The test of social failure is a psychological training that allows an anxious person to make sure that the feeling of shame is unpleasant, but it can be experienced.
A man buys condoms in a pharmacy. “I want the smallest size!” he declares loudly, and then leaves without buying anything. Another man is reading the book The Gases We Give Off on the subway. A woman in a restaurant asks an unfamiliar company at the next table: “Do you know the name of the actor, well, in this film, oh, did you forget the name?” Who are all these weirdos? Oddly enough, these are people suffering from social anxiety. And they do everything described above in the framework of group cognitive-behavioral therapy.
In general, working with social anxiety or a phobia requires special care. You can not put the client in a position that can cause condemnation and thereby confirm his fears. And confidence training, on the contrary, encourages shy people to read poetry on the subway and wear provocative outfits. It helped some, but more often the result was deplorable. I remember how one zealous “colleague” made his patient smear red face paint and go out in this form in order to overcome the fear of redness. After hearing a lot of interesting things about himself from passers-by, the patient stopped therapy.
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However, recently Stefan G. Hofmann, one of the leading experts in the treatment of social anxiety, has included a “test of social failure” in his group program. During the first 7-8 sessions, participants carefully study and work through the nature of their fears: their beliefs and expectations. And only then, together with a psychologist, they develop behavioral experiments, including situations that are deliberately embarrassing. This allows an anxious person, on the one hand, to check whether others will condemn him, and on the other hand, to make sure that the feeling of shame is unpleasant, but it can be experienced. Hofmann himself half-jokingly, half-seriously says that behavioral experiments can be anything, as long as they do not lead to four events: death, divorce, dismissal and imprisonment. His program has become popular among specialists, and despite its apparent “radicality”, its participants are much less likely to refuse therapy compared to other programs.
But I think that all of us, even those who do not suffer from shyness or social anxiety, sometimes it is useful to step out of the usual role of a “decent person”. Do something out of the ordinary. Jump on one leg, wave your bag hard, or twist in place. And make sure people don’t throw their fists at you, and the feeling of shame passes faster than you thought. This will help at least for a while to feel complete freedom. Freedom to be different.
* Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 2013, № 20.