Therapist Blog Challenge #17: Managing Social Anxiety

Here's another Therapist Blog Challenge to get your creative juices flowing!

Therapist Blog Challenge #17 deals with how to cope with Social Anxiety Disorder. Those who experience this condition often feel crippling insecurity and fear in social situations. Here's some inspiration to write a post where you explain what SAD is and also offer ways to effectively manage it.

[Headline] Come up with a catchy title for your blog post. You may write your own or use one of the following:

"Get me out of here!": Dealing with Social Anxiety

"Everyone's Staring at Me!": Coping with Social Anxiety

Social Anxiety Disorder: How to Manage It and Enjoy Parties Again!

[Strong Intro] Introduce your readers to the topic, define Social Anxiety Disorder, and tell what the post is going to be about. Here is an example:

While many people consider parties and get-togethers to be fun, others have a much different experience. Some suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder, which causes a person to have excessive and irrational fear of social situations. While others normally enjoy social gatherings, those dealing with social anxiety feel extreme self-consciousness and nervousness. This is way beyond simply shyness; it's a real disorder that can disrupt someone's quality of life. Thankfully, there are steps you can take to minimize the symptoms of Social Anxiety Disorder. Here are a few ways to effectively manage social anxiety:

[Scanable Content] Make your content easy to quickly scan and find the main points.

Therapy

A professional therapist can help someone with social anxiety understand that his/her fears are irrational and overcome them with cognitive behavioral therapy, social training skills, or exposure therapy. A mental health specialist can help provide the tools to move past the limitations someone may feel because of Social Anxiety Disorder.

Deep Breathing Exercises

Focusing on something as simple as breathing can help a person experiencing Social Anxiety Disorder to regain clarity and feel calm and relaxed. When someone is feeling nervous or panicked, there is often a tendency to have quick, shallow breaths. By bringing awareness to one's breath, the heart rate slows down and the person is more in control. Regularly practicing deep breathing/ meditation techniques can help alleviate the effects of Social Anxiety Disorder.

Medication

Medication is a technique to manage symptoms of social anxiety and is usually used in combination with psychotherapy. Anti-depressants can help reduce anxiety and make someone feel like his/herself again. Those who turn to medication for treatment typically experience general anxiety as well. Talk to your doctor to see if medication is right for you.

[Strong Ending Paragraph]

Now, write a short paragraph to tie up your blog post. For this particular subject, it may be good to offer some encouragement that someone suffering from social anxiety can make it through. Below is an example:

Social Anxiety Disorder can be frustrating and discouraging, as you want to enjoy a healthy social life, but know that there is help. You may never become a party animal, but you can effectively manage anxiety in order to feel more comfortable, functional, and secure in social settings.

Additional reminders about the Therapist blog challenge

• Write and post your blog article in the next 2 weeks. If you miss the deadline or you read this article months later, that’s OK too.
• Post a link for this blog challenge in the comment section of this blog post.
• Read, comment, and share other therapist’s articles.
• Tweet your post using hashtag #therapistblog and tag @julie_hanks so I can retweet it.
• Pin it on the challenge Pinterest Board. I’ve invited everyone who posted a comment on the initial blog challenge post as collaborators so you can pin onto the group board.
• Spread the word and invite mental health colleagues to join the challenge. Articles can be added anytime throughout the year.
• Write no more than 600 words, make it easy to read, use a conversational tone, and gear your articles toward your ideal client (not other professionals).
• The goal of a professional blog is to provide value to your website visitors, help them get to know your professional perspective, increase traffic to your private practice website, and build your practice.

A Day In The Life: Meet Anxiety Expert Marla W. Deibler, Psy.D.

Peek into a work day in the life of private practitioner and licensed clinical psychologist Marla W. Deibler, Psy.D. Founder and Director of The Center for Emotional Health of Greater Philadelphia, LLC. Her outpatient behavioral health group practice specializes in the treatment of anxiety and obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders.

She's also a wife and a mother of three children and has found a nice work/life balance working 2.5 days per week at her clinic, and spending time the rest of the time home with her children. Thanks to email, phone, and text, Dr. Deibler operates her business remotely "in spurt" during the days she's at her home. And apparently, she doesn't sleep much!

