Overcome Avoidance

Goal

To learn how to approach rather than avoid.

Overcoming Avoidance (Greenberger & Padesky, p. 187)

Learning to approach and cope with situations in which we feel anxious is a lasting and powerful way of eliminating anxiety. By gradually approaching what you fear, you can gather evidence about the accuracy of your expectations and replace avoidance with engagement.

Overcoming Avoidance Exercise (adapted from http://www.anxietybc.com/resources/anxiety.php)

Instructions: To help you identify situations that you avoid, try to come up with as many answers as possible to the following questions:

• If you woke up tomorrow morning and all your social anxiety had magically disappeared, what would you do?
• How would you act?
• How would someone close to you know you weren’t anxious about social situations?
• Finish this sentence: My social anxiety stops me from...
• Finish this sentence: When I am not anxious about social situations, I will be able to...