Sunday, January 31, 2010

HOW TO BE ASSERTIVE

HOW TO BE ASSERTIVE
As an outpatient psychologist with a long running private
practice, clients often ask me, "How do I become assertive?"
The short answer is "speak up." The longer answer is we
first have to understand what assertiveness is and what it is not.
Let me address the last part first.
Assertiveness is not aggression. It is not yelling, name
calling or doing anything physically violent. It is not about
getting in someone's space or place if they do not invite us.
It is not about damaging other's property.
Neither is assertiveness about being passive. That involves
not saying or doing things in an indirect way, but still having an
underhanded intent. Such statements blur messages on purpose;
confusing the recipient into thinking the intent is something it
is not. Manipulating falls into this category. Being
non-assertive is different from being passive. The difference is
that choosing to not speak up is deliberate, conscious and has not
ulterior motives. It is not manipulation, just the choice to not
respond. Sometimes this is the better choice, like when our boss
is mad at us, yet we would like to have a promotion. Not speaking
at that time is judicious, and choosing to not assert our point of
view is wise.
Assertiveness is about speaking up in a specific way, stating
what you want and using "I" statements. "I would like to have
that cake" is an assertive statement. "That cake would sure look
nice on my plate" is a semi-assertive statement. "My, how good
that cake looks" is not an assertive statement. "That cake would
make me feel better about you" is a manipulative statement.
Saying nothing about cake because we do not want any is choosing
to just not be assertive.
Assertiveness involves five steps. In my ebook on this
subject, I explain them in detail and how they flow from one to the
other, each needing to be completed before the next. For this
article, here's a quick summary. Step One is asking yourself what
are you thinking or feeling. Step Two is about validating that
your thoughts and/or feelings are valid and important. Step Three
is thinking and planning how we might express ourselves, assuming
we get through Step Two and actually think what we have to say is
important enough to say or do something about. Step Four is
actually executing the plan; that is, doing what we fantasized in
Step Three. Step Five is feedback. How did it go? If we
achieved some satisfaction, we are done with that thought. If not,
it is back to Step One.
This may seem a little tedious, but each of us goes through at
least the first two steps with every thought and/or feeling. Those
thoughts and/or feelings that are salient; that is, rise to some
higher level in our awareness, are considered more and are more
likely to motivate us to consider doing something about. This is
Step Three, which once engaged, usually carries us through to
completion (Step Five). This process is automatic and very, very
fast. It is usually unconscious; that is, out of everyday
awareness automatic and usually psychologically reflexive
(patterned, rehearsed responses that we chalk up as mental habits).
Learning to be assertive is about realizing the steps that are
involved and how we each follow them. If we do so unconsciously,
then assertiveness is hit or miss, depending upon our early training.
We inherit most of these thought patterns from our parents, which
could be good or bad. The key to becoming assertive is to become
aware of the above and practice it a few times. Usually people
see the benefit and are encouraged to continue.
There is always a contingent of folks who disagree and claim
being assertive is a bad thing. It generates conflict, does not work,
is a waste of time, etc. In my ebook, I address a very long list
of reasons people generate why we should not be assertive. Some of
them are quite creative, but all of them lack basis. I explain all
of this is depth and detail. In my view, assertiveness is a very
positive skill and is one of the easiest to acquire. Once practiced,
assertiveness spreads out in the psyche and positively influences
more experiences than the reader can imagine, starting with decreasing
anxiety and depression and increasing self-esteem.

Dr. Griggs

http://www.drgriggs.org
http://www.psychologyproductsandservices.com

ARE YOU ASSERTIVE?

ARE YOU ASSERTIVE?

Assertiveness is one of those pop-psychology terms that
confuses people. So, let's define it first, and then explore
what it entails.
In its most simple form, assertiveness is sharing what
your experience is with another person. Think of it as playing
a hand of cards. You have your cards facing you and your
opponent has his cards facing him. You lay your cards down,
face up on the playing table, so that he can see what you have.
You are sharing what your have. Metaphorically, you are
communicating what is your experience for another to appreciate.
This does not require the other player to lay down his cards.
Being assertive does not mean the other person has to say what
his experience is or to communicate with you in any way.
Assertiveness at it core is you sharing something about you,
preferably in a matter-of-fact way.
Assertiveness is not aggressiveness. Whey you lay down
your cards, you do not throw your cards at your opponent. You
lay them down nicely. When communicating, do so with aplomb or
at least just state your feeling about something or your opinion
about something without too much affect. Be direct and as we
psychologist are fond of saying, use "I" statements. Yelling,
name calling and/or hitting are all aggressive. Assertiveness
is not aggressive and can be accomplished even while sitting on
your hands and whispering.
Not stating your opinion is either passivity or
non-assertiveness, but these are not the same. Passivity is
trying to accomplish something indirectly, usually manipulatively,
by communicating something related to your real feelings but not
quite spot on. It's goal is to get you to react but without
you really knowing what is going on. Non-assertiveness is simply
choosing to not react. It is direct, not indirect like passivity,
and it may or may not have a goal. Non-assertiveness is
conscious, clear and designed to just not respond, but it is a
clear choice that does not aim to manipulate others.
In real life, assertiveness is speaking your mind and asking
for what you want. Even if you do not ask for what you want,
it feels better in the long run to at least state your opinion
out loud. And, if you ask for what you want assertively,
the chances go up that you will get what you want. Assertiveness
is no guarantee of this, but it does increase the likelihood.
But we all know that most of us have, on occasion, passed on
being assertive. I've written a to-the-point ebook titled
The Five Steps of Assertiveness in which I outline the eleven or
so most common reasons to not be assertive. Heading the list is
the wish to avoid conflict with others. Second is the wish
to avoid dealing with one's own feelings. There are a lot of
excuses, some of them quite creative. However, none of these
reasons justify the effort to self-sabotage, which is the net
effect of not being assertive.
This same ebook outlines the really simple and basic steps
to follow to achieve assertiveness. I've made it as simple
as is humanly possible to succeed. In my outpatient psychology
practice, I teach this every day and believe me; it is not hard.
The benefits are huge to effectiveness in communicating with your
partner, decreasing anxiety and depression, and on and one.

Dr. Griggs

http://www.drgriggs.org
http://www.psychologyproductsandservices.com

DO YOU HAVE SOCIAL ANXIETY DISORDER?

DO YOU HAVE SOCIAL ANXIETY DISORDER?

In my outpatient psychology practice, I see eight things every
day--they show up again and again, presenting in one form or another.
One of the bigger and more negative experiences clients have is anxiety.
In addition, the first thing clients want to know is whether they have
an anxiety disorder, in this case Social Anxiety Disorder. First, here
is a rather clinical description of what anxiety is, according to an
older but very accurate source, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders, Third Edition:

"...An apprehension, tension, or uneasiness that stems from the
anticipation of danger, which may be internal or external. Some
definitions of anxiety distinguish it from fear by limiting it to
anticipation of a danger whose source is largely unknown whereas fear
is the response to a consciously recognized and usually external threat
or danger. The manifestations of anxiety and fear are the same and
include motor tension, autonomic hyperactivity, apprehensive expectation,
vigilance and scanning. Anxiety may be focused on an object, situation,
or activity, which is avoided (phobia), or may be not focused
(free-floating anxiety). It may be experienced in discrete periods of
sudden onset and be accompanied by physical symptoms. When anxiety is
focused on physical signs or symptoms and causes preoccupation with the
fear or belief of having a disease, it is termed hypochondriasis."

Anxiety pervades almost all of our experiences in every venue.
Most of the time, it is in the background. It turns out we need some
very basic "tension" to exist and a little more to be motivated to do
things. We psychologists call this ergic tension. You could not sit
up or read this article if you had no ergic tension. It is normal.

However, many people have more anxiety than this, which still could
be good in some circumstances, like in sports or just before an important
speech or even right before a major test in school. This keeps us
focused and helps us appropriately utilize the extra adrenaline that
accompanies such events. We are still in the normal range of anxiety
if we understand and can manage it during and then after the specific
event, presumably when our anxiety drops back to lower levels.

Some people have more anxiety than this, and it does not go back
to "mark headings." These are the folks who probably have an anxiety
disorder. Social Phobia is the sixth category in my ebook, which makes
it pretty serious. There are seven major categories of anxiety disorders,
depending upon the cluster of symptoms and their manifestations.
I have written about these in my ebook, How To Diagnose and Treat Your
Anxiety. Here's the categories as I listed them: Worrisome Personality,
then the more progressive and I think more serious clinical categories
follow: Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Adjustment Disorder with Anxiety,
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Panic Attacks, Phobia Disorder and
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I made up the first category because I
see this a lot in my practice, but it is not in the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (the latest version
of this manuscript, which is the Bible of mental health professionals).
The last six categories are clinical categories
and are found in the DSM IV.

And, here is how anxiety typically manifests (symptoms):

...Trembling, twitching, or feeling shaky, muscle tension and aches or
soreness (including chest pains), restlessness, easy fatiguing...or...
shortness of breath or smothering sensations, palpitations or accelerated
heart rate, sweating or cold clammy hands, dry mouth, dizziness or
lightheadedness, nausea, diarrhea, or other abdominal distress, flushing,
hot flashes, chills, frequent urinations, trouble swallowing, or...
feeling keyed up and on edge, exaggerated startle response, difficulty
concentrating or having your mind "going blank," trouble falling or
staying asleep, or being excessively irritable.

According to the DSM IV, Social Anxiety Disorder, now called Social
Phobia,

" ... is a marked and persistent fear of social or performance situations
in which embarrassment may occur. Exposure to the social or performance
situation almost invariably provokes an immediate anxiety response
(see above symptoms). This response may take the form of a situationally
bound or situationally predisposed Panic Attack. Although adolescents
and adults with this disorder recognize that their fear is excessive or
unreasonable, this may not be the case with children. Most often, the
social or performance situation is avoided, although it is sometimes
endured with dread..."

Social Phobia is one of many kinds or categories of anxiety.
I have written specifically about this and other versions of anxiety
in my ebook on How To Diagnose and Treat Your Anxiety. This is a
publication that shows you how to think about any anxiety, disordered
or not, how to assess your symptoms and more importantly, what to do
about it. Here is what I wrote about phobias, which included the phobic
version described above:

"A phobia is a persistent fear of a specific object(s) or situation(s)
other than the fear of having a panic attack. In other words, the stimulus
is external, not internal in most cases. (Once you are having a phobic
experience, then there usually arise internal fears, for instance, that
you will further lose control, and your symptoms will increase in intensity,
etc. This is called secondary anxiety and it can occur in any of the
symptom categories, but for our purposes it is not diagnostic with respect
to the categories listed here.) The most common situations or objects
reported are fears of animals, elevators, heights, enclosed or open places,
air travel, blood, or public speaking or just being out "exposed" in a
public place. (Some people are afraid to make contact with others,
regardless of venue. This is Social Phobia, as opposed to simple shyness.)
Exposure to the feared stimulus causes the above anxiety symptoms to be
experienced, usually in direct proportion to the perceived inevitability of
directly contacting the stimulus. Again, people typically experience four
anxiety symptoms from the list above, and usually five or more when they are
having intense anxiety reactions. Incidentally, not only can the symptoms
be very intense during the initial phobic response, but also they can linger
at less intense levels for very long periods of time in-between phobic
reactions, proper. The mere thought of having another encounter with this
group of symptoms can by itself evoke a renewed commitment to not being
phobic. Obviously, these symptoms cause you to avoid the situation(s) or
object(s), thereby altering your routine or customary way of dealing with
things, sometimes in very dramatic ways. As in the case of panic attacks,
people usually recognize that this fear or avoidance is irrational, but
nonetheless cannot explain it nor make the symptoms go away by an act of
will."