Here's a day in the life of one of Dr. Deibler's "work" days:

A Day In The Life

November 16, 2011

6:15am – 8:15am

Woke up and got my children ready for school and myself ready for work. Ate breakfast. Checked my email, responded to several emails, including an email to our web designer who is working on our new website (very exciting), and forwarded a few visual voicemail emails to my office manager for return phone calls later in the day. Quickly scanned personal and business Facebook newsfeeds and scanned my Twitter feed.

8:15am-9am

Took my second grader to board his school bus and took my 1 year-old and 4 year-old to day care.

9:30am-10am

Arrived at my office, large cup of caffeinated tea in hand that I brewed before leaving home.  Turned on all office lights and computers, collected billing slips and receivables, returned two phone calls, one from a potential patient who had a question and one from a TV network with whom I’ve worked. Review my clinical schedule for the day: it looks like I’ll be working with adults and children today with difficulties including, OCD, compulsive hoarding, tourette’s disorder, depression, panic disorder, and trichotillomania.

10am-11am

Saw a therapy patient.

11am – 12:45pm

Supervision meeting with one of my post-doctoral fellows. Discussed cases and other clinical and practice management issues. Discussed planning co-presenter workshop proposals for the Trichotillomania Learning Center (www.trich.org) annual conference in May 2012. The deadline is quickly approaching, so we have to finalize our proposals over the next 10 days.

12:45pm – 1pm

Pulled testing measures to create charts for this week’s pre-bariatric surgery psychological evaluations. Received incoming mail. Checked email and forwarded visual voicemail emails to my office manager for return calls.

1pm – 2pm

Weekly staff luncheon. Enjoyed great salads from a nearby restaurant that delivers while we discussed cases with one another and other practice issues.

2pm – 3pm

Supervision meeting with another post-doctoral fellow who has just returned to work on a limited basis from maternity leave. This was particularly nice, as she brought her 8 week-old baby while we discussed her cases and other work-life balance issues. I manage my facility in an employee-focused, family-focused manner; each clinician is valued professionally and given the flexibility to create their own schedule so that they can create happy work and personal lives (I whole-heartedly believe this happiness is reflected in their work with patients, so it’s a win-win approach to practice management). In this clinician’s case, she presently sees patients on Saturdays, when her husband is home caring for their child.  On Wednesdays, she brings him to the office for her weekly meeting with me.

3pm – 6:30pm

Saw therapy patients.

6:30pm – 6:45pm

Left the office for the day and drove home to my family. My husband is also a psychologist. He works at a special services school, so he gets off from work at 3:30pm and tends to the children until I come home (Mondays and Wednesdays I work late).

7pm-8:30pm

Spent time with my husband and children. Ate dinner. Ensured that homework was done. Put the baby to bed. Supervised bath time for the older children. Read bedtime stories and tucked the big kids in.

8:30pm-9:30pm

Sat with my husband in our bedroom, while each of us spent some winding down time on our Apple devices –We love this technology. (My husband read news and such on his iPhone, talking about some of the day’s events with me), while I logged into my electronic medical records system (www.carepaths.com), signed off on billing, reviewed and signed off on clinical documentation written by post-doctoral fellows, and submitted batched electronic insurance claims for the day’s in-network patients. Contemplated a run on the treadmill, but today is usually a “rest day” for me and I have too much to do this evening, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

9:30pm-10pm

Brewed a cup of tea and planned our Thanksgiving dinner menu (as well as ordering our turkey and when I’m going to grocery shop—I’ve got to begin with making butternut squash soup this weekend). I cook Thanksgiving dinner for my family and my brother’s family every year.

10pm-2am

Procrastinated work a bit here and there, intermittently throughout, by checking and returning emails, both personal and professional (needs to be done anyway), checking Facebook, and exploring professional and practice growth opportunities.

Reviewed a post-doctoral fellow’s lengthy forensic report. Completed business accounting tasks for the week. Created to do list with particular attention to the insurance claims/pre-authorizations about which I need to inquire.  Filed a freelance writing/consulting application.

2:30am

Went to sleep (Yes, it is very late. Wednesday is by far my latest night of the week; it’s a worthwhile tradeoff for more time with my family on other days). Tomorrow is a new day. I’m home with my two youngest children to enjoy time with this and take care of household tasks, while managing the practice via email/phone for the day.

For more information on Dr. Deibler and her practice visit www.thecenterforemotionalhealth.com, or connect on Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook.