People who seek help with their social anxiety often have difficulties dealing with individuals who have "power," perceived power or authority. These can be authority figures, those with high status, or those in parental roles. However, you do not have to have social anxiety - fear of being negatively evaluated, embarrassed or humiliated, found inadequate, and rejected - in order to become anxious in the presence of someone with authority.
In general, we have been taught to respect all authority. As a consequence, we also have a deeply buried sense of guilt about possibly being caught doing something authorities dictate we should not be doing. Consider how you feel when you are driving and a police car appears. For most of us there is an immediate …show more content…
You see this as the reason they have that role, the power, and the discretion to use that power as they see fit... and you do not.
These factors can leave you perceiving any person in an authoritative role as having the right to judge you and the special power to arbitrarily threaten or act against you. You are left with the feeling that a person in this role cannot be trusted to have your best interests at heart. Therefore, you feel you must appease them and seek their approval so they will not use their power against you. Where this fear shows itself most often is in the workplace.
While it is understandable that no one wants to feel at risk of losing their job, when you fear your boss or anyone in that role of authority, you cannot do your best. Your performance suffers because your thoughts and emotions are focused on how you are being evaluated and how you can survive it. Your thoughts are not focused on your being as productive as you need to be. Instead, you constantly analyze everything that happens on the job and worry about what it means. You begin to feel hypersensitive to what your boss says and does with respect to your value and position at …show more content…
You need to follow a program that addresses all the components of your fear - cognitive, emotional, and physiological. You need to
1. Assess your positive attributes (talents, abilities, experience, work successes, and expertise) and your value as both a worker and a human being
2. Assess your boss's positive attributes and value as both a worker and a human being
3. See that comparing yourself to your boss is like comparing apples and oranges - that you two have different roles requiring different attributes and behaviors - that one is not "better" than the other - only different
4. See that your boss has authority and power by virtue of his/her role only
5. Examine your past successes in general and your work successes in particular to see your work's value and to regain your confidence that you have something worthwhile to contribute
6. Dispute automatic negative thoughts about your perceived inadequacy and your boss's arbitrary use of power against
In general, we have been taught to respect all authority. As a consequence, we also have a deeply buried sense of guilt about possibly being caught doing something authorities dictate we should not be doing. Consider how you feel when you are driving and a police car appears. For most of us there is an immediate …show more content…
You see this as the reason they have that role, the power, and the discretion to use that power as they see fit... and you do not.
These factors can leave you perceiving any person in an authoritative role as having the right to judge you and the special power to arbitrarily threaten or act against you. You are left with the feeling that a person in this role cannot be trusted to have your best interests at heart. Therefore, you feel you must appease them and seek their approval so they will not use their power against you. Where this fear shows itself most often is in the workplace.
While it is understandable that no one wants to feel at risk of losing their job, when you fear your boss or anyone in that role of authority, you cannot do your best. Your performance suffers because your thoughts and emotions are focused on how you are being evaluated and how you can survive it. Your thoughts are not focused on your being as productive as you need to be. Instead, you constantly analyze everything that happens on the job and worry about what it means. You begin to feel hypersensitive to what your boss says and does with respect to your value and position at …show more content…
You need to follow a program that addresses all the components of your fear - cognitive, emotional, and physiological. You need to
1. Assess your positive attributes (talents, abilities, experience, work successes, and expertise) and your value as both a worker and a human being
2. Assess your boss's positive attributes and value as both a worker and a human being
3. See that comparing yourself to your boss is like comparing apples and oranges - that you two have different roles requiring different attributes and behaviors - that one is not "better" than the other - only different
4. See that your boss has authority and power by virtue of his/her role only
5. Examine your past successes in general and your work successes in particular to see your work's value and to regain your confidence that you have something worthwhile to contribute
6. Dispute automatic negative thoughts about your perceived inadequacy and your boss's arbitrary use of power against