In sum, Social Phobia sufferers have a major version of anxiety disorder,
one that can cause considerable discomfort. You have to think about
your symptoms in a very specific and different way to diagnose whether
or not you have ANY anxiety disorder, Social Phobia included. I show you
how, step by step, in my ebook, and how to deal with it.

Dr. Griggs

http://www.drgriggs.org
http://www.psychologyproductsandservices.com

DO YOU HAVE GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER?

DO YOU HAVE GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER?

In my outpatient psychology practice, I see eight things every
day--they show up again and again, presenting in one form or another.
One of the bigger and more negative experiences clients have is anxiety.
In addition, the first thing clients want to know is whether they have
an anxiety disorder, in this case Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Here
is a rather clinical description of what anxiety is, according to an
older but very accurate source, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders, Third Edition:

"...An apprehension, tension, or uneasiness that stems from the
anticipation of danger, which may be internal or external. Some
definitions of anxiety distinguish it from fear by limiting it to
anticipation of a danger whose source is largely unknown whereas fear
is the response to a consciously recognized and usually external threat
or danger. The manifestations of anxiety and fear are the same and
include motor tension, autonomic hyperactivity, apprehensive expectation,
vigilance and scanning. Anxiety may be focused on an object, situation,
or activity, which is avoided (phobia), or may be not focused
(free-floating anxiety). It may be experienced in discrete periods of
sudden onset and be accompanied by physical symptoms. When anxiety is
focused on physical signs or symptoms and causes preoccupation with the
fear or belief of having a disease, it is termed hypochondriasis."

And, here is how anxiety typically manifests (symptoms):

...Trembling, twitching, or feeling shaky, muscle tension and aches or
soreness (including chest pains), restlessness, easy fatiguing...or...
shortness of breath or smothering sensations, palpitations or accelerated
heart rate, sweating or cold clammy hands, dry mouth, dizziness or
lightheadedness, nausea, diarrhea, or other abdominal distress, flushing,
hot flashes, chills, frequent urinations, trouble swallowing, or...
feeling keyed up and on edge, exaggerated startle response, difficulty
concentrating or having your mind "going blank," trouble falling or
staying asleep, or being excessively irritable.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is one of many kinds or categories
of anxiety. I have written specifically about this and other versions
of anxiety in my ebook on How To Diagnose and Treat Your Anxiety.
This is a publication that shows you how to think about any anxiety,
disorder or not, how to assess your symptoms and more importantly,
what to do about it. Here is what I wrote about GAD:

"This category is characterized by an unrealistic or excessive worry
about two or more life circumstances (money problems, school grades, etc.).
Usually such worrying is chronic, not acute (as with panic attacks,
phobias or Post Traumatic Stress Disorders), and involves six or more of
the anxiety symptoms listed above and usually lasts at least six months.
Again, the individual symptoms need not be intense, although most people
probably would think the worry still is excessive. This category is
distinguished from the Worrisome Personality. Generally, there are more
symptoms and fewer areas of concern."

Anxiety pervades almost all of our experiences in every venue.
Most of the time, it is in the background. It turns out we need some
very basic "tension" to exist and a little more to be motivated to do
things. We psychologists call this ergic tension. You could not sit
up or read this article if you had no ergic tension. It is normal.

However, many people have more anxiety than this, which still could
be good in some circumstances, like in sports or just before an important
speech or even right before a major test in school. This keeps us
focused and helps us appropriately utilize the extra adrenaline that
accompanies such events. We are still in the normal range of anxiety
if we understand and can manage it during and then after the specific
event, presumably when our anxiety drops back to lower levels.

Some people have more anxiety than this, and it does not go back
to "mark headings." These are the folks who probably have an anxiety
disorder. Chronic worrying is in the second category. There are seven
major categories of anxiety disorders, depending upon the cluster of
symptoms and their manifestations. I also have written about these
in the same ebook referenced above. Here's the categories: Worrisome
Personality, then the more progressive and I think more serious clinical
categories follow: Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Adjustment Disorder
with Anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Panic Attacks,
Phobia Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I made up the first
category because I see this a lot in my practice, but it is not in the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition
(the latest version of this manuscript, which is the Bible of mental
health professionals). The last six categories are clinical categories
and are found in the DSM IV.

GAD sufferers have a relatively minor version of anxiety disorder,
but one that can still cause some discomfort. You have to think about
your symptoms in a very specific and different way to diagnose whether
or not you have ANY anxiety disorder, GAD included. I show you how,
step by step, in my ebook.

Dr. Griggs

http://www.drgriggs.org
http://www.psychologyproductsandservices.com

DO YOU HAVE AN ANXIETY DISORDER?

DO YOU HAVE AN ANXIETY DISORDER?

In my outpatient psychology practice, I see eight things every
day--they show up again and again, presenting in one form or another.
One of the bigger and more negative experiences clients have is anxiety.
Specifically, the first thing clients want to know is whether they have
an anxiety disorder. Here is a rather clinical description of what
anxiety is, according to an older but very accurate source, the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition:

"...An apprehension, tension, or uneasiness that stems from the
anticipation of danger, which may be internal or external. Some
definitions of anxiety distinguish it from fear by limiting it to
anticipation of a danger whose source is largely unknown whereas fear
is the response to a consciously recognized and usually external threat
or danger. The manifestations of anxiety and fear are the same and
include motor tension, autonomic hyperactivity, apprehensive expectation,
vigilance and scanning. Anxiety may be focused on an object, situation,
or activity, which is avoided (phobia), or may be not focused
(free-floating anxiety). It may be experienced in discrete periods of
sudden onset and be accompanied by physical symptoms. When anxiety is
focused on physical signs or symptoms and causes preoccupation with the
fear or belief of having a disease, it is termed hypochondriasis."

