| View Larger Image | Diagonally-Parked in a Parallel Universe : Working Through Social Anxiety | Paperbackby S.A.Dayhoff (Author)
| List Price: | $19.95 | |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Effectiveness-Plus Publications | | Page Count: | 408 Pages | | Publication Date: | January 01, 2000 | | Sales Rank: | 208,235th |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
"Dear Social Anxiety Sufferers (Your Friends and Family), Everyone has experienced fleeting anxiety in social situations. But perhaps your self-consciousness intensely insinuates itself into one or more important aspects of your everyday life. If so, you likely suffer from the agonizing pangs of social fear. Perhaps you dread meeting people, giving a speech, using a public restroom, eating in public, talking to your boss, or having your social skills or work observed or your competence assessed. Or perhaps you feel threatened in new social situations where you don't know the rules, avoid such situations altogether, or just want to escape. We all experience social anxiety a little differently yet we're all riding the same skittish horse. When our social fears are intense and persistent, we have social anxiety disorder/social phobia (SA/SP - "sasp" for short). This means every day we're forced to confront the pain of being in the spotlight, evaluated, or being embarrassed by the very social situations we long to embrace. Socially we find ourselves on the periphery of life's dance, trying to follow the choreographed patterns and rhythm, but usually seeming to be one beat out of synch, zigging when we should zag. Often feeling like the butt of a cosmic joke, we see ourselves as the ball in a pinball machine, bouncing from bumper to bumper, missing targets, and always on the verge of "tilt." This is being diagonally-parked in a parallel universe. Clinically too, having SA/SP puts us in another dimension. Even though SA/SP is the most common anxiety disorder and the third most common psychiatric disorder after depression and alcoholism, it's the least-diagnosed, least-widely understood, and most under-treated. Few mental health professionals are well-versed in the condition or its treatment even as the number of sufferers continues to increase. Making our situation worse, most of us with SA/SP don't know we have a treatable disorder, that we're not "just shy," and that we can and need to get help. But even when we understand this, we're often reluctant to seek professional help because we're ashamed of the fear and worried that our complaints won't be taken seriously. Then, when we finally do muster the courage to do it, we're often hobbled by the very anxiety for which we seek help: Talking with and being evaluated by others. Together, these factors help keep this major health problem nearly invisible. This comprehensive book was written to show you how you can: *Significantly and effectively alleviate your SA/SP pain; *Significantly improve your daily functioning; and * Effectively work toward your potential. You benefit from the uniqueness of my perspective. I'm both a social psychologist working in the areas of social and personal effectiveness, interpersonal and presentation skills, and anxiety management and someone who has struggled for 22 years to successfully overcome SA/SP. (I used to worry endlessly about what others might think about me and my not meeting their expectations.) As a result, I understand how it feels to be living- and working through this often-incapacitating disorder and where we SA/SPers need to specifically concentrate our efforts to improve our lives. You benefit from my knowledge of SA/SPers' concerns, issues, and desires - the result of my two years of talking with and listening to SA/SPers online via lists, news groups, and chats. You benefit from my research, teaching, consulting, training, and coaching experience, as well as my association with professionals in the SA/SP trenches. To make your SA/SP more understandable and amenable to change, this book provides you with not only the theories and salient research on its origin, triggers, and maintaining mechanisms, but also a broad range of standard and alternative clinical approaches, life strategies, motivational exercises, and empathy. And because I know from extensive experience that your having exercises just thrown at you isn't likely to help you empower yourself and succeed, this book takes you back to square-one. It gives you the psychological preparation you need to jump-start, enable, and maintain your recovery process. Because we SA/SPers tend to have difficulties with clinicians, this book takes the mystery and risk out of locating and talking to them and guides you through the process: From initiating your search to surviving your first appointment. It tells you what to expect and how to prepare for it. Because we SA/SPers struggle with presenting ourselves socially (whether communicating, socializing, dating, or finding a job), this book addresses each significant life activity, breaks it down into sequential, digestible chunks so you can absorb, assimilate, and achieve it. And, because the Internet has great importance and value for