topic LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety in Anxiety

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

Chris_B — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 05:14:35 GMT

Hi everyone,

Our next live chat will be here on Thursday 3 December, 1-2pm with Martin Tedeschi, one of beyondblue’s NewAccess coaches.

NewAccess is a person-centred, low stigma, free early intervention program for people who experience mild to moderate depression and anxiety. Currently the program is being piloted in three trial sites - ACT, North Coast NSW and Adelaide - for anyone over the age of eighteen.

Martin spent nearly 15 years as a structural landscaper, and he owned and operated a small business as a structural landscape contractor for 10 of those years. He moved to North Coast NSW and is now living in Coffs Harbour. Martin’s interest and dedication to the mental health area began when he gained his Bachelor of Psychology with Honours, followed by two years working with Lifeline. He joined NewAccess at the beginning of the program in January 2013 after completing his coaching training through Flinders University.

Our live chat will be focussed on strategies to manage social anxiety, a commonly discussed topic here on our forums.

PLEASE NOTE: Martin won't be able to answer questions about highly severe levels of anxiety and depression. If you are seeking this kind of support please contact our Support Service.

So bookmark this thread, get your questions ready, and we'll see you back here on Thursday afternoon when this thread will be unlocked and Martin will be here to chat.

(For those interested in further information about how NewAccess works, one of our forum members Daisee has a thread about her experiences using the program here.)

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

Chris_B — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 02:01:43 GMT

Hi everyone, Martin is here and the chat is now open.

Martin, I'll start by asking you to explain a little about how a NewAccess session works, and how it differs from going to see a psychologist. What happens in the first session?

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

geoff — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 02:07:00 GMT

thanks Martin for able to do this.

I'm sorry I have posted before you can answer Chris.

It such a vast experience and
very interesting itinerary that has led you to becoming an honoured
psychologist, and excuse me for asking, but I would think that you have
been through what all of us have experienced with depression.

Social Anxiety plays an enormous
part when someone has or is still trying to overcome this illness, so
what do you think is a way for people to overcome this, especially when
we have been teased and rejected by either workmates or so called
friends.

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

Martin_T — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 02:08:35 GMT

NewAccess is an early intervention, low intensity programme, for people who want some practical tools to move forward with challenges they're facing at the moment.

In a first session, we're looking to get the bottom of someone's problem straightaway. We want to know what their problem is, where it happens for them, when it happens, and with whom, and what's triggering it. We do a lot of information-gathering. We ask questions about their behaviours, the things they're thinking about. A very important question we ask is, what do you want to get out of this? What would you like to see happen? And from there we set practical goals to achieve this over a 6-week period.

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

geoff — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 02:17:28 GMT

my other question is :

Social anxiety and OCD are both caused by anxiety, and if you do have OCD then your anxiety is going to be stronger ????
and
can social anxiety create any form of getting OCD, and could it also
happen the other way around, as you have OCD will this create social
anxiety.

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

Martin_T — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 02:18:44 GMT

Hi Geoff, thanks for your question.

For somebody who has experienced social anxiety in, for example, a work situation, it's about negative experiences which lead you to feel this way about yourself. You might assume that you always be rejected again in that situation. In a session, we will ask you to do an experiment to test out this negative thinking. How can you set this up to see if it will actually happen again? What are the alternatives that might happen?

The important part of a behavioural experiment is, having a look at the outcome and what you learnt from that. So in this case, you might move to a new workplace, there's new people who don't behave in that way towards you. What you learn is, not everybody is going to tease or reject you.

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

Martin_T — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 02:22:36 GMT

Thanks Geoff. These are questions that are best addressed to a psychologist. NewAccess coaches are trained specifically in a treatment called low-intensity cognitive behavioural therapy. OCD is a very severe form of anxiety that can't be treated in our six-week program, so we would refer someone back to their GP to see a psychologist if someone came to us with this diagnosis.

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

Chris_B — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 02:24:58 GMT

Hi Martin, 6 weeks seems like quite a short time. How do you make sure that you're staying on track with a person coming to see you, to make sure that you're working toward and achieving the goals?

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

Martin_T — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 02:29:10 GMT

We use psychological measures like the K10 test and others where we look specifically at things like symptoms of depression, anxiety, things you may be avoiding in your life, and how your problem affects your day to day life, work, social life. We get a baseline reading in the first session of how you are feeling, and then track the progress of that at every session. The whole program is collaborative between the person and the coach, all these results are shared, the coach isn't keeping these measures to themselves. It gives people something to look forward to at each session, to come along and actually track their progress as they go.

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

Chris_B — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 02:31:35 GMT

What happens if someone comes along in week 2 or 3 and their scores show that they're doing worse? How do you deal with setbacks?

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

Martin_T — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 02:38:37 GMT

We'll explore: what is the setback? What's blocking you from achieving your goals?

For example: one guy I was seeing couldn't be in a public place by himself. His goal was to go to a major expo event. We were using exposure therapy, which is like steps on a ladder, taking gradual steps toward doing the thing that makes you anxious.

We set an initial goal of going to a cafe by himself. He tried that, but wasn't able to do it at first, he got panicked and had to leave. So we reset the goal to be, sit in a park across the road from the cafe. He was able to do this smaller step, and then move onto going to the cafe. Then the next step up was to go to a busy food court in a shopping mall.

The important thing is to attempt to do something about it and not be too hard on yourself if you can't make the goal first time. If you don't attempt it, then nothing will change. You need to be congratulated for making a change.

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

geoff — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 02:40:53 GMT

hi Martin, yes that's OK, I was just interested to know how you felt about OCD, as there are many people on this site who do have this illness and their condition varies so much, but what I do find is that people post about having this illness only post once or maybe twice, and then disappear, but I'm not sure that they realise OCD is caused by anxiety, and whether this is the fear of being in social occasions or a phobia it's difficult to determine, maybe it could be both, because I'd had OCD for 56 years and both apply with me.

My concern is why they only post once and then go, it is because of social media anxiety, I'm not sure what to call it, so is this possible, Geoff.

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

Chris_B — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 02:40:57 GMT

What sorts of people come to see you? Is there a particular age group?

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

Martin_T — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 02:43:50 GMT

Over the last couple of years, I have had young men from the ages of 18-23, it's hit them in their late teens. I've also had a lot of older men who start to develop social anxiety after they've finished work, moving into retirement. People at transition points, like school to university, not knowing where they fit in the world. For older people, it can be a feeling of losing their identity by not working any longer.

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

Martin_T — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 02:56:11 GMT

Hi Geoff, for somebody who is fearful of social occasions, we would do something called a behavioural experiment. We would look at the thoughts that is going through someone's head that makes them fearful at a social occasion like a BBQ. They might think, I'm afraid because no-one is going to speak to me. They might be thinking, no one will want to speak to me because I'm boring, I have nothing to contribute.

We then rate that thought: how much do I believe this is true, out of 100. They might come back and say, I 100 percent believe that's true.

Then we look at the alternative thinking to that: I might find at least one person to talk to. And then we ask them to rate the likelihood of those, and they might say, 10 per cent.

So if it's 10 per cent likely that I might find at least one person to talk to, then is it really 100 per cent likely that no one will talk to me?

The next part is to design an experiment. Be specific as possible: I will go to the BBQ at 6pm. I will try and make conversation with at least 3 people. I will stay at the BBQ for 2 hours.

So next session we'll review your predictions vs what actually happened. It's about challenging thoughts and behaviours one bit at a time, and looking at what you learned from the experience.

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

Chris_B — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 03:03:46 GMT

What happens if the experiment fails? How do you work through that?

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

Martin_T — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 03:05:19 GMT

We'll investigate and walk through step by step what actually happened. For example: you might have gone to the BBQ and talked to someone, but you had a dozen beers as well. Drinking might be a "safety behaviour" for you, something that you do to protect yourself from the anxiety, but it's actually reinforcing the anxiety and helping you confirm your unhelpful beliefs. So we identify problem behaviours like that you may need to change in order to work toward your goal.

LIVE CHAT 3/12/15: A NewAccess coach's perspective on social anxiety

Chris_B — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 03:07:07 GMT

Thanks Martin for chatting today. For those reading, if you're interested in accessing some of the techniques used in NewAccess and you're outside of the catchment areas of the program, then have a look at the online Mindspot program which uses similar techniques.