Anxiety pervades almost all of our experiences in every venue.
Most of the time, it is in the background. It turns out we need some
very basic tension to exist and a little more to be motivated to do things.
We psychologists call this ergic tension. You could not sit up or read
this article if you had no ergic tension. It is normal.

However, many people have more anxiety than this, which still could
be good in some circumstances, like in sports or just before an important
speech or even right before a major test in school. This keeps us focused
and helps us appropriately utilize the usual amount of extra adrenaline
that accompanies such events. We are still in the normal range of anxiety
if we understand and can manage it during and then after the specific event,
our anxiety drops back to lower levels.

Some people have even more anxiety than this, and it doesn't go back
to "mark headings." These are the folks that probably have an anxiety
disorder.

There are seven major categories of anxiety disorders, depending upon
the cluster of symptoms and their manifestations. I'll just list them
here, but I have written a very thorough ebook on diagnosing your own
anxiety, which contains these categories explained in depth, and a bunch
of other information you will need to understand. The seven categories
are what I call the Worrisome Personality, then the more clinical categories
follow: Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Adjustment Disorder with Anxiety,
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Panic Attacks, Phobia Disorder and Obsessive
Compulsive Disorder. I made up the first category because I see this a lot
but it is not in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,
Fourth Edition (the latest version of this manuscript, which is the Bible
of mental health professionals). The last six categories are clinical
categories and are found in the DSM IV.

As I list in my ebook, there are at least thirty-three symptoms
of anxiety. Here is a partial list:

...Trembling, twitching, or feeling shaky, muscle tension and aches or
soreness (including chest pains), restlessness, easy fatiguing...or...
shortness of breath or smothering sensations, palpitations or accelerated
heart rate, sweating or cold clammy hands, dry mouth, dizziness or
lightheadedness, nausea, diarrhea, or other abdominal distress, flushing,
hot flashes, chills, frequent urinations, trouble swallowing, or...feeling
keyed up and on edge, exaggerated startle response, difficulty concentrating
or having your mind "going blank," trouble falling or staying asleep, or
being excessively irritable.

You have to think about these symptoms in a very different way to
diagnose whether or not you have an anxiety disorder. That is exactly
what I provide in my publication.

Dr. Griggs

http://www.drgriggs.org
http://www.psychologyproductsandservices.com

Anxiety Disorder Support

Anxiety Disorder Support

Many people have a lot more anxiety symptoms than they will talk about.
Fortunately, most of the symptoms are short-lived; meaning,
they'll go away shortly, or when some situation changes.

For some, the symptoms continue, even after the event passes.
For some, the symptoms even get stronger, or even if they have
some clear event that sets the symptoms in motion, the symptoms
are still too strong to handle.

Right about now, most of us think there is something else going
on--something we missed or should be paying attention to.
We start to ask questions that focus our attention on some the
symptoms of anxiety, which are:

Apprehension, tension, uneasiness, anticipation of danger, motor
tension, autonomic hyperactivity, fears, preoccupations,
repetitive thoughts Vigilance, scanning, avoidance of situations
or things, panic sensations, heart palpitations, sweaty palms,
rapid breathing, rigid or repetitive behaviors

Would you believe there are over thirty-three such symptoms?
The above is only a partial list. What most people need is a
all-inclusive list of All the symptoms, then a systematic way
of asking the right questions. But it takes lots of years of
instruction to get this right so most people start thinking about
seeing a therapist. This is costly.

So, I wrote an ebook that does this for you.

Hello, I've been a psychologist in private practice for over
twenty years. I run into eight conditions every day, anxiety
being just one. People call or come in with their list of
symptoms, how often they have them, how poignant are their
experiences, their histories of anxiety and/or depression,
substance use, alcohol use, recent stressors, relationship
problems that anxiety creates (and vice versa), loss of function
secondary to anxiety, and on and on.

In each session, I ask a well researched set of clinical questions
that takes most of the hour, then have people rate their symptoms
in some key areas, then chart their responses on one of three
graphs. Right away they know if they have made the right choice
in coming to a therapist.

Most people need some guidance to make this decision, but some,
after following my procedures, discover their anxiety is different,
not severe enough, etc., and that they don't need me. If they
had read my ebook first, they could have saved themselves the
cost of a therapy session.

But if there is a need, this process brings it right to the
surface, and the work starts. The next part of the ebook covers
what we need to consider to start to get to the bottom of the mystery of anxiety.
I write a lot about what things make it worse.

The best part of my ebook is the section describing how and why we
get anxious in the first place, particularly how anxiety "gets started"
and starts to amp up, chronically or acutely. This is something
that is distinctive to everyone, so I cover lots of examples but mostly
focus on the dynamics common to us all.

Lastly, there are lots of techniques to anxiety, and I
give you four subjective ones that anyone can use. These knock
down the majority of anxiety symptoms for most. There are others
who need actual therapy to fix this last part, and that's where I
have to stop, because any book can't "do" therapy. But I took
readers right up to that point, so most of what I wrote works
without a therapist.

If you need a therapist, this ebook will show you exactly for
what symptoms and where you "stand" compared to the rest of us.
You can make a very intelligent decision at that point.


Dr. Griggs

http://www.drgriggs.org
http://www.psychologyproductsandservices.com

Do You have Anxiety?

