100% agree with the exposure therapy, has helped me get my arachnophobia in check except I did that to myself without a therapist. If you're so inclined you can help yourself in a lot of ways, the biggest hurdle is always gonna be you first.
Almost like therapy is a thing you need to be an active participant in and work on, instead of an hour long "sit down and vent" session.
But therein lies the problem. The first one is hard and most people won't want to do it (and most therapists doing it filter people out to avoid wasting their time), while the second is literally a money printer with an infinite clientele.
Shit Better Help proved that you can be outed as an outright scam and people still line up to throw money at you so they can say "I do therapy, so I'm better than you!"
How does it deal with genetic abnormalities though? If you're introverted, 50% genetic, no amount of therapy is going to make you extroverted. Same with lifting weights at the gym, it won't make you an extrovert either.
There what helps imho: fake it. I am super outgoing when having to talk to people, no one would expect me to be introverted. This is probably what behavioral therapy could do to you. I also think you can work on this yourself but as usual the biggest obsticle in this all is you yourself first.
Therapy has not really helped me, just felt like talking to someone and that's it. Most of my issues I have gotten rid of myself by going out, facing my fears and doing a tiny bit more every day. As you said, gym won't help you in this, doesn't work for everyone at least. It does give you a boost in confidence which is tremendously useful if you wanna get more outgoing. You'll never not be introverted though, contact with too many people still drains me and I need my alone time occasionally. I am no recluse though like I used to be.
The problem with faking it is that you have to keep faking it and lying, potentially for the rest of your life. That gets exhausting over time and eventually they get found out and the fall out does not end well. You do you but I personally would not recommend anyone act fake.
In front of friends obviously don't lie. But say customers, random acquaintances you are not friends with. I know no introvert that doesn't feel comfortable with close friends personally, be you around them, be someone else around others.
I don't think being introverted is something you need to 'cure', as long as it is not detrimentally impacting your life. I only really have one friend my own age IRL, and we don't do an awful lot together, but I get enough socialisation through work and church to where I don't feel like I'm being devoured by my own thoughts every day (like I used to). I feel like I have enough of a connection with the world.
You find a level of social interaction that suits you, and as long as you can still hold a decent conversation and interact with society in a sensible manner, I don't think you need to push yourself to be a people person. Heck, that might even do more damage than good.
Social interaction can be learned like any other skill.
The hard part is finding situations to dip your toe in because jumping all the way is too scary at first.
My recommendation is talking with old people. They are happy anyone pays attention to them and are patient about waiting for you to organize your thoughts before responding.
Not from a technical perspective. All the issues I can think of arise out of ethics boards and the inherent flaw of having humans administrate the study/tests.
calling something that works "therapy" doesn't legitimize the rest of the quackery that is called the same thing
cognitive behavioral therapy used to be called "listen to your father and do what he says even if you don't want to, because he knows better than you" (substitute other trusted male figure if father isn't present)
exposure therapy is freaking obvious and once again standard practice of good fathers in dealing with squeamish kids
Cognitive-behavioral therapy has statistically-significant results.
Exposure therapy cures phobias.
Not all of the discipline is qwack, but ''let's lay down and talk about our fee-feels'' feminine ''therapy'', that's a scam.
100% agree with the exposure therapy, has helped me get my arachnophobia in check except I did that to myself without a therapist. If you're so inclined you can help yourself in a lot of ways, the biggest hurdle is always gonna be you first.
Almost like therapy is a thing you need to be an active participant in and work on, instead of an hour long "sit down and vent" session.
But therein lies the problem. The first one is hard and most people won't want to do it (and most therapists doing it filter people out to avoid wasting their time), while the second is literally a money printer with an infinite clientele.
Shit Better Help proved that you can be outed as an outright scam and people still line up to throw money at you so they can say "I do therapy, so I'm better than you!"
How does it deal with genetic abnormalities though? If you're introverted, 50% genetic, no amount of therapy is going to make you extroverted. Same with lifting weights at the gym, it won't make you an extrovert either.
There what helps imho: fake it. I am super outgoing when having to talk to people, no one would expect me to be introverted. This is probably what behavioral therapy could do to you. I also think you can work on this yourself but as usual the biggest obsticle in this all is you yourself first.
Therapy has not really helped me, just felt like talking to someone and that's it. Most of my issues I have gotten rid of myself by going out, facing my fears and doing a tiny bit more every day. As you said, gym won't help you in this, doesn't work for everyone at least. It does give you a boost in confidence which is tremendously useful if you wanna get more outgoing. You'll never not be introverted though, contact with too many people still drains me and I need my alone time occasionally. I am no recluse though like I used to be.
The problem with faking it is that you have to keep faking it and lying, potentially for the rest of your life. That gets exhausting over time and eventually they get found out and the fall out does not end well. You do you but I personally would not recommend anyone act fake.
In front of friends obviously don't lie. But say customers, random acquaintances you are not friends with. I know no introvert that doesn't feel comfortable with close friends personally, be you around them, be someone else around others.
I don't think being introverted is something you need to 'cure', as long as it is not detrimentally impacting your life. I only really have one friend my own age IRL, and we don't do an awful lot together, but I get enough socialisation through work and church to where I don't feel like I'm being devoured by my own thoughts every day (like I used to). I feel like I have enough of a connection with the world.
You find a level of social interaction that suits you, and as long as you can still hold a decent conversation and interact with society in a sensible manner, I don't think you need to push yourself to be a people person. Heck, that might even do more damage than good.
Social interaction can be learned like any other skill.
The hard part is finding situations to dip your toe in because jumping all the way is too scary at first.
My recommendation is talking with old people. They are happy anyone pays attention to them and are patient about waiting for you to organize your thoughts before responding.
None of these therapies are capable of validation by double-blind placebo-controlled trials.
TBF its difficult to have a placebo in this field
Not from a technical perspective. All the issues I can think of arise out of ethics boards and the inherent flaw of having humans administrate the study/tests.
calling something that works "therapy" doesn't legitimize the rest of the quackery that is called the same thing
cognitive behavioral therapy used to be called "listen to your father and do what he says even if you don't want to, because he knows better than you" (substitute other trusted male figure if father isn't present)
exposure therapy is freaking obvious and once again standard practice of good fathers in dealing with squeamish kids