stage of the therapy TBH. Its also the reason Ive not been to TM yet - I have kind of had to put life on hold for a bit whilst I start to adjust to things.

But yes spot on again TCA! (I just realised that your 'initials' are the abbreviation for an antidepressant. How cool is that?  )


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## AndyLT (Oct 8, 2007)

yeah_yeah_yeah said:


> <.. and I took up martial arts (Thai boxing, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Wing Chun Kung Fu, Semi-contact kick boxing) to overcome a fear of confrontation and violence.


This is what i plan to do. To make it easier and kinda more brutal, i want to arrange fights with my buddies similar to UFC.

Most of you may think that this is insane. But deep inside i feel that physical pain could be a good treatment for me.
I want to see blood on my face and on my opponent's face. :boogie

So Ross, was it helpful?


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## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

If fighting excites you, then a career as a UFC fighter could be on the cards! But you would need to work like hell for 2 years straight to have any chance. I do think that this is a big part of your mistrust and abuse problems - and in effect beating others will simply be schema perpetutation, that is - you abusing others. This is a common reaction to this schema and is just as unhealthy as being the victim.

I took up martial arts because I felt I was unable to defend myself, and now I feel more able to. However I still have the paranoid elements of BPD to contend with and has definitely done little to prevent them. If anything it tends to fuel the 'fantasies' that come up as I visualise myself snapping the arm of some dude who I felt might be a potential mugger. Healthy it is not ... so, I think its good to learn martial arts, but I think what you want to do with it is iffy as all hell  :afr Dude, blood? Come on, you know thats not healthy ... even though it may feel good.

Sorry just my opinion ... if you win UFC PM me and laugh in my face


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## AndyLT (Oct 8, 2007)

Hehe, i don't plan to become UFC fighter. 
I meant, that i'd like to do something similar to UFC with my buddies. You know... backyard stuff.

I don't see how a fight where both fighters fight and respect the rules of a fair fight can be unhealthy to one's mind or spirit. I believe that my inner ancient warrior needs to know that i'm capable of enduring pain and capable of inflicting pain. I know... i know... rather rough stuff. 

If anyone supports this thinking, take a look at Silicon Valley's Fight Club (NSFW):
http://valleywag.com/385563/meet-silico ... -club-nsfw


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## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

Here is my reasoning why I think for YOU, its a bad idea. You can of course ignore it ..

1. At the moment its highly likely you have a mistrust and abuse schema
2. This schema tells you that the world is unsafe and people will hurt you
3. You feel afraid and want to defend yourself
4. The 'cure' is to see that the world is not unsafe, or at least nowhere near as unsafe as it feels to you
5. Being rude to people and learning to fight is OVERCOMPENSATING for the schema - it is saying "ha! well I will show you i AM NOT AFRAID by learning to fight and be just as aggressive as I feel the world is to me". 
6. You feel more able to handle aggression, and you may even experience more of it as a rsult of your new found confidence. All of these actions reinforce the notion that the world is unsafe - you just happen to be overcompensating instead of avoiding. You may feel you can intimidate people more and so they will back off and res[ect you. But what about the relartionships you wanted to make? Does this course of action, with your focus on being aggressive to potential abusers, help you make relationships, or in fact to destroy them? Can you believe that when I started threatening people I thought were abusing me, I lost more friends than Ive gained - including the ones that were not 'abusing' me?
7. In social situations where you cannot use aggression as a compensation, you will still have to resort to avoidance or surrender, or being rude (overcompensation again)

Effectively, you reinforce the schema by following the fighting route, no matter who you do it with. Your path to overcoming your mistrust in social settings is to learn to not view others as dominating and controlling, to stop 'hunting' for signals you are being oppressed or abused, and to learn an alternive reaction to going on the defensive. Beating the crap out of your mates will not give you any of these. Its possible a martial art with strong discipline like aikido may, however. But I think doing an Ed Norton and flooring some dude in your back yard (however glamorous that movie may have seemed) is not going to help you. I have been doing mrtail arts for years and I am still just as afraid on the streets as before - its just that now my fear includes "will I pull off that strike correctly and take him down in one go" when in fact the guy was probably thinking about pizza. Do you see that inside your mind the world is an aggressive place where people bleed and get hurt - and now you are considering taking part in something where that very thing is the point of the activity? This is the Repetition Compulsion. People who have been abused very frequently get it and it is also a symptom of acute PTSD. It serves to keep the problem growing. But of course you have the right to self define, to follow the path that you think works for you. It hasnt worked for me, and I think most would agree that it sounds very unhealthy - however weak, cosseted, western or liberal you may view people for holding that view.

There ya go, those are my thoughts, Take or leave em. Do the fighting, but if you are doing it ONLY to overcome your SA, then you are shooting yourself in the foot IMO. Yes I did all those things .. and many of them are in that list because I am trying to make the point that only a few things work. As I just said, some actually made me worse, even though they felt utterly tantalising and liberating at the time.

Sorry dude

Ross


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## AndyLT (Oct 8, 2007)

Thanks for a detailed response. 
I have mixed feelings about it now, so i'll respond to you or to myself later.


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## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

Thanks Andy .. I was worried how you might reply! :hs


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## Pinzelhead (Mar 14, 2007)

yeah_yeah_yeah said:


> Some people have asked which therapeutic approaches I have tried, so thought I would post. Some are things I had formal long term therapy in, others are things I tried for months or years at a time on my own. Since I was 15 (I am 30 now) I have had/tried:
> 
> Simple counselling
> Hypnotherapy
> ...