Do You have Anxiety?
Many people seek relief from anxiety. In fact, on searches using Google
and Yahoo, anxiety is the keyword used over thirteen hundred times
per month. The experience of anxiety is pervasive, bothersome and often
painful.
Anxiety is about loss of control. We feel anxiety when something,
someone or situation is not what we can manage. For most of us,
this is external, like when we have to speak in public and we imagine
all kinds of evils that are about to happen, little of which we can handle.
Anxiety is also internally generated; that is, we feel anxious when
there is something inside ourselves that we cannot manage. The most common
experience is our feelings. Usually, something triggers an association
or associations to past memories; thoughts we do not like and ultimately
to feelings we do not want to feel. The specter of experiencing these as
they rise into awareness produces uneasiness. When it reaches a crescendo,
we call it anxiety.
In both cases, internal and external loss of control, the dynamic is
the same. Anxiety is like a red flag the brain waves to itself from the
inside out, or if you prefer from the back to the front of awareness.
When something is set in motion (via a cue, stimulus or trigger), the
deeper parts of awareness (think subconscious or even unconscious) begin
to associate and recall anything related to the initial perception.
Rumblings are felt as vague, or general sensations that build into more
and more uncomfortable sensations--anxiety.
That is our cue to either change what we are thinking now or change our
venue (leave). This changes the trigger and we stop the associations
that create anxiety. Presto, we have learned to control our anxiety by
changing what we think or where we happen to be or by altering what we are
saying or doing.
However, for some of us, the anxiety is automatic and severe.
In other words, there is not much of a build up between cue and symptoms.
It can happen almost instantly. These unfortunate people have anxiety
disorders, of which there are seven major ones. In addition, they can
suffer from any one of thirty-three signs of anxiety, none of which are
pleasant.
To complicate matters, anxiety can tag along with other psychological
disorders. Major Depression has as one component, anxiety about
seventy-five percent of the time. Minor Depression comes with anxiety
about a third of the time. Have a psychotic disorder? That will
really spike fear.
Substance abuse disorders, including alcoholism (a liquid drug) comes
with anxiety, which is usually why people indulge in drinking or drugs in the
first place. If they did not have anxiety before they indulged, they
usually have more anxiety afterwards. This is most severe in those who
indulge in the use of amphetamines, which more obviously and dramatically
alter moods. (There are many exceptions because all drugs alter our
intrapersonal process in some fashion.)
Understanding how this works, the details of anxiety disorders, and the
many symptoms is what psychologists impart to patients in their psychology
practices. Many of us also have written books, or in this author's case,
an ebook that provides step-by-step instructions for the do-it-yourself types.
Many people do not realize they have an anxiety disorder. Conversely,
many people think they have a disorder when they do not. This author's
ebook shows everyone how to differentiate just these aspects of their
experience and if there is something worth paying attention to, what to
do about it.
-Dr. Griggs

http://www.drgriggs.org
http://www.psychologyproductsandservices.com

Have Anxiety Attacks?

Have Anxiety Attacks?

People have lots of anxiety symptoms--more than they will admit.
Fortunately, most of the symptoms are transient; meaning,
they'll go away shortly, or when some condition changes.
For some, the bothersome experiences of anxiety linger, even after the event
passes. For some, the symptoms get stronger, or even if they have
some clear event that sets the symptoms in action, the symptoms
are still too strong to handle.

Its at this point that most people start thinking there is something else
going on. We start to ask questions that focus our awareness on some the
symptoms of anxiety, which are:

Apprehension, tension, uneasiness, anticipation of danger, motor
tension, autonomic hyperactivity, fears, preoccupations,
repetitive thoughts Vigilance, scanning, avoidance of situations
or things, panic sensations, heart palpitations, sweaty palms,
rapid breathing, rigid or repetitive behaviors

Would you believe there are over thirty-three such symptoms?
The above is only a partial list. What most people need is a
wide-ranging list of All the symptoms, then a systematic way
of asking the right questions. But it takes lots of years of
education to get this right so most people start thinking about
seeing a therapist. This is costly.

So, I wrote an ebook that does this for you.
Hello, I've been a psychologist in private practice for over
twenty years. I run into eight conditions every day, anxiety
being just one. People call or come in with their list of
symptoms, how often they have them, how intense are their
experiences, their histories of anxiety and/or depression,
substance use, alcohol use, recent stressors, relationship
problems that anxiety creates (and vice versa), loss of function
secondary to anxiety, and on and on.

In each session, I ask a specific set of clinical questions
that takes most of the hour, then have people rate their symptoms
in some key areas, then chart their responses on one of three
graphs. Right away they know if they have made the right choice
in coming to a therapist.

Most people need some guidance to make this decision, but some,
after following my procedures, discover their anxiety is different,
not severe enough, etc., and that they don't need me. If they
had read my ebook first, they could have saved themselves the
cost of a therapy session.

But if there is a need, this process brings it right to the
surface, and the work starts. The next part of the ebook covers
what we need to consider to start to find an answer to the mystery of anxiety.
I write a lot about what things make it worse. The best part of my ebook is the
section describing how and why we get anxious in the first place, particularly
how anxiety "sets in" and starts to amp up, chronically or acutely.
This is something that is distinctive to everyone, so I cover lots of examples
but mostly focus on the dynamics common to us all.

Lastly, there are lots of techniques to solve anxiety, and I
give you four subjective ones that anyone can use. These knock
down the majority of anxiety symptoms for most. There are others
who need actual therapy to fix this last part, and that's where I
have to stop, because any book can't "do" therapy. But I took
readers right up to that point, so most of what I wrote works
without a therapist.

If you need a therapist, this ebook will show you exactly for
what symptoms and where you "stand" compared to the rest of us.
You can make a very intelligent decision at that point.

