Trying out exposure therapy

The past few months I have been trying paradoxical intention. In my case, I am inviting and encouraging sweating in social situations. It's been helpful but has not come close to curing me since I still have the anxieties even in moderate situations.

I am about to see an expert who has a unique exposure intervention approach. I will have to not only go out and meet people and try to sweat, but I will also have to tell them I sweat a lot, or sweat when I get nervous and ask what they would think about it. The self-disclosure is much scarier for me than actually sweating in front of someone! Maybe that's why I'm still being trapped. I feel like self-disclosure helps not only because you can see people are empathetic, but by definition YOU are being accepting of your sensation/issues.

I know it's daunting but I am ready for it.

Has anyone else tried or heard of something similar? I haven't heard of a therapist who actually comes with you on exposures to this degree. I should mention this person is a MD that teaches at Stanford so he is highly trained.

Wow. This has been the most effective thing I've tried in terms of self-help, 3 therapists, etc. 1 therapy session consisting of 2 hours with 45 minutes of exposure therapy.

Long story short, I went out to downtown with my new therapist and he had me exercising on the bench after picking up and downing hot sauce from a nearby restaurant. Then, I walked around to people all sweaty and self disclosed saying something to the effect of "I tend to sweat when I feel embarrassed and I'm sweating right now. I'm worried people will judge me. What are your thoughts?". I spoke to 4 people and all but one were very encouraging saying they too sweat a lot, or that they wouldn't care, or that they would assume it's a hot day outside. The one who said she wouldn't like it was not a natural English speaker and may have not understood me correctly, but nonetheless the therapist was glad this happened. It shows that yes, there may be a few in the minority that don't accept it but it doesn't have any real ramifications and I can move on. After about ten minutes I wanted to push myself to more fearful situations such as my fear of sweating in a job interview.

I came up with the idea of going to each store that was hiring and asked them about the job application process. I then said "I tend to get nervous during job interviews and start sweating. Would that pose a problem to getting the job?". I did this 3 or 4 times and got amazingly positive feedback. The first lady almost brushed it off as if I said “the sky is blue” she didn’t care whatsoever and encouraged me to apply. The next place had 2 ladies working there and they said there is a lot of sweating on the job and they tend to get nervous about job interviews too. The therapist asked whether sweating would not yield a rejection from the job and they quickly agreed. The last lady said she gets nervous about job interviews and said the 2nd round of their interview process is a sweat day (Lululemon). I asked her to repeat that because it was so ironic.

Overall, this took just 40 minutes and I feel like I'm so much better. I would never have dared to self disclose to people before today and now I think I can do it comfortably in most any situation. The therapist said I need to continue to practice by doing things like real job interviews, mock interviews, and more. I'm planning to do another session with him just to shore things up fully and hopefully no longer obsess and worry about sweating in front of others.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Writing this so that my experience can help others out there

Reading my post from several months ago was fascinating. I am doing better these days but still have the underlying fear of sweating present. I've only self-disclosed to a handful of people, most of them were strangers that I knew I wouldn't see again, or job interviews that I knew I wasn't going to end up taking. Thus, my underlying fear while lessened, still exists.

I never transcended to people I knew I would see again such as friends, new work contacts, etc. Those people's opinions matter more to me, and I think until I actually experience their feedback I won't "get it". My focus on the new year is to take it to this level

Part of this is because 1) I have "feared" situations relatively infrequently such as once per week and 2) it is damn hard to disclose when you are in the heat of the moment. I've found that I resort to "safety behaviors" such as distractions to try to get the sweating to stop instead of disclosing. To get to the point of disclosing in the future, I am going to start disclosing even when I am not sweating. This is much easier for me to do.

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Wow, that must have been really challenging. Good for you for getting all that exposure willingly, knowing you deserved better than all the troubled thoughts and feelings you were having!

A similar thing happens when it comes to blushing/flushing: almost all of the time, you're more affected by it than the other person is, as the other person is, at best, noticing your red face and wondering what's going on (and most people already know others who flush or blush easily anyway, and don't really care). This just goes to show that it really is all in your mind, and that if you go out into the world with a logical, outside-of-yourself state of mind/thought, you finally realize how small your "huge problems" really were.

In the end, the door's right in front of you, but you're terrified of what's on the other side, to a point where you're seeing all sorts of monsters and scary creatures trying to harm you when you haven't even opened the door yet!

Please do keep posting updates.

Tried it. It helps as long as you stick with it and want to improve

^agreed. I practice gradual exposure therapy everyday.

That's awesome that it's working! I've thought about trying that too but I've been too much of a wimp. I couldn't make small talk at a Barnes and Nobles as one of my assignments from my psychologist. I wish I could have her there with me like you had your Dr. I think the major take away is that it helps you to stop chastising yourself for sweating because you learn that hardly anyone else is.