Dying of Embarrassment: Help for Social Anxiety and Phobia
In this Dying of Embarrassment Review, you’ll learn about this classic social anxiety book and how it can help you recover.
The first thing you’ll notice about Dying of Embarrassment by Barbara G. Markway, PhD et al is the sub-heading. Social phobia is an older term for social anxiety disorder. That tells you that this book has been around for a while. In fact, it was one of the first books for overcoming social anxiety to hit the market.
The Basics of Social Anxiety
The first section explains what social phobia is, framing it as fear of disapproval. This section includes examples of specific situational types of social anxiety, a description of generalized social anxiety, common symptoms, and causes. The part on causes is fairly detailed and includes biological and environmental causes.
The second section focuses on preparing for recovery, starting with the essential step of creating goals. Goals include both changing behavior and reducing feelings of anxiety.
Side note: Since doing more extensive work, I no longer advocate for phrasing goals in terms of feelings. I explain this extensively in my post about smart goals.
She does say that getting rid of anxiety completely may be unrealistic. That’s an important point to understand. You’ll learn why that is and why you’ll be OK even with a little anxiety.
The Main Tools for Overcoming Social Anxiety
Next she teaches skills to manage the fear of disapproval. You can manage physical symptoms (like shaking and sweating) and thoughts that contribute to the fear.
One way to manage physical symptoms is “paced breathing” (also called diaphragmatic breathing). I appreciate that there is so much attention on this, because a lot of people tend to minimize and dismiss the power of breathing in controlling anxiety symptoms. If you decide to read this book, don’t skip over this part!
For managing thoughts, you will learn the basics of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for social anxiety. Identify your thoughts, identify the unhelpful beliefs supporting those thoughts, and change them. If you have social anxiety and are not familiar with CBT, you are missing out on an essential tool. We all have built-in assumptions that affect everything we think, say, and do. Yet we don’t know what those assumptions are. Working through CBT will help you see things differently.
Then you can work on facing your fear of disapproval. This consists of creating exposure hierarchies and gradually facing feared situations. Exposure therapy for social anxiety is a mainstay in recovery. There is definitely a right way and a wrong way to do this. This book thoroughly explains the process. I have a similar process and you can also detailed instructions here.
Dying of Embarrassment also examines commonly accompanying problems, like poor social skills, depression, and substance abuse. You will also learn about medications and therapy.
Pros: What I Liked About Dying of Embarrassment
- Lots of different case stories showing different types of social anxiety situations. That’s important because social anxiety doesn’t show up the same for everyone. People often reject generalized advice. Instead, they look for stories that sound just like their own. This book has plenty.
- Very encouraging and supportive tone, offering hope to even severe cases of social anxiety
- Good information on causes. Most people with social anxiety want to know where it came from for them personally. The truth is that you can make great progress without knowing for sure but if you want to understand what research says they provide good explanations
- Solid information on CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)
Cons : What Could Be Better
- Because this was published in the early 90s it has some outdated scenarios and language. To me that doesn’t take away from anything but for some people it might. And if you are interested in up to date research, you’ll need a different reference.
- As with all CBT advice it can sound a little hollow if your issue is more in your body and less about thoughts. Thoughts and beliefs are always underlying of course, but it can take some digging to get at them. The root of social anxiety is framed as fear of disapproval and exaggeration of social danger. Social danger can be exaggerated by either over-estimating how likely it is to occur or how bad it would be if it did occur. But what if your experience is immediate shaking, heart racing, blushing, and sweating even entering a room? You are not consciously fearing disapproval and CBT advice to change your thoughts can seem meaningless. Especially when people are commenting on your signs of anxiety!
Who This Book is Best For
- Great for an overview of social anxiety causes, symptoms, self-help with CBT, and explanation of other treatments.
- People who are willing to commit to the exercises (as with any self-help book)
- Those who are just starting or mid-way through their recovery
- A companion to formal therapy
Where to Get It
If this sound like the right fit for you, here is the link: Dying of Embarrassment: Help for Social Anxiety and Phobia.
Disclosure: This is an affiliate link. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you.
Final Thoughts
Dying of Embarrassment: Help for Social Anxiety and Phobia is a solid book for understanding and managing social anxiety disorder. It offers practical advice on identifying common unhelpful thought patterns and ways to change your thoughts and beliefs. If you follow the advice, set goals, and stick with them, you will improve.
It was one of the first books I ever read about social anxiety, and it still has lessons I come back to.
