From personal experience, I agree with almost everything Carrie says
in the message below. In particular I agree it is a good idea to
have a list of activites varying in difficulty from 0 to 100, and
working your way up (slowly) through the list. This is something
you can do yourself, or with ideas from this group.

Regarding the son that can't go to interviews, the first question I'd
ask is "is he motivated to improve in this area"? If so, then I'd
draw up a list of activities that are of varying degrees of difficulty,
ranging from what he does now at the low end, and a job interview
at the high end. I bet you could find at least 20 different activites
along this spectrum. If not, ask this group as we can make
suggestions.

If he's not motivated to work on this, I'm afraid I can't be of much
help. That sort of thing is a mystery to me, but psychologists may
understand it better.

One way for non-shy people to understand the problem and solution
is to pick something they totally hate. For instance, drinking a
milkshake made out of milk, ground beef, and clay. If it was
really important for you to learn to drink this without gagging,
you'd probably start by taking a small sip each day.
Or, you could drink a milkshake with only a small amount
of ground beef added. They add a little more each day. That's sort
of what I, as a shy person, do when working up to stressful or
disagreeable social situations. In my experience it works quite well,
but takes weeks, months, or years depending upon what I'm working
up to. But it does work so well, in fact, that I'm pretty sure I
could apply the same techniques and learn to at least mildly enjoy
that wierd milk shake.

--Bob

--- Carrie Hardin <suzzyq101@...> wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm 19 and have social phobia and totally understand what your son is
> going
> through. First of all you need to make sure you are there for him to
> talk
> to about this problem. I always feel better whenever I talk to my
> mom and
> she just listens. I really don't like it whenever she tells me it's
> "all in
> my head" and that I'm just like everyone else though, so steer clear
> of
> that. The thing is that it is hard for other people to imagine what
> it's
> like to have social phobia, and how it affects your life. They may
> think
> "what's so hard about talking?" That's what my parents say to me all
> the
> time, so I know it's hard for them to understand it. The thing is
> it's hard
> for me to understand it too. I know it's not normal, and I'm not
> happy
> about it, but it's very hard to overcome.
> I got to the point where I really couldn't handle it anymore and
> begged my
> parents to let me see a psychologist. They finally agreed, and I
> really
> think it would have helped alot if I would have stuck with it. She
> explained the process she used like this:
> whenever you enter a room for the first time and something smells
> bad, you
> will notice at first, but everytime after that you notice it less and
> less
> until you barely notice it at all. This is the same type of thing
> that
> happens whenever you gradually expose yourself to frightening
> situations -
> in this case social situations. So we sat down and built a hierarchy
> of the
> types of social situations that frightened me 0 pts being no fear and
> 100
> being as fearful as I could possibly imagine. From there I set a
> goal
> everyweek working from the bottom up, working on that particular
> situation
> until I felt I had mastered it. It actually did seem to be working,
> but
> unfortunately my parents quit paying for my visits. In the time that
> I was
> seeing the psychologist, I also decided to see a psychiatrist who
> prescribed
> me celexa. Of couse she started me out slowly with a small dose to
> make
> sure there were no side effects and then upped it. I really feel
> better,
> since I've been taking it, and my parents said I even act alot
> friendlier.
> I know I feel less depressed and like I'm more in control of my
> social
> situations.
> Some may view the medication as simply a "quick fix", but, according
> to my
> psychologist, with cognitive therapy alongside it, there's a slight
> chance
> that the medicine may not be needed later in life. In that case the
> medicine would be used only as a starter, just to get the person into
> the
> social situation. It is really easy to just decide to take the
> medicine
> since it works so well, but it really is best to get the cognitive
> therapy
> too.
> Another option is group therapy. In this case he could meet other
> people
> with the same worries and concerns as he has, and learn how to face
> those
> problems with the support of each other. I haven’t actually tried
> this
> myself, but I really think it would show a lot of good results.
> Of couse none of it will work if your son doesn't agree to it, so you
> should
> really talk to him about it first.
> If he doesn’t agree to any of that, you might consider talking to him
> about
> helping other people. I find that if I’m concentrating on helping
> others,
> that I spend less time worrying about my own problem and it helps me
> to feel
> normal.
> I really hope that this helps.
> --- carrie
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >From: "jonmic1 <jonmic1@...>" <jonmic1@...>
> >Reply-To: SocialFitnessForum@yahoogroups.com
> >To: SocialFitnessForum@yahoogroups.com
> >Subject: [SocialFitnessForum] need help
> >Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 04:21:28 -0000
> >
> >My son is 21 and suffers from social phobia. He drives around and
> >leves the house and all that. But cannot seem to deal with people,
> >does not want a job because he can't handle the interview process. I
> >quess what I'm asking does anyone have any advise on the parents as
> t
> >owhat are some tips. We love him and right now totally support him
> >financially. Thank you in advance
> >
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
> http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> SocialFitnessForum-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>


=====
+---------------------------------------------------------+
| Bob Mayo Home/Cell: 650.996.1895 |
| http://www.bobmayo.com/ Fax: 707.221.1485 |
| Email: sigbob(at)bobmayo.com |
| Cell Phone Text Messages: sigphone(at)bobmayo.com |
+---------------------------------------------------------+