Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness by Gillian Butler

Butler, G. (1999) Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness: A self-help guide using cognitive behavioural techniques. Constable and Robinson

In 1993 Professor Peter Cooper initiated a series of self-driven Cognitive Behavioural courses starting with his own book on bulimia nervosa and binge eating. This was followed by other titles each one written by an experienced clinician specialising in a particular problem. Today I plan to review Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness by consultant clinical psychologist Dr Gillian Butler.

First the title: this in itself needs some explanation. The book is written for anyone suffering from the symptoms of shyness or social anxiety – Therefore you do not necessarily need a clinical diagnosis of Social Phobia to benefit from the advice given. The book opens with a short introduction to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, written by Professor Cooper; this will prove useful to anyone not familiar with this type treatment. The rest of Dr Butler’s book is split into three parts, which we shall examine in more detail:

Part One Understanding Social Anxiety
This explains the symptoms and possible causes of shyness and social anxiety. Although the information on shyness is scant and frustrating at times it is in-line with the state of knowledge at the time of writing. The explanation of social anxiety and the difference between this and Social Phobia is made very clear and anyone who has felt different in the past should read this if only to see how common their thoughts and feelings really are. However, her idea that social anxiety is caused be by a highly active arousal system is yet to be proven. It is also equally likely that the prefrontal cortex play a role too as the problem seems to stem from ‘cognitions’ (thoughts) even when the stimulus is removed. (Think about arachnophobia and how some people can become aroused even by thinking about spiders). Moving deeper in to the book, Dr Butler uses plain English and the Clark and Wells ‘model of social anxiety’ to demonstrate the various aspects which makes the condition so difficult to treat with conventional techniques. All in all the book is worth buying for this section alone.

Part Two Overcoming Social Anxiety
Part two begins with a short chapter on how to use the course. Unfortunately Dr Butler as with a lot of ‘self-help’ writers has failed to understand the true needs of the reader and has therefore over-simplified this chapter. For example she mentions the need to pace oneself yet offer no advice on goal setting. Dr Butler briefly mentions the importance of writing things down. However she fails to mention autobiographical narratives (telling one’s story), reflection, and self-disclosure. While it is fair to say these are not part of CBT, this book is aimed at people who, for whatever reason, do not have professional support.

Next we come to a very good chapter on thinking patterns. My only criticism here is it fails to take in the possible physiological causes of Automatic Negative Thoughts. A chapter on altering behaviour follows this, not surprisingly. In chapter nine, we look at ways to reduce self-consciousness, I should point out this means trying to reduce the amount of time we spend focusing on our own behaviour (self-monitoring) rather than numbing the emotional pain in order to say enter a crowded train station.

Chapter ten is called Building Up Confidence although it is much more than that; it contains the second and third levels of thinking; i.e. Underlying Assumptions and Core Beliefs. (The first level of maladaptive thinking is of course Negative Automatic Thought [NAT].) This chapter also provides worked examples of Counter-Belief worksheets. These are a more complex form of the dialectic journaling I use. Which is better? It depends very much on a persons needs. For those who feel the need for approval from others, try the Counter-Belief technique and for people, like me, who feel a need to process the problem try the dialectic method.

The final chapter is called Putting It All Together. I feel that this is somewhat of an anticlimax. Yes it does have a paragraph or two on dealing with painful thoughts and low self-esteem, both inadequately detailed almost an after-thought. In fact and no recommended reading page.

Part Three Some Optional Extras
This starts with a chapter on becoming assertive. Why here and not in the main body of the text? Despite what Dr Butler believes, I think most people, whether or not they suffer from social anxiety would benefit from greater assertiveness skills.

Chapter thirteen deals with the long-term effects of bullied. It should be noted that although bullying is not a cause of social anxiety in itself it could provide another set of problem for the victim to deal with.

The last chapter deals with relaxation. After a brief yet adequate explanation about relaxing, it move on to a shortened form of Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR). This is actually the same proven method that Wolpe adopted for his work on Systematic Desensitization.

