Improving Social Confidence and Reducing Shyness Using Compassion Focused Therapy: Series editor, Paul Gilbert

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Shyness can affect most of us to varying degrees, and tends to affect children more than adults as people tend to grow in confidence as they get older. It is therefore a universal emotion but in some people it is a more pronounced personality trait. Severe shyness is referred to as 'social anxiety disorder', however this self-help book is written for the people experiencing different degrees of shyness.

Shyness has evolved as an emotion over thousands of years and can be helpful in some circumstances, however normal shyness can become chronic thanks to negative thoughts, avoidance and withdrawal. While shyness has its functions, it becomes a problem when it interferes with life goals, develops into social anxiety disorder or leads on to 'learned pessimism', mild depression and even 'learned helplessness'.

This self-help book, based on the groundbreaking new Compassion Focused Therapy, sets out the background to shyness - its evolutionary functions, why it becomes chronic in some people, and sets out skills and exercises based on CFT to help the reader overcome problematic shyness.

Author Bio

Dr Lynne Henderson is founder of the Social Fitness Center, and founder and Co-Director, with Philip Zimbardo, of the Shyness Institute, both in California, USA. Dr. Henderson has been a visiting scholar in the Psychology Department at Stanford University, California, and is a faculty member in Continuing Studies. She has directed the Shyness Clinic for over 25 years.