-Dr. Griggs
http://www.psychologyproductsandservices.com
http://www.drgriggs.org

Saturday, January 30, 2010

How To Build Self Esteem

How To Build Self Esteem

Most people in my outpatient psychology practice come at this question from
the other side; namely, why is my self esteem so crummy? The answer to both
questions is the same.

Self Esteem is the product of years of accumulated imagery, feelings and
general messages about you, gleaned from myriads of sources, starting with
your parents and expanding outwards through contact with others in your life
over increasing time. The sum total of those psychological phenomena,
I call an "epiphenomenona." That's just a long word to describe how zillions
of mental and emotional inputs form in our heads, then precipitate into
something more unified.

It's something of a mystery how awareness does this but it happens pretty early
in life, often showing up as very individual responses to stimuli in the first
year or sooner. (Some folks think they can detect differences in personality
while their baby is still in the womb. This needs more studying...) There's
usually no question that we are unique by the time we first say "No" to our parents.
Our self esteem follows from this experience. We begin to compare how we are with
how others are. This gives us a metric to evaluate ourselves.

Even at this early age, we have taken in thousands of bits of information about
ourselves that are coalescing into a self esteem, good or bad. Understanding
this process is crucial to build a self esteem or at least understand why our
self esteem is good or bad.

Also crucial to our understanding is the bond between image (thought) and
impression (feeling). These are somewhat arbitrary labels, but the idea is
that thought gets fused with feeling at very deep, automatic, unconscious levels.
These later surface as crummy feelings when some event triggers a memory (thought
or feeling), which is paired with a good or bad feeling from history..
What usually happens is that something happens in our current lives and we have
an emotional reaction. This comes from the many pairings between the same kind
of events and the associated same kind of feelings we absorbed growing up.
Most of this also is unconscious.

To build a self esteem or just repair one requires the same re-pairing of
different feelings with new thoughts that override the old thoughts that triggered
the old negative feelings. The latter specifically refers to fixing a crummy
self image. To build a positive self esteem requires reworking the old
associations, or putting in new ones, but with a twist.

We can't just think our self esteems into a state of goodness. Nor can we just
wish a crummy self esteem to go away. The reason is that our associated feelings
to the events that formed our self esteems are deep, usually not in awareness.
We feel them when stimulated by current thoughts, but we usually don't know why.
We have to work at identifying the feeling, even when it feels uncomfortable.
We have trained ourselves to ignore much of this part of our psyches.
To fix this, we have to create new feelings.

I have a technique that I developed over the last twenty years that I call the
"Anchor Concept." It's about crafting certain thoughts very strategically so
that they produce laser like feelings that we want-positive, profound and
very deliberate.. We then use this feeling to do the work of changing self
esteem, one crummy feeling at a time. Each of our negative feelings gradually
becomes associated with then absorbed by a different feeling-one we choose in
the present, consciously.

This is the subject of my ebook on The Four Powers of Self Esteem.


Dr. Griggs

http://www.drgriggs.org
http://www.psychologyproductsandservices.com

Self Esteem Activities

Self Esteem Activities

As an outpatient psychologist, people frequently ask me, "What activities
can I do to improve my self esteem? My answer is, "Anything."
The reason is that it is not the activity that changes self esteem.
It is the feeling you carry about yourself while being active that
generates good or bad experiences with self.

This seems a little counter to the usual thinking. Most people think
they should surround themselves with "up" people or pleasant activities
and presto! Like magic, self esteem changes for the better. Well,
there is some benefit to such, but it doesn't last because self esteem
comes from a much deeper place, and activities and their effects usually
don't reach down that far. So, while there is a positive effect, it
doesn't last. In truth, you could have a positive self esteem in a
prison camp or a lousy self esteem at Disneyland.

Why is that so? Self esteem is the product of lots of messages that
have been growing inside your head for a very long time. During the
course of your lifetime there will be more of these existing in your
mind than you can count. By my conservative estimation, by the time
you are only eighteen, five million such messages about you have
registered in your awareness, conscious or not. Imaging how many
messages there will be bouncing around inside your skull when you're eighty!


Messages arrive all the time, in all activities from everyone you encounter.
They come in with a look, smile, frown or during a conversation when
you are close or not, agree or not with the subject, etc. Bigger
messages arrive when you get that final exam back and there is a big
letter grade at the top. This could be good, or...

The effect of all these messages is that they coalesc into something much
larger, an "epiphenomenon" as I call it. It's the average of all the
individual messages that make it up. This epiphenomenon is your self image
and self esteem is part of it, probably the bigger part if you're just
considering psychology.

If you want to change your self esteem, you have to change the individual
parts that make it up. That means the impressions that went into your
head in the first place have to be modified. Since this is fairly deep,
you can imagine that trying to change this by engaging in more superficial
activities is going to fail.

Instead, you have to think and feel differently about the individual messages,
which has nothing to do with outside activities, or it can have everything
to do with outside activities. Huh? What I'm saying is that it is your
inside process of associating to the messages in your head that determines
whether you have a good or bad self esteem. That goes on inside your head
and can be projected outwards onto some activities or not.

Changing self esteem is about changing the associations you have to the
current messges in your head. Trying to do this by just doing fun things
or "ego sponsoring" activities helps, but doesn't hit the mark. To change
self esteem, specific associations have to be broken and re-associated in a
very, very different way, utilizing not just experiences that come from
outside activities. The real secret is to work with your feelings.

I explain all of this in depth in my ebook, titled, "The Four Powers of
Self Esteem."