SA/SPers as one of the few means of establishing relationships and comfortable communication we have, the book pinpoints the services and resources available for those with SA/SP. Since how you think, feel, and behave determines how you interact with your environment (and conversely), this book focuses on your perceptions, emotions, beliefs, and self-presentation. Using real-life stories, typical problems, and their solutions, the user-friendly format takes you logically, incrementally, step-by-baby-step through the multiple-level processes of your recovery. Through concise explanations, thought questions, self-quizzes, and exercises, you systematically develop and apply your cognitive and behavioral strategies to achieve your recovery goals. In this process you'll assess your social anxiety, determine where you're headed, how to get there, and how you'll know when you've arrived. You'll act as a scientist doing experiments. You'll learn, practice, and apply new skills that will constructively change the way you think about and cope with not only your SA/SP but also the world outside yourself. You'll see yourself make positive changes. Using this book's clinically-proven methods, you can reduce your: * anxiety and fear * depression * negative thinking * anger * loneliness * procrastination * shame and embarrassment and increase your: * motivation to make change * confidence and self-esteem * ability to handle stress * initiating and maintaining conversations * problem solving * decision making * expressing yourself appropriately * patience * listening to others * social effectiveness * dealing with criticism * dating * networking * creating your own job and career opportunities * understanding of social anxiety, yourself, and others. However, just reading this book isn't likely to ameliorate your SA/SP any more than just watching others exercise will cause you to lose weight and tone your body (although awareness may provide important identification, hints, and hope). The book's recovery program is action-oriented, requiring your active, committed, persistent participation in order for you to alter all those factors contributing to your SA/SP: Your automatic fear arousal, negative thoughts, mistaken beliefs and assumptions, unrealistic expectations, and counter-productive behaviors. Note: As much as we all may wish it to be true, there is no finger-snapping, lamp-rubbing, "Shazaam!" magical solution to SA/SP. It took many factors interacting over many years to bring you to your present state. So recovery will not be instantaneous. But if you take the time to make the necessary structured effort toward recovery (whether that includes therapy, medication, or both), you will quickly begin to experience small but significant changes in your thoughts, feelings, and behavior - glimpsing what it'll be like "without SA/SP." |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 174 reviews)
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Extremely Frustrating Read: Very Tangential by Nick  1 Stars
August 29, 2009
I am almost half-way through this book, and so far whatever help it offers is either never going to reveal itself, or I've lost my patience to discover it, because the author's writing style is amazingly tangential. This is more of a psych. textbook than a self-help book. He has managed to summarize every theory of social psychology and define every word he has typed thus far, but I still don't know how to be less socially anxious.
Imagine every sentence you read went something like this:
To change, we need to challenge our irrational beliefs.
Change
There are various theories on how one changes. Miller and Prochastka cite 4 critical stages of change:
1. Precontemplation
2. Contemplation
3. Action
4. Maintanence
Need
When we need something, it is more than just wanting something to happen. The ancient Mayas expressed needs by carving symbols of their needs into bamboo. Many people believe a bamboo is a plant, but is actually a type of grass. Bernstein & Miller polled 7,000 college students between the ages of 18-21 and asked them if bamboo is a plant or a grass and only 37% answered correctly.
Challenge
There are 14 leading theories on how we challenge something. Here is a quick synopsis of all 14:
This is an exaggeration obviously, but I swear, this is how the book reads, and it's maddening. He never gets to the point. It's just explanations of explanations. Plus, there are glaring spelling errors and other typos. Chapter 14 is titled, "Overcoming Sweating, Blushing and BB" and then on every page in that chapter, the title header mispells 'blushing' as 'blusing.' 'Blusing' wouldn't even make it through a spell-check, but somehow it made it to be printed on the header of every page of the chapter?
Any helpful info. one could distill from this bear of a book is lost by its expansiveness. After 137 difficult pages, I am overwhelmed with the 'why' and 'how' of my condition (and a lot of other useless information) but am so drained, if there is a 'so then...' I've lost the patience to read further to find it, AND I'm convinced that the 'so then' will be so wordy and convoluted, I won't know how to do it anyway.