1. How did self-hypnosis work for you ?

2. Whats a few of the best social skills books you would recommend or that have helped you out ?

3. What would be the best dating book(s) you would recommend or that have helped you out ?

4. Just out of curiosty, in therapy what would be the earliest memory a person would likely recall without the aid of hypnosis ?

5. I know I may be risking another banning from this site but you said you wont reveal anything more about the sexual therapies you tried but I heard that sexual surrogate therapy has been successful in extingushing general interpersonal anxieties vis-a-vis the other gender in very shy, male virgins. If you did try it did it help ?

6. I was a bit disappointed that the schema questionnaire didn't include anything about peer interaction. Does such a thing exist ?

7. Is it possible for a schema to develop later in life, like say around 30 years of age ?

8. I don't know if this makes any sense but do have any explaination as to why social anxiety disorder manifests usually in middle to later adolescence rather than straight after the core experience(s).


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## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

1. How did self-hypnosis work for you ?

It was enjoyable and probably fed into the mindfulness skills I now use. It was a very small piece of the puzzle

2. Whats a few of the best social skills books you would recommend or that have helped you out ?

I dont believe in social skills books at all. For me the key was understanding what was missing from my life, what I needed, and then simply being able to react to people out of a sense of calm and genuineness. Social Skills books and classes made me worse in every way

3. What would be the best dating book(s) you would recommend or that have helped you out ?

Again, the books all made me worse. I took one principle from those books - that dating and romance is about communicating on an emotional level. The books are good for giving you a slight "get on with it" kick, but again I belive that working on your own internal emotional landscape eclipses everything else. Once you do this the 'skills' just come, and if not you leanr them quickly now you have a stable base

4. Just out of curiosty, in therapy what would be the earliest memory a person would likely recall without the aid of hypnosis ?

I havent done this so I cant tell you. All of my memory recall has been done with pen and paper and my own meditation. Hypnosis assisted therapies were dropped after a high rate of 'False Memories' were observed

5. I know I may be risking another banning from this site but you said you wont reveal anything more about the sexual therapies you tried but I heard that sexual surrogate therapy has been successful in extingushing general interpersonal anxieties vis-a-vis the other gender in very shy, male virgins. If you did try it did it help ?

It wasnt that kind of thing. Im not saying any more because it personal

6. I was a bit disappointed that the schema questionnaire didn't include anything about peer interaction. Does such a thing exist ?

The whole thing about schema is that it covers human relationships. Each schema can manifest iteself in ANY human interaction scenario, its a case of understanding the schemas and how they relate to you. Reading up will help. The one schema that its possible to get later in life is the Social Exclusion schema. All the rest are based on childhood experiences. If you were in therapy the therapist would take a complete life history going back to birth in order to identify potentially traumatic events, as well as any LACK of something that was needed, and wasnt given (eg validation, freedom of emotional expression, autonomy), and not just obvious trauma. Trauma also includes witnessing traumatic events done to others.

7. Is it possible for a schema to develop later in life, like say around 30 years of age ?

Schemas about all things develop all the time, but at their core and for this application, schemas are considered to be BROAD personality traits. They are maladaptive when they cause you to use coping behaviours which keep the problem occurring and cause dysfunction, unhappiness and poor relationships. You can have a schema about foreign people and this may not bother you much, unless you start to work in an immigration dept. Its the ones that cause the most basic functions - living and connecting with other human beings on a day to day basis - that are the subject of therapy

8. I don't know if this makes any sense but do have any explaination as to why social anxiety disorder manifests usually in middle to later adolescence rather than straight after the core experience(s)

When we are born, the brain is not complete. Areas of the frontal cortex emerge undeveloped - they are like a clay that the experiences of life are mapped onto. As they do, these areas of the brain grow along with the rest of the brain. After birth, the brain increases in size fourfold between birth and age 8. At each stage of development, different abilities emerge. In the years of 10-12, around the onset of puberty, the part of the brain responsible for perception of the SELF as a social being begins to develop. The interactions at school begin to colour the parts of the brain, again within the cortex and the limbic system (amygdala, hippocampus and temporal lobe). As I said before, this process will build on any strength or lack that already exists - but similarly at this stage YES if there are enough negative inputs, or a lack of necessary supportive ones, then problems can arise here. However it is only once the SELF AS SOCIAL BEING stage is complete duriing the middle part of adolescence that the traits of SA can appear. Before this, shyness in children will manifest more as crying, temper tantrums, not wanting change in their lives and clinging. Frequent bed wetting also is common. As the brain function develops, so the expression of underlying diffculties changes.

I think you would very much like titles on child developmental psychology. Maybe start with John Bowlby (attachment theory) and then work from there.


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## SBP21 (Jul 21, 2006)

Hi Yeah_Yeah_Yeah,

First of all...congrats on overcoming SA! I am well on my way, and have tried many of the things on your list as well. I have found individual CBT & group CBT to be the most helpful. Luckily after years of suffering, I found a great therapist that specializes in SA. 

Anyway, I'm interested in this schema stuff. Where can I find the schema questionnaire? Is there a good book on this topic that you can recommend? 

Thanks!
Sarah


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## SBP21 (Jul 21, 2006)

Never mind..I found the questionnaire. Off to go take it. Thanks!


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## StimulateYourBrain (Nov 20, 2011)

any one know what rosses root of SA was?


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