| I've used the same or a similar therapy to overcome my anxiety, yes. My therapist called it Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy, but I'm pretty sure it's approximately the same. The gist of it was this:
I FEEL anxious about going into social situations. Therefore, I need to use effective THOUGHTS and ACTIONS to help correct my defective EMOTIONS.
Start small. One of the problems I had with this method at first was that I felt like thinking "not-anxious thoughts" was like lying to myself. What good would it do to think, "I'm not anxious?" Pick something easier for your rational mind to believe, like, "Other people have overcome their anxiety like this. I have faith that I can too." If that's unbelievable for you, tone it down until you find something that works for you. As you see improvement, you can ramp up the intensity of your thinking.
Select actions that you can also use to overcome your anxiety. If you're too anxious to leave your apartment at all, go out and get the mail. If you're too anxious to go out in public, go have a burger at the food court at the mall. Whatever it is that makes you anxious, go and do something that's just a little bit outside of your comfort zone.
As you repeat your helpful thinking and engage in your helpful behaviours, allow yourself to enjoy an emotional victory, no matter how small the accomplishment is. Train yourself to feel HAPPY about doing what used to make you feel ANXIOUS.
Repetition is absolutely key. Write down your current motivational thought. Write it several times if you have to. Repeat it aloud daily before you do go out on your behaviour mission. Think it as often as necessary while you're out. (It won't take long before you hardly ever have to think it while you're out.)
As you accomplish more with this technique, your rate of success will accelerate because you will have more faith in your ability to change by using this method.
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Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
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CHAT