Dr. Griggs

http://www.drgriggs.org
http://www.psychologyproductsandservices.com

Improving Self Esteem

Improving Self Esteem

Most people think to improve their self esteems by doing fun things, by
hanging out with "up" people, by feeding themselves with positive thoughts.
Improving self esteem is much more complicated than one might think.
You could surround yourself with great people and activities, and for a
short time you might feel better. Then, the activities subside, and
you're left with you. Most people feel just as crummy about themselves
at this point as before the "activities and people." Sometimes people
feel slightly worse, because the "good stuff" is over and nothing changed.
First you need to understand how self esteem forms before changing it makes
any sense. Most people think, "Think positive" about yourself, and presto!
The result is a wonderful sense of self. Wrong. It took millions of
inputs from others and yourself about you over a very, very long time to
create what you call self esteem. In the ebook I wrote about this very
specific process, I describe when this starts, the kind of messages that
embed themselves into our awareness, how and when and why they do that,
but most importantly, what to do about it.
The average of all those messages is what we loosely call self esteem.
I call it an epiphenomenon; meaning, what emerges out of a group of smaller
phenomena that make it up. I give some visual metaphors to explain the
concept in detail, because you have to understand this one critical aspect
of self esteem formation in order to change it.

The second important idea in changing self esteem is the Anchor concept.
This is the one positive quality about you that is absolutely good, true
and unshakable. Some people have trouble finding such a trait, but I show
you how and what the qualities the Anchor Concept has to have to make it work.
It doesn't matter what the Anchor Concept is, how big it is, or how relative
it is to anything else. But we use this Anchor Concept in the technique of
repairing self esteem.

There's another misnomer going around about self esteem. To improve it you
have to "think big." This means accomplish a lot, make a million dollars,
marry and most beautiful/handsome person, hang out with high status people, etc.
This is also wrong. It matters not if you are hobnobbing with Donald Trump
or sitting alone in your living room in your pajamas. "Externals" are
relatively irrelevant to the process, although they can be used to "stir up"
issues that need to be resolved. As above, you can do this (hang out with
high status folks if it makes you feel better for a time), but when the party
is over, you're still in your own head with just you--same crummy sense of self.

The answer is to "think small." This is very counterintuitive, but if you
think about how your self esteem was created--one impression at a time--it begins
to make sense. You change the epiphenomenona of self esteem by changing each
phenomenon that created it, one at a time. This is thinking small because
you are aiming at each input, feeling, memory or association, one at a time,
which changes the big experience of self esteem, one small input at a time.
You focus on the little picture to fine tune the big picture, not the other way
around. You change your self esteem from the inside out, not from the outside in.
This is where the Anchor Concept is used.


My ebook digs into this in considerable depth and instructs you exactly how to fix
a crummy self image.

Dr. Griggs

http://www.drgriggs.org
http://www.psychologyproductsandservices.com

Developing Self Esteem

Developing Self Esteem

There are many ideas about how to develop self esteem. Most of them
focus on surrounding yourself with positive experiences, hanging out
with great people or flooding yourself with good "self messages."
These all have merit, but they are all superficial and they all fail.
In order to change self esteem, you first have to understand its genesis;
that is, its beginnings. You have to understand its pathway into your
awareness, when it first manifests, how many things contribute to it and
a bunch of other dynamic material. You can't just change develop and/or
improve self esteem by willing it. That fails.
Self esteem evolves out of zillions of little things that each contribute
to it, inculcated one item at a time. Each message we take in starting
from day one in our lives, contributes to the formation of our sense of self.
The biggest contributors to our sense of self are, of course, our parents,
or anyone who parented us during years one-to-five. Siblings, teachers
and more importantly, peers influence us for the duration of our school
years, then after that, partners, spouses, bosses, etc.
Your self esteem develops from all of these inputs, the first group being
the most important time wise because we are most open and vulnerable, but
any of them can potentially be big enough messages and can occur during
any time in our lives. One way to think of this is that the older you get,
probably the bigger the event needs to be to meaningfully influence your
self esteem.
Well, that's a little blurb on how self esteem develop, but it also is not
entirely true. It turns out the quality of the inputted message is just
as if not more important than the quantity. So, in later life, a deeper,
higher quality message coming to you about you can have profound effects.
And, it turns out, if it comes with a good feeling, it can be used
productively to "infect" negative messages, thus changing their charge,
or the strength of their influence over you.
In my ebook on changing self esteem, I take advantage of this ability and
make it conscious. I turned it into a technique that can be used to
neutralize negative messages that you're carrying around, thus improving
or heightening the development of your self esteem. You start by picking
a powerful positive aspect about you. It has to have certain qualities
to qualify, but basically it has to be true, inviolate (no one can take
it away from you), stable and reliable.
When you think of the Anchor Concept, your feelings change. This is
on purpose, because it is the feeling we used to change self esteem, not
the thought, which is indirect, not direct. It turns out our self esteems
reflects our feelings more than anything else. It also turns out changing
our feelings, one thought at a time, changes our self esteems. Picking
the right thought (Anchor concept) is crucial. Pick the wrong one and
the technique goes off course. Pick the right one and Viola! Changes
start right away, no matter how crummy your self image no was/is or how
long it has lasted, etc.

It's not magic, and it does require a thorough understanding of the
genesis of self esteem, which I provide in my ebook. It requires a
little "elbow grease" to develop (repair) a self esteem, but I've had
hundreds of clients in my outpatient private practice extol the virtues
of my technique.

I hope you'll check out what I have to offer. It's a bit of a
counterintuitive approach; meaning, you have to "think small" to make
it work. This, by the way, is also what makes it easy to do.

Dr. Griggs.

http://www.drgriggs.org
http://www.psychologyproductsandservices.com

Self Esteem Building

Self Esteem Building

What does this mean? What is Self Esteem? How do we know that we need to
build Self Esteem?