Plus this beast was expensive! I want my money back.
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Beware...Another book with fake 5-star reviews by yanice 1 Stars
February 02, 2008
Yes, this book is very well reviwed...But take a closer look at those reviews.
The 5 star reviews are mostly by people who strangely only reviewed this book.
Others authors have used the same technique to trick people like us (Breaking the chain of low self esteem; Discipline...)
Don't be fooled.
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Frustrating to Read, but Informative by Alex Honda (Los Angeles, CA USA)  3 Stars
October 19, 2007
DIAGONALLY-PARKED IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE... by Signe A. Dayhoff is an informative book that explains social anxiety/social phobia (SA/SP) rather well. However, the haphazard way the book was put together keeps it from being any better than 3-stars.
First, the Bad--
***Continuous errors such as missing words, misspellings etc. which happen every two/three pages and you start to wonder about the author's credibility. Didn't this book have a proof-reader?
***The structure is questionable. The first half of the book is devoted to explaining SA/SP, relaxation techniques, cognitive behavior techniques and medication. Suddenly, the book shifts to dating, finding a job, marketing yourself and networking, which is fine. But then it goes on into chapters dealing with the physical symptoms of SA/SP, finding a doctor and what to expect when getting help. Again, these chapters are fine but when you're reading along and go from medication to dating, it's confusing. I was left thinking-shouldn't I at least have this problem under control before I start dating and networking?
The following are also problems with the book in my opinion:
***Image--there's a segment on physical appearance and the author states that people with SA/SP should keep their image up by not wearing "flamboyant clothes, have piercings, or oddly colored hair because this detracts from our positive image..." Excuse me, but positive image according to who? Society? The author's? Shouldn't we be more accepting of ourselves, whatever that may be, rather than trying to conform to some subjective idea of "normal?"
***Anger Management--BIG FAUX PAS--in this section the author suggests that when you get angry "you should take a time out and cool down" and one of the ways to calm down is driving somewhere. WRONG! Even the DMV handbook says you should not drive a car when you are upset or angry. It's even on the DMV test.
***Reward and Punishment--the author suggests to make lists and goals like reading this book in 2 weeks. Sounds reasonable, but in the previous chapter she writes that people with SA/SP have all or nothing thinking, which means that if you don't finish the book in 2 weeks you'll just abandon it altogether. But you make these lists, and if you complete the task you get a reward. If you don't, you have to punish yourself in some way. Dayhoff didn't go into what constitutes punishment, but I think people with this disorder have been punishing themselves long enough.
Now the Good---
***Good Descriptions--Plenty of examples and descriptions of what SA/SP is and uses stories from different people who suffer from it to illustrate the many forms the disorder can take.
***Terms for Negative Self-talk--provides terms and definitions of maladaptive thought patterns like "mental filter" that help you understand what is going on as soon as the thought pops into your head.
***Fear Assessment Exercise--this helps challenge irrational thoughts by questioning them on paper.
***Relaxation Techniques--Dayhoff gives different relaxation techniques for dealing with physical stress brought on by anxiety.
***Drug Info--Provides descriptions of the various drugs used to treat SA/SP, the side effects, and how they're supposed to help.
***Resource Guide--since this book was published in 2000, I'm not sure if most of the websites listed in the resource guide are still active but it's good that the author included them.
Anyway, the book is informative...but a chore to read.
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Not impressed by DC THERAPIST (DC)  2 Stars
November 03, 2006
I reviewed this book looking for material that would be helpful for patients who are suffering from social anxiety disorder. The book is poorly written, badly edited, and seems to go off topic many times in a seemingly effort to fill pages. It has some good information, but it would not be my first pick for seeking educational or support help.
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Very useful! by John R. Deffendall (Columbia, SC)  5 Stars
March 18, 2006
Suited for the average person, this book contains information on profesional help via medications and therapies, non-professional support, and self-help assesment tools.
The cartoons in the book don't rise to the level of the text.
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