Appendix
Starting with a woefully inadequate list of ‘useful books’ and short index, it then tries to redeem itself with a variety of Thought Diaries and Work Sheets to use with the book. While I consider these useful examples, I found them difficult to photocopy due to the size of the print and the book not laying flat (This refers to the 1999 hardback edition)

(Note: Please find attached my own blank Thought Diary templates under a Creative Commons ‘free for non-commercial use’ licence in both A4 and US Letter sizes)

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Conclusion
The book in general is well written in plain English, the information on social anxiety is excellent. However the piece on shyness is rather sparse and I can only recommend the book to those who suffer anxiety in a social setting whether or not they also suffer from shyness. It is a shame that Dr Butler missed the opportunity to mention goal setting and to adequately deal with journaling techniques however these resources can be found elsewhere. I would have liked to see mention of the ‘Five Area Model’ with a brief explanation of how to use it. I also think Dr Butler puts too much emphasis on the individual and none on the role of society. Her over reliance on CBT and lack of supporting methods mean the book is unable to be a truly self-contained course. How is the average sufferer supposed to find the supporting texts? We do not know as Dr Butler’s selected bibliography is painfully inadequate. However the explanation on social anxiety in the first part of the book is very good as is the piece on bullying in part three. Although PMR is not an integral part of CBT it is good to see it here in its shortened form. The original method, developed by Jacobson in the 1920s takes months to learn, whereas Wolpe reported that the shortened version could be taught in as little as six sessions.

I personally prefer a more technical manual, but of course this book is designed especially for those without any knowledge or expertise of the subject, so this is rather an unfair criticism. I therefore recommend this book as long as you take the above caveats into consideration.

Good book review Shy guy!
Well, most of it was over my head but I'm sure that some of the smarter people here will enjoy reading this and possibly reading the book in the future.
Thanks for sharing!

Ana Wrote:Good book review Shy guy!
Well, most of it was over my head but I'm sure that some of the smarter people here will enjoy reading this and possibly reading the book in the future.
Thanks for sharing!

Thank you. As for being smarter, that is worrying, perhaps it is the way I write, I wonder if I need to add more humour (not my strong point as some on here will testify ) or tone the content down a bit more. Or even find a book on writing for the internet. confused1

Shy guy Wrote:Thank you. As for being smarter, that is worrying, perhaps it is the way I write, I wonder if I need to add more humour (not my strong point as some on here will testify ) or tone the content down a bit more. Or even find a book on writing for the internet. confused1

No, I didn't mean it was too smart in a bad way. It's a little too mature for me; a little too complex for me. But, that's just me. :roll:
.
It was well written. Wish I could write smart like that.

Ana Wrote:

Shy guy Wrote:Thank you. As for being smarter, that is worrying, perhaps it is the way I write, I wonder if I need to add more humour (not my strong point as some on here will testify ) or tone the content down a bit more. Or even find a book on writing for the internet. confused1

No, I didn't mean it was too smart in a bad way. It's a little too mature for me; a little too complex for me. But, that's just me. :roll:
.
It was well written. Wish I could write smart like that.

Oh, :lol: Thank you. You are a really good writer Ana and after you get your qualifications you will be far better than me. You already have your own style and writer's 'voice', the rest is just technical skill such as remembering when to use 'that' instead of 'which' or is it the other way round? :wink:

I think it was an excellently written review.

I think the over-simplification of the areas you mentioned proves that the author does not have SP.
Possibly she should have consulted people with SP more intensively.

I like the way you were able to objectively look at the good points of the book and the bad. Knowing that you have the insight{through being afflicted with SP yourself and the fact that you have studied the topic to a high degree} you could probably write a really excellent book on SP yourself!

One thing you did that was very good for internet reading was you split it up into sections. That makes it more aesthetically approachable and causes you to stay on topic very well.

The book did seem to have a lot of good points though, so it would be worth a read!

BTW- I'm making myself a thought diary right now. I've been trying to educate myself on SP since being here..I feel like now that I somewhat understand what's going on with me and what needs to be done, I should start getting more proactive.