Hello, I've been a psychologist in private practice for over twenty years.
Self Esteem (good or bad) is central to and related to most human experiences
and certainly connected to virtually every issue I encounter; from drug
abuse to parenting skills, to relationships, assertiveness training--you name it.
Fix Self Esteem and almost magically, there is improvement in lots, and I mean
lots or other areas, including these four.

Self Esteem is something that evolves out of zillions of little messages
that accrue in our heads over a long time. The average of these accumulated
impressions, or "epiphenomenona" begins to emerge when our awareness reaches
a kind of critical mass, which is at a younger age than you might think.
Kids have budding self esteems certainly by age two. You might think that
that oppositional behavior that parents hate so much is the beginning of self
esteem, and you would be right. That occurs as early as age one and a half!
For example, one of the first steps in expressing individuality is in saying "no,"
or from a parents' point of view, being oppositional. From a psychologist's
point of view, this is healthy and marks the beginnings of personal power, or
"individuating" (separating from others,thus defining self against what already is).
In this case ones sense of self is expressed in behaviors that frustrate parents
and its relative success or failure impacts the esteem of the child. Crude
but effective.

But this is necessary, and from this early stage, children amass a ton of other
messages about themselves. Are they the same height as other kids the same age?
Are they as loved? Are they as smart. Can they run as fast? There are
millions of comparisons kids make about themselves compared to the information
they are fed about other kids. From this data base emerges a more complete
sense of self, good or bad.

Most of you reading this article think your self esteem needs some improving,
so I'm guessing yours, in spots, is "bad." You can tell this is true if there
is too much sensitivity to criticism, resistance to accepting compliments, fear
of being seen without some "cover" or escape route in mind, etc.

Building self esteem is about re-working the negative messages in a very
specific way. It isn't about just thinking positive, or surrounding yourself
with "up" people and lively activities. No, self esteem started, then evolved
one idea and feeling and association at a time. And that's the way it can be
changed.

In my ebook on this subject, I emphasize "thinking small," which of course is
just the opposite of what most self help books preach. To build a self esteem,
you literally have to take one of the millions of images, impression, thoughts
or feelings that you presently carry, and work with it in a very special way.
The technique I developed over twenty years is called the "Anchor Concept."

You create this and apply it liberally to negative ideas, feelings, associations,
etc. until the bad stuff "yields." When it does, there is an immediate boost
in positive feeling about you. I doesn't matter if your self esteem is horrible
or just a little dinged. The effect is the same. When another negative
feeling or thought comes along, you use the same anchor concept again, applying
it in the same way, now dealing with this next lousy memory. Again, the feeling
yields to the anchor concept (which is strategic and very positive, by design.
I tell you exactly how to craft your anchor concept.). The thought behind the
anchor concept is crafted to create a certain kind of feeling and it is the
feeling behind this technique that actually changes self esteem. This technique
is applied to one crummy association, memory, emotional reaction at a time.

This is just the opposite of conventional thinking, which states that you change
self esteem by just changing your thoughts. Close, but no cigar.


The keys to doing this successfully I describe in great depth in my ebook.

Dr. Griggs

http://www.drgriggs.org
http://www.psychologyproductsandservices.com

Low Self Esteem?

Low Self Esteem?
Low self esteem? What does that mean? High self esteem?
How are they different?
Self-image is a collection of messages we have taken in about
ourselves over a very long period of time. If the messages are
predominantly good ones, the average self-image we have, or more
specifically, our sense of esteem for ourselves, is good. We have
a good self-esteem. If the messages are predominantly bad ones,
the average self-image we have, or more specifically, our sense of
esteem we have for ourselves, is bad.
Self-esteem emerges out of the zillions of individual "introjects"
(inputs we "inculcate;" that is, take in, own, identify as real about
ourselves, etc. over the entire span of our lives.) It starts
accumulating from day one and never stops evolving, for good or bad.
If you consider the dynamics of this process, believe it or not, both
low and high self-esteems are formed in the exact same way. Only the
content of our minds vary, which has a crummy effect on our moods.
In the beginning, individual events have a huge impact on our
self-esteems. That's because we are vulnerable, like most children
are, and also because there are less other images in our skulls with
which to average the new, incoming message. Therefore, one or two new
messages have a greater impact on the average experience we have about
ourselves.
Near the end of life, we have zillions of messages already in place,
bouncing around inside our heads, most of them neatly catalogued in the
back of our awareness. This creates a more robust, less modifiable
databank. In other words, it's harder to change self-image in older
people just by putting in new ideas, because there are already too many
old ones in place.
I've developed a technique that uses some specific thoughts to
change our feelings. It turns out it's not our thoughts that change
self esteem. It's our feelings. And, feelings can be manipulated by
consciously bringing up certain strategic thoughts, thus changing the
feeling (because feelings follow thoughts in adults). You control the
thoughts and you're your feelings change, you strategically apply the
feelings, using the new feeling that comes in a specific way. It's a
combination of two nifty techniques and they work--far better than the
usual superficial techniques offered in the pop-psychology literature.
It also doesn't matter if your self-esteem has been crummy for a
little while or your whole life. You're not going to try to change the
whole ball of wax, just one thought at a time. I tell you how. It's
actually counterintuitive. You have to start small and work up, not
think big and try to generate a trickle-down effect. The latter fails.
It also doesn't matter if your self-esteem is very, very bad or
just a little dinged. Same technique works equally well for both.
But you have to understand the rationale behind this breakthrough
idea, and for that, you have to read more of what I've written.
Hello, I've been an outpatient psychologist for over twenty years.
I've come across eight psychological conditions that I see every day.
Self-esteem is one of them, and it's one that permeates all the other
seven. Improve self-esteem and the others improve, too. Below are
some links to take you to my webpages, where more details are provided.
Thanks,

Dr.Griggs

http://www.drgriggs.org
http://www.psychologyproductsandservices.com