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

[Chris_B]

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.)

[Chris_B]

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? 

[geoff]

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.

[Martin_T]

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.  

[geoff]

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.

[Martin_T]

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.

[Martin_T]

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.

[Chris_B]

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?

[Martin_T]

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.

[Chris